- #36
Pengwuino
Gold Member
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I've always wondered if anyone is actually convinced of anything in arguments like these...
TheStatutoryApe said:Most murderers are people who have done so because they were robbing a liquer store or some such thing.
The murders who kill people simply because they like to kill people generally get life sentences and are never released back into the public.
That isn't the case with sexual predators. So a neighborhood may have a guy living there who once killed someone and they likely won't have to worry about this person kidnapping their children. You can't exactly say the same thing about a neighborhood where a man lives that has a sexual appetite for little boys.
Someone I know just had their two year old daughter ****ed to death by a man she had known for ten years. Please explain to me how one knows through common sense who is and who is not a pedophile? Should parents just be paranoid that all men no matter who they are may potentially try to molest their children? The most common person to molest a child is one that the child and the parents trust.
Exactly, and without the registry no one knows now do they?
TheStatutoryApe said:I'm trying to find specifics but so far as I have read it seems that only the more severe of registered sex offenders are placed in the public registry. The list of those that are eligible to have their file removed from the public registry seems pretty bad itself.
Available for a fee upon request? So a parent should be able to use their telepathic powers to know that a sexual preditor has entered their neighborhood and then go to the city council to request further information so they can protect their children FOR A FEE?!
Tell me, if you were on that city council and the parents of a victim of a sexual preditor you allowed to live in your city asked you why you did not let them know there was a child molester living next door to them what would you tell them?
Would you tell them that you were protecting him? That it was more important to you to protect a child molester than to protect their daughter who wound up being molested by the man?
Umm.. if a guy has been found repeatedly guilty of having child porn on his computer, he may be required to register as a sex offender. He has never actually touched a child in his life and does not show any inclination to. Would you say his "sexual appetite" convinces you he's a dangerous predator ?
Pengwuino said:Schrodinger, people are notified when sex offenders move into their neighborhood already.
This is like saying a guy with a bunch of normal porn on their computer will have no inclanation to having sex. What logic is that? That's like saying someone buying a pound of coccaine doesn't actually have an inclination towards doing drugs.
And seems like a pretty harsh punishment for someone caught urinating in public, doesn't it? It also seems like a harsh punishment for someone convicted of raping his college girlfriend when she was too drunk to legally consent (I don't condone those actions, but I don't think a life sentence fits that crime...in most cases, just being dragged through the courts is enough to get the guy to see where he went wrong and keep him from every trying something like that again), or for someone who was 18 and had sex with their 16 y.o. boy/girlfriend and was convicted of statutory rape when the parents found out. Just look at what you're all assuming as you're talking about the list..."wouldn't you want to know if there was a child molester in your neighborhood?" So, someone who thought they were having consensual sex and learned their partner was not legally able to consent, and would never make that mistake again, is added to the same list as child molesters and treated by anyone reading the list as if they are child molesters.nazgjunk said:By allowing those names to be know to the public you do almost the same thing as death sentence, the only difference is that you're not sure they're going to get killed. Either kill them, or respect their privacy. I'd take the latter.
Pengwuino said:This is like saying a guy with a bunch of normal porn on their computer will have no inclanation to having sex. What logic is that?
I understand the idea of fairness behind this argument, and but if this problem is to be solved then the answer is not the offender list. The problem is to create different misdemeanors or felonies for things like this: things that wouldn't be in a class that goes on the list. I agree that the cases you refer to shouldn't have their entire life damaged, but the solution of getting rid of the registration list is akin to getting rid of prison so that innocent people won't be locked up.Moonbear said:With something like parole, there are terms and conditions and checkpoints. If someone violates their parole, they know they are going back to jail, and if they do not violate their parole, they know when it will end. With these registries, someone who is a one-time offender is NEVER off the list, there's no way for them to prove they are rehabilitated to get off the list. If they were convicted of statutory rape at 18 or 19, and have learned their lesson, or just have gotten older and have no interest in dating 16 year olds because they are far enough different in age for it to not be attractive to them, they are STILL on that list, and people see their name on that list and treat them the same as if they were a child molester.
This claim gets thrown around a lot, but the statistics don't support it. Part of the problem is that different definitions of recidivism are used and too often, all sex offenders are lumped together, just as they are in the registry. Recidivism can be reported as committing another sexual offense, which may or may not be the same type of sexual offense as the original conviction, or it can be reported as committing any later offense. Many studies use arrest records, not conviction records, which seems pretty biased to me since they could be getting arrested wrongly just because they have the prior arrest on their record that casts suspicion their way more often.Dawguard said:There are far to many people who commit rapes, molistations, etc., who are let out of prison that commit the same acts.
It is noteworthy that recidivism rates for sex offenders are lower than for the general criminal population. For example, one study of 108,580 non-sex criminals released from prisons in 11 states in 1983 found that nearly 63% were rearrested for a non-sexual felony or serious misdemeanor within three years of their release from incarceration; 47% were reconvicted; and 41% were ultimately returned to prison or jail (Bureau of Justice Statistics).
Here is something that addresses that issue as well, and explains why it is difficult to predict reoffenders among sex offenders.Dawguard said:The problem is to create different misdemeanors or felonies for things like this: things that wouldn't be in a class that goes on the list.
In contrast, Doren (1998), in a review of the research, reports that the true recidivism base rate over 25 years for extrafamilial sexual abusers is 52% and for rapists is 39%. Doren, who is involved with the sexual predator program at Mendota Mental Health Institute in Wisconsin, uses the recidivism rates from Prentky, Lee, Knight, and Cerce (1997). This is an extremely high risk sample. The Prentky, et al. sample consisted of 251 men who were committed to the Massachusetts Treatment Center for Sexually Dangerous Persons (MTC). Persons who were charged after being released from MTC and persons who were residents at MTC but were previously discharged, reoffended and were recommitted were included in the sample. Also, a charge, not a conviction, was used as the index of reoffense.
In addition, the figures of 39% and 52% are estimates from the survival analysis; the percentage of new offenses at the end of the study period (25 years) was 26% for rapists and 32% for child molesters. Doren maintains that the survival analysis provides a more accurate approximation of actual recidivism.
In general, the factors most strongly related to violent and sexual recidivism include having the characteristics of psychopathy as defined by a high PCL-R score (i.e. Hare, 1991, 1996, in press; Hart & Hare, in press; Rice, 1997), a history of criminal behavior, and being young. Rice and Harris (1997) report that the combination of psychopathy, measured by the PCL-R, and sexual deviancy, based on phallometric test results, resulted in the highest recidivism rate in their sample of sex offenders.
http://www.azcorrections.gov/Recidivism.htmAmong the 1,649 sex offenders released from the Arizona prison system to the supervision of state parole officers, 70% eventually returned to prison with a new felony conviction for a sex crime, including 1.5% who committed a new sex crime while under state supervision.
Furthermore, 0.5% returned with a new felony conviction for a sex crime within one year of release, 2.0% within two years, 3.4% within three years, 4.6% within four years, 5. 1 % within five years, 6. 0% within six years, 6.7% within seven years, 7. 1 % within eight years, 7.2% within nine years, 7.8% within ten years, 7.9% within eleven years, and 8.7% within twelve years.
TheStatutoryApe said:I'm trying to find specifics but so far as I have read it seems that only the more severe of registered sex offenders are placed in the public registry. The list of those that are eligible to have their file removed from the public registry seems pretty bad itself.
Available for a fee upon request? So a parent should be able to use their telepathic powers to know that a sexual preditor has entered their neighborhood and then go to the city council to request further information so they can protect their children FOR A FEE?!
Tell me, if you were on that city council and the parents of a victim of a sexual preditor you allowed to live in your city asked you why you did not let them know there was a child molester living next door to them what would you tell them?
Would you tell them that you were protecting him? That it was more important to you to protect a child molester than to protect their daughter who wound up being molested by the man?