I think it depends on the state. Here in Maryland, the list is quite specific about the ype and level of offence comitted, so you can easliy see who the 1st degree rapists are, for example.
I do agree that some categories are fairly non-specific, and could mean something pretty bad or something rather harmless. This is especially true of sexual offences related to minors, which can refer to a 30 year-old guy who assaults an 8 year-old girl, or an 18 year-old guy who had sex with his 16 year-old girlfriend.
I don’t understand: is this the neighborhood same guy you think is smarmy? And how do you know what he was at the mall for? Did you ask him?
Frankly I don’t really care what your answer is. My point is that I think you are making a mistake by seeing people you think “look” a certain way and then assuming things about them. I woud guess that the most successful sex offenders not only don’t look “smarmy,” they look exceedingly white-bread normal. That’s why they are so successful: because nobody suspects that such a “nice normal guy” would be dangerous.
After reading this thread, I looked into the sex offender registry in my dad’s neighborhood, where I grew up. Lo and behold, a guy I went to high school with is in there. Possession of child porn.
I wonder if he’s going to the reunion at the end of the month?
I think this might not be a real phenomenon; consider (hypothetically):
– Smarmy-looking guy turns out to be a sex offender - you inwardly say ‘I knew it!’ and your feeling that smarm=perv is reinforced
– Normal-looking guy turns out to be a sex offender - you inwardly say ‘Wow, he seemed so normal’ (which you find disturbing) - this might not act to reduce your smarm=perv inclination, but rather reinforce a different one: perv=disturbing.
– Smarmy-looking guy turns out to be innocent - you might inwardly say ‘Well, I still don’t like the look of him’ and your feeling that smarm=perv is not diminished.
– Normal-looking guy turns out to be innocent - you inwardly say ‘See, I knew he was OK’ and your feeling that [not smarm]=[not perv] is reinforced.
If there really was a strong correlation between smarminess and perversion, catching sex offenders would be easy.
That didn’t turn out to be true, did it? You said that the site said he “used a minor female for nudity”, but there was no mention of lesbian porn, right?
If they start registering everybody who has a girl-on-girl tape, they better buy some more web servers!
…further to my post above; some of the most distressing travesties of justice have occurred after individuals have been arrested for ‘looking guilty/shifty’ or some such, and then the evidence made to fit - I can find cites for this.
When a really nasty sex offender moved in down the street from me in 1994, the news was all over the town in about a week. When the guy went to court and got a ban on any news agency releasing his name and address, the Guardian Angels stepped in and released fliers on the street about his crime (he abused and murdered two boys, and buried a third one alive). The house he lived in was two doors down from a school bus stop!
It was partially because of this guy that “Megan’s Law” was passed in NJ.
How in the hell did this guy get out of a death sentence, let alone the privilege of moving out of a life sentence and into your neighborhood? I find this impossible to believe. Do you have more details?
I hope this doesn’t get the thread kicked to GD or the Pit, but I disagree with the above.
I used to teach women’s self-defence classes. One of the things I stressed is that “you should trust your gut”. If a guy is giving off a creepy vibe, there is often - not always, often - a good reason.
People are better at reading body language than they give themselves credit for. And people also tend to dress so as to communicate things about themselves. Maybe it is not politically correct, but if there are two guys on the subway, and one is tattooed from shoulder to wrist on both arms and keeps staring at you, and the other is wearing a suit and tie and reading the Wall Street Journal, it would be naive to expect that both are equally likely to be harmless.
Criminals, including sex criminals, often perform a check on prospective victims to see how they are likely to react. The person in danger is the one who tries to talk herself into believing she is not experiencing what she is in fact experiencing - because she is afraid of the consequences, trying too hard to be polite, worried about being judgemental, whatever. And people, women and children in particular, should not be taught to disregard their gut feelings about people.
Obviously this is not going to be 100% accurate. But it is a piece of useful information to accept that “I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there is somethin about that guy that gives me the creeps”.
Gavin de Becker discusses this in his book The Gift of Fear. I recommend it.
Bolding to emphasize is mine. You are talking about someone who is DOING something that causes him to be perceived as “creepy.” If those two guys above were both on the subway and both reading the WSJ - one tattooed head to toe and one in Brooks Brothers - and both were quietly reading and neither was staring - would anyone have any reason to get a creepy vibe from the tattooed guy? I think not. People who give other people the creeps are doing something to give off that vibe. They are not walking quietly down the street or in the mall dressed in an unusual fashion yet quietly and calmly minding their own business. They are not “smarmy-looking” like John Waters supposedly is or used to be and therefore possibly dangerous merely by virtue of their unwashed hair.
I avoid and am cautious of creepy weirdos to the extreme. But I don’t see people and decide they are funny-looking or wear funny clothes and therefore most likely dangerous. If they are acting in the least bit weird, then yes, I get my guard up. Acting weird could be walking toward me at night in an aggressive manner, or muttering to themselves, or shouting epitaphs to everyone nearby. Those people are “creepy” and should be avoided.
I avoid EVERYONE if I’m alone or in a situation where someone could overpower me and I’d have no escape. I don’t care if it’s a biker dude or Hugo Boss Central in the garage elevator at midnight; I’m not getting in with them alone. That’s still not the same thing as believing that persons who don’t dress or groom themselves to my taste must be dangerous.
If we can look up sex offenders to find out if there are any living in your area, what about other convicted criminals? What about convicted bank robbers, burglars, drug dealers, car thiefs, jaywalkers, litterbugs, etc., etc??
I mean, if you don’t have kids, but you have a nice car, and your neighbor is a convicted car thief, wouldn’t you want to know? Don’t we secretly want to know everything about our neighbors? Where do we draw the line?
Personally, neighbors who make noise, have loud late night parties, barking dogs, and are just plain slobs would bother me just as much.
By “smarmy”, do you mean “sets off your spidey sense?”, vanilla?
I’m trying to see if there are any in my area-so far I’ve only found exactly TWO for Allegheny county, and one’s in custody already. (And get this-his middle name is Cletus.)
Also, I’m not trying to jump on vanilla. If someone makes her feel uncomfortable for whatever reason, then they make her feel uncomfortable and that’s that. Just pointing out that “normal-looking” people can be sex offenders too and she would want to protect her children from ALL unknown not-her-friends persons in the neighborhood, not just the unusual-looking ones.
I will attemtp to explain.
I’m not sure what smarmy really means, but it didn’t mean he looked unsafe or dangerous, just the look Waters attempted back in the 70’s, purposely to shock the sqaures.
A well dressed man does not shout safe to me or good guy, just dressed up is all.
Before I found he was an offender, I didn’t think he was dangerous, just had that smarmy look.
I didn’t mean it as a put down, though I can see how it was taken that way.
Guy at mall was different guy. My son and I just thought he looked silly, sortof like an Elvis wannabe.
You don’t see a tall man with a gold lame suit OFTEN at a mall, admit it.
