Anyone with kids in the US, this is a must to look at.

[Chuck Nessa]

What happened to "power the the people?" Are we going to let "the man" control it all? Of course, who is Big Brother, in the end it just might be us.

To investigate the power of the people (I think that's what you meant) I suggest you check the recent elections in Palestine, Iran, Iraq and the US.

[Chuck Nessa]

FWIW, I prefer (in this instance) to live by "local" laws. At least I could stand up and scream at meetings if I didn't agree. I would be heard there.

[Randy Twizzle]

FWIW, I prefer (in this instance) to live by "local" laws. At least I could stand up and scream at meetings if I didn't agree. I would be heard there.

I have a feeling that if you stood up and screamed you would be heard just about everywhere.

Edited February 18, 2006 by Randy Twizzle

[king ubu]

What happened to "power the the people?" Are we going to let "the man" control it all? Of course, who is Big Brother, in the end it just might be us.

To investigate the power of the people (I think that's what you meant) I suggest you check the recent elections in Palestine, Iran, Iraq and the US.

I'm totally with Weizen (!) and you on this, Chuck!

[Man with the Golden Arm]

I'm w/ Weizen ,too.

BUT ... a nine-iron? too clutch of a club for me. plus that two iron is longer and sharper and the grip isn't worn at all.

[PHILLYQ]

All the websites in the world with the names, etc. of every perv of every type are useless unless you teach your kids to avoid strangers, don't take candy ,etc.

I agree with Chuck & Weizy here, and we also have to keep in mind that say, Luis Polonia would have been on the list in Wisconsin. Luis Polonia, as a 19 year old baseball player, had sex with a 16 year old. Not a big deal, consensual all around, but a sex crime nonetheless because the age of consent in Wisconsin is 17. He would have gone down as a sex offender for being a horny teenager having sex with another horny teenager.

[Christiern]

...I've got serious concerns about public registries like this. I've got young kids and am as watchful and protective as the next guy but if someone was tried & convicted of one of these crimes and served their time, why are they then listed on this thing that can be accessed by any blockhead? Hell, you get a couple of guys belting back a few drinks, scanning the online registry on Fri. night for names, deciding to take a six block walk on over to John Smith the convicted offender's house to cave his skull in with a lead pipe. What the hell is that all about? Where's the ACLU when you need 'em? You might as well just lock 'em up and throw away the key if you're going to put them into a situation where -- after they've paid their dues to society -- they're at risk having their house torched on any given night because they're on a list. I say, let the cops operate something like this...and keep it low key.

Couldn't agree more, Weizen.

[Aggie87]

Someone sent me that link a month or so ago.

I found a guy I come in contact with during the week on there a few weeks ago. Not a friend or an acquaintance, but someone I've said hello to before. He operates a small convenience store-type operation near where I work. He's an older man, and was found guilty of sexual contact with two girls, ages 7 & 8.

Now that I know this about him, I see him in a completely different light. In fact, if I'm standing in line to purchase a soda or something, I observe him interact with other customers. I've noticed his eyes immediately latch onto the younger females that come into the place, and closely watch them as they walk out as well. It gives me the creeps.

It shocked me to find someone I know on there. Part of me feels like I really didn't want to know this about this person. At the same time, I also have an 8 year old daughter. I sure as hell don't want her to come in contact with him.

I think this website gets its information directly from the state registries, which are public information in most states apparently.

I don't know what the right answer is on the issue. I don't like knowing, but I feel like I need to know.

Edited February 18, 2006 by Aggie87

[Д.Д.]

Incidentally, there was an article on this subject in a recent Economist issue. Interestign statistics on reconviction rate. This is UK data.

The end of innocence

Jan 19th 2006

From The Economist print edition

Convicted child abusers are much less dangerous than the British public—and the government—believe

IN 2003, Paul Reeve was found to have done something illegal. Although he was not convicted of any crime, he accepted a caution from the police. He was banned from certain jobs. Then a government department reviewed Mr Reeve's case and lifted the ban. He took a job in Norwich, but quickly resigned after the police objected. It may not sound like the sort of scandal that would keep the media busy for a week and threaten the career of a government minister. But since Mr Reeve's crime involved child pornography, and his job was teaching physical education in a school, the level of panic—and the potential fallout—is almost without limit.

Memories of an earlier enormity are one reason for the hysteria. In 2002, two Cambridgeshire girls were murdered by Ian Huntley, a school caretaker. The crime was egregious enough, but it turned out that Mr Huntley had previously been investigated for rape, underage sex, indecent assault and burglary. A public inquiry revealed police incompetence and sloppy record-keeping. Such a person, it was promised, would never again be allowed to work in a school.

As the case of Mr Reeve demonstrates, though, a man who has been tarred with the brush of paedophilia is not prevented from working with children forever. A hurried review by the education department found 56 cases where child sex offenders were cleared to teach. One involved Keith Hudson, a science teacher who was convicted of possessing indecent images of boys. Mr Hudson was placed on List 99, which bars dubious characters from teaching jobs. But the education department allowed him to work in girls' schools.

Ruth Kelly, the much-barracked education secretary (see article), now says ministers should no longer decide such cases. She also promises to simplify the vetting system by creating a single, all-encompassing list. At present, there are no fewer than seven ways of checking someone's credentials.

The British authorities place a good deal of faith in the power of lists to protect children. They have been inspired by America, where information about more than half a million sex offenders is available not just to the police but also to the public. Britain has not yet reached the point of barring sex offenders from living near schools or (as in Florida) from taking refuge in hurricane shelters. But it is easier to get on to a British list. A caution or, in some cases, the mere suspicion of child abuse may be enough.

Advocates of keeping lists and restricting employment point out that the sexual abuse of children is a horrendous crime which can lead to a lifetime of anguish. But the main justification is not the awfulness of the offence but the supposedly incorrigible character of the offender. “The nature of sexual attraction to children is that it is often lifelong and compulsive,” explained Lady Scotland, a Home Office minister, in 2004. Such claims have been repeated so often that they have acquired the ring of truth. They are mostly false.

Men convicted of sex offences involving children are not, in fact, all that likely to commit further crimes. Of those released in 2002, 17% were in trouble again within two years. That may sound appalling, but compared with other ex-cons, sex offenders were paragons of virtue. The re-conviction rate for all criminals was 60% (see chart). Most incorrigible were men who stole from vehicles, 85% of whom had been re-convicted within the same period.

It is also likely that most of the child sex offenders who got into trouble after their release were collared for a different (and less appalling) crime. A study by America's Department of Justice found that, while 39% of child molesters were arrested again within three years of release, just 3% were suspected of another sex crime against a child.

Some convicted child molesters will have returned to their old ways and not been caught, of course. Others will have lapsed later, so their crimes will not show up in the statistics. But the same is true of other criminals. And the police presumably keep closer tabs on sex offenders than on, say, burglars—otherwise, what is the point of all those lists?

Increased scrutiny may be one reason why child abusers are so much more likely than other criminals to go straight after their release. But it turns out that they often behaved themselves even before the sex offenders' register came into being in 1997. A Home Office study of men released in 1987 found that sex offenders were re-convicted at about half the average rate.

Contrary to the popular view, sex offenders can be treated. Don Grubin, a Newcastle psychiatrist, says that anti-depressant drugs and therapy seem to reduce the chance that a convict will offend again. And the mere fact of conviction may be enough to change minds. Unlike burglars and armed robbers, child abusers often suffer from the delusion that what they do is acceptable. A spell in prison, where they have to be protected from other inmates, will swiftly disabuse them of that notion.

Colin Pritchard, a psychiatrist who has studied paedophiles, says they are a diverse bunch. Most are “pathetic nuisances” who grope children but commit no other crimes. They respond well to treatment and are unlikely to re-offend. A smaller but much more dangerous group consists of men who, like Mr Huntley, are both abusive and violent. They are harder to treat, and more likely to re-offend—so much so that Mr Pritchard believes they should not necessarily be let out of prison.

Ms Kelly announced on January 19th new laws banning for life all teachers with child sex cautions as well as convictions, unless they appeal successfully. Given the low threat posed by many such people, this may be unnecessary. It would be better to focus on a small number of violent offenders. It might also be wise to worry less about teachers and more about threats closer to home. Several studies have shown that between two-thirds and three-quarters of abused children suffer at the hands of relatives or family friends.

Such a change in policy would be desirable, that is, if the intention were truly to protect children. The evidence of the past week suggests there may be more enthusiasm for heaping misery upon sex offenders and education secretaries.

[BruceH]

I'm with Weizen on this one.

He does have a good point. Registries like this that can be accessed by anyone don't seem to serve any useful purpose. After all, what are you going to do about it? Nothing, that's what. And does the registry show everyone who's a danger to your kids? No, only those who've had a conviction. All it does is get parents worked up and paranoid. So you look out for your kids, which you'd do anyway.

[JSngry]

Yeah, putting signs up on streets to warn of potholes and such is a waste of time.

[BruceH]

Yeah, putting signs up on streets to warn of potholes and such is a waste of time.

Cheap shot. Your example isn't parallel and you know it.

What do you propose, searching out each of these guys and beating the shit out him? Not very useful to say the least, but that's what some people want to do. In which case you'd just get yourself thrown in jail because you'd be the crimimal. Wouldn't do your kids a hell of a lot of good.

So what does the list accomplish? It gets you to watch over your kids more closely you say? Well, I think that would by done by all the hysterical news stories you see all the time.

[JSngry]

What do you propose, searching out each of these guys and beating the shit out him?

Yeah. I'm all about that.

[JSngry]

Yeah, putting signs up on streets to warn of potholes and such is a waste of time.

Cheap shot. Your example isn't parallel and you know it. .

No, I don't know it. For my uses and intents, it's exactly parallel.

[BruceH]

Jim, this is one case in which you're not using your head.

[JSngry]

Wanting to have responsible access to relevant information to responsibly use in the protection of my children is not "using my head"? Oh well, I can live with that.

Please note - I have already expressed my feelings of distaste for the website in the original post, and I have already expressed a distrust of the current judicial/political clime and the resultant hysteria created by same. Lots of bullshit going on there. But that's not what I'm talking about.

As to what I am talking about, it should be clear once the abstractions of "ideology" are cleared away and a little bit of common-sense takes its place (or once my previous statements in this thread have been read). But that's not much in style these days, is it?

Babies and bathwater, always a troublesome combination for some...

Edited February 18, 2006 by JSngry

[BruceH]

Wanting to have responsible access to relevant information to responsibly use in the protection of my children is not "using my head"? Oh well, I can live with that.

Please note - I have already expressed my feelings of distaste for the website in the original post, and I have already expressed a distrust of the current judicial/political clime and the resultant hysteria created by same. Lots of bullshit going on there. But that's not what I'm talking about.

As to what I am talking about, it should be clear once the abstractions of "ideology" are cleared away and a little bit of common-sense takes its place (or once my previous statements in this thread have been read). But that's not much in style these days, is it?

Nope.

[JSngry]

Nope, indeed.

[BruceH]

What do you propose, searching out each of these guys and beating the shit out him?

Yeah. I'm all about that.

Not smart.

[JSngry]

And not even slightly serious.

[RDK]

For all the concern about some perv getting his head bashed in by a gang of drunken, internet-savvy fathers, has there ever been any account of this actually happening yet? At least in CA, such "sexual offenders" lists have been available for some time now, yet aside from alerting people to which neighbors might be hiding dark secrets I've heard of no actual confrontations due to the on-line posting.

[catesta]

Looks like every state has a list available.

FBI link

[Chuck Nessa]

For all the concern about some perv getting his head bashed in by a gang of drunken, internet-savvy fathers, has there ever been any account of this actually happening yet? At least in CA, such "sexual offenders" lists have been available for some time now, yet aside from alerting people to which neighbors might be hiding dark secrets I've heard of no actual confrontations due to the on-line posting.

My concern is not about "some perv getting his head bashed in". Among other details, I'm concerned about playing this string out. Should there be a list of shoplifters so retail operations don't hire them? What's next?

Do we really want a bunch of disgruntled folks with "criminal tendencies" wandering around, pissed off, 'cause they can't find a job or a place to live?

[Claude]

For all the concern about some perv getting his head bashed in by a gang of drunken, internet-savvy fathers, has there ever been any account of this actually happening yet? At least in CA, such "sexual offenders" lists have been available for some time now, yet aside from alerting people to which neighbors might be hiding dark secrets I've heard of no actual confrontations due to the on-line posting.

In the news today:

2 Registered Sex Offenders Killed in Maine

© 2006 The Associated Press

AUGUSTA, Maine — Two registered sex offenders were fatally shot in their central Maine homes early Sunday, and a Canadian man sought in connection with the slayings shot himself after Boston police cornered him on a bus, Maine authorities said.

Stephen A. Marshall, 20, shot himself in the head with a .45 caliber handgun when officers stopped the bus he was on and climbed aboard, said David Procopio, spokesman for the Suffolk district attorney.

"Several second later the officers heard a gun shot," Procopio said.

They found Marshall with a massive head wound in a window seat 13 rows behind the driver. He was rushed to Boston Medical Center where he was in critical condition late Sunday night with severe brain damage, Procopio said.

No one else on the bus was injured, Procopio said, but five passengers who were splattered with blood were taken to area hospitals to be examined.

Maine State Police alerted Boston authorities that Marshall could be heading to the city, about 250 miles south, after Marshall's pickup truck was found abandoned. Police discovered bullets linked to him in the bathroom at a bus station in Bangor, Maine.

The shootings of Joseph L. Gray, 57, of Milo, and William Elliott, 24, of Corinth, led state police to take down the Maine Sex Offender Registry Web site as a precaution, state Department of Public Safety spokesman Stephen McCausland said. The site lists the photos, names and addresses of more than 2,200 sex offenders.

The pickup truck Marshall was driving was spotted leaving one of the victims' homes after the shooting, Maine police said.

It was not immediately clear if or how Marshall knew either Gray or Elliott, or whether the three men had any connection, McCausland said.

Marshall, who lived in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, had come to Houlton, Maine, for the first time to meet his father, McCausland said. He added that Marshall was driving his father's pickup.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/nation/3797746.html

Edited April 17, 2006 by Claude

[slide_advantage_redoux]

This whole registration/neighborhood awareness issue certainly has its pros, but if you think about how far the pendulum has begun to swing, you realize that this thing can happen to people who have made other mistakes. What if they started doing this to repeat DWI-ers?

IMHO (and I am not alone in this), everytime a new stipulation or sex offender requirement arises, it is because some politician is trying to score easy points in his voter base. Nearly everyone has children in their immediate family, and the whole thing touches raw nerve. This is understandably so.

But what I fear will happen is this: the pendulum will swing so far to the extreme right that the ACLU will step in and present a viable test case before the supreme court, and before you know it, all the statutes will possibly be tossed - because of civil rights violations, and then we are back at square one.

What needs to be done (and the ACLU has argued this), is that there be independent county boards established to determine - on a case to case basis - what offenders need to continue to register and for how long. Most states have offenders classified by degree of severity of offense and the likelihood of recidivism. These boards are the natural next step in my opinion.

The problem is that there are so many different offenses thrown in under the same umbrella as it were. There are men (and a few women I am sure) who are guilty of soliciting anonymous sex in public restrooms (from other adults). Sure it is offensive, but is it worthy of branding an offender of that type publicly, and likely affecting where they can legally reside?

And what of the 18 or 19 year olds who get caught having sex with their 16 year old girlfriends? They can get tagged too, and then they will have to register as a sex offender for life, because the 'offense' was contact in nature.

This whole thing has grown out of control, and I doubt that it is adequately or effectively serving the purpose it was originally designed for.

Sex offenders are the boogie men of the new millenium, and registration is the present day equivalent of the stocks of medieval times.

Edited April 17, 2006 by Greg Waits