I thought being a registered sex offender was like an STD in that it just goes on and on. After one has been convicted and served time one still needs to register. It was my understanding that the registration aspect was eternal but I know for a fact a person in Illinois who was an offender but is no longer listed. Apparently this person is not being searched for in Illinois or other states. Is there a time limit after which one no longer has to tell the gendarmes of one’s whereabouts?
From the State of Illinois Website
The registration period is 25 years here in Michigan. That’s almost forever and makes it difficult for people to turn their lives around. I believe in tough sentencing and then letting people live.
Al, what do you mean by tough sentencing? I really do think they need to get rid of stupid stuff like streaking or public urination. Those guys are just clogging up unnessary resources…and then concentrate on the serious sex offenders. Serious sex offenders need to be TREATED for LIFE.
Cracked.com has one article about laws with unintended (or not thought about before) consequences that backfired. One of the examples is how sex offenders are dealt with, and how the registry plus the protection zone around schools, playgrounds etc. has made life impossible for those offenders and difficult for the police.
I don’t support sex offender registries. If the crime is bad enough, they should be in prison for life. If it is not a crime that doesn’t deserve a life sentence, then that person should serve his sentence and be released. In some states, like Kansas and California, people are sent to high security hospitals for sexual treatment. I saw a documentary on one such prison, and it was more or less like drug treatment. Many of the inmates in that hospital could be released, but there are not suitable places for them to go, because it is too close to a school or park, or because neighbors find out about the person and run them out of town. I don’t blame them, but someone who forciably rapes someone or who molests a child should be serving a life sentence and not in the commmunity. If I was drunk and wagged my dick at some school kids, I need psychological help.
Not a sex offender, but I do have a misdeamnor shoplifting record from 1996. I was heavy into crack cocaine and out of my head. In Tennessee where the offense occured, the record stays on file for the rest of one’s life. I have lost job opportunities, and have never bothered with a career path because of this goddamned thing. I’m sorry, but sticking a steak down my pants doesn’t deserve a lifetime record hanging over me like an albatross. It should be after a period of time, (maybe 5 to 10 years) where this can be dropped.
I am now living in a foreign country and I am afraid that one day they are going to make a criminal records check a requirement, and I am going to lose everything I worked for here, and be sent back to the USA in the Great Recession. Other countries require this of expats and one cocksucking investment firm was trying to push that in my country.
Yes, we had some of then recently, like the Dugard case, where he was a fairly serious offender, but the parole officers were so overworked, they never searched his backyard.
Putting no or low risk offenders onto various lists etc is just a waste of resources.
A few other offenses that do not need to be registered: strippers whose act is “too nasty”, men having sex in the cars with other consenting men, late at nite, in a non-trafficed area, etc.
Of course another reason why (in theory) you should get off the list is if the law you were convicted of gets overturned.
We have an old friend of the family who still has to register because he was convicted under our state’s “deviant sexual conduct” law (which is still on the books despite having been struck down both by Lawrence v. Texas and an earlier state court decision). We’ve tried to get him to try to do something about it, but at this point in life he’s pretty settled and self-employed so it doesn’t cause him any problems. I think drawing attention to himself by fighting it is also a concern, as he lives in an insanely conservative area.
I wish this list would just go away how is it about public safety. I know people on it who were caught peeing on a tree in the park after a drunken night at a bar
Ditto. I think there should still be a thing in there for indecent exposure, but only for really egregious cases. (eg one time some guy showed me his penis when I was walking around town)
Pissing on a tree in a park is not something that should doom you to sex offender status. Maybe a fine or something…but NOT sex offender status.
I think that serious sex offenders (rapists and child molesters) need to be permanently placed in a sex offense treatment center/ prison psychatric hospital.
Unfortunatly, it does seem like the serious sex offenders are so stunted emotionally , they cannot reconize what triggered their abnormal issues (the way alchohlics and addicts might be able to realize that a particular life trauma is causing them to" self medicate") So they need to be locked up for life.
As obsessed as you are with someone fiddling your kid, you’re probably not at all concerned about the people who abuse children every day in plain sight. Those are the type of people who create child molesters and rapists. I bet you have never once checked to see if a convicted murderer was living near you, or someone convicted of an egregious violent crime other than rape.
What is the obsession with rape and child molestation? Certainly it is a crime and it can traumatize someone, but certainly it’s just as bad as someone getting beaten to death. How many women have been in the news lately who have neglected, abused, and then murdered a child? How many times have you seen someone disciplining their child, where that punishment goes beyond what is acceptable and completely ignored it?
As someone who was abused and beaten his entire life, I find it rather odd that people make such a big deal about child molestation when far worse happens to kids every day. Yes I was molested as a child, and trust me when I say that fucked me up a lot less than getting beaten by my mother and father on a regular basis.
The fact is there is some sick obsession society has with rape victims and molestation victims. I believe much of the guilt that is felt by victims is created by the perception that to those around us we are somewhat damaged. Certainly it is humiliating and any experience that leaves one feeling powerless can destroy you, but it’s no different than the broken homes that produce so many homicidal and suicidal children through abuse. Though I don’t feel that is necessarily always the case (some people are probably just born that way).
Still, I don’t think it’s fair for society to give up on a certain set of undesirable people. If we want our society to progress we have to find a real solution for these types of behavioral problems. For example: creating a law won’t prevent someone from raping a child, but being able to detect the onset of pedophilia and change that behavior early on will. The same could be said for a murderer as well. These are all behavioral problems we could detect early on if we wanted to invest in scientific studies instead of jails.
I believe that the future will not have jails. I believe we can eradicate these tendencies through proper education, gene therapy, drug treatments, etc. The things we’ll have less control over, the passion crimes, those could be treated in hospitals for prolonged periods depending on the severity.
Anyway, if you want to keep your children safe then the best method is prevention. And by that I mean: pay attention to kids who need help. You can see the dead and empty look in their eyes.