Sex offender insanity coming to Manchester

[MTPorcupine3]

Abolish public schools. End of problem.

[J’raxis 270145]

I posted two half-assed comments earlier which I deleted to replace with this, if anyone's wondering where they went. Never try writing a cogent post when you're five minutes from sprinting out the door to catch a bus...

I refuse to include "sidewalk pee-ers", flashers or 18 year old boys with 16 years old girlfriends in discussion of this topic, it is crazy and unreal to me that a person can pee on a sidewalk and end up having to register as a sex offender...just insane. I think that is another topic though, one that needs to be discussed, but not in the course of this conversation. When I say, sex offender, I mean....a person who has committed a crime of sexual violation against another human being. A rapist, a child molester. The law needs to be changed. If you are not a rapist or a child molester, you shouldn't be called a sex offender.

When you say "sex offender," that might be what you mean, but it's not what the law means—the law includes all these former categories, and that's actually why I'm bringing this topic up. I don't disagree with you on meting out the worst punishment for bona fide child molesters and rapists. But the law has to be changed to not include the former groups, ultimately, and my immediate concern when I started this thread is to try and stop these new residency restrictions Manchester is trying to put in place.

That being said....I am disturbed by some of the tone I am reading on this thread. Let's not act as if there is not good reason for people to become emotional or angry about this issue.

There's a very good reason not to become emotional: It clouds judgment and stops people from thinking critically. When you hear the term sex offender being applied to someone, you have to remember it might not necessarily mean the person is a child molester or a rapist; it might mean the person had an underage girlfriend or urinated in public. And, even if the registry lists a serious offense that sounds like bona fide child molestation, several things should be kept in mind:—

Firstly, people do not get fair trials when they're accused of sex crimes, especially involving children. "Guilty until proven innocent" and a sort of witch-hunt mentality pervades these cases; people get emotional—like you are—and stop thinking critically, and innocent people go to jail. Making it even worse, laws and trial procedure have been modified to make it even more difficult for someone to defend themselves against charges—things like protecting the accusing child's identity, shielding them from all sorts of pertinent questions, "rape shield" laws in the case of adults, and so on.

Secondly, a lot of innocent things have been misconstrued as some form of serious child molestation. There is a case where a woman was bathing her child and the child ran out of the house naked, and a neighbor saw it and called the cops. The woman was charged with molesting her child based on this brief scene. I don't remember if she was convicted or not, but if she was, she'd be registered as an out-and-out child molester now.

There was another case where a man pulled a child back onto the sidewalk and scolded him after he nearly got hit by a car; the man was charged—and convicted, and is now registered—for illegally touching someone else's child.

A third case I remember is probably the most bizarre: two adolescents took nude photographs of each other and put them online; the parents found out and somehow the cops got involved. Both of these children are now registered as distributors of child pornography.

Now, in these cases, only these people's offenses would be listed in the registry—not the circumstances surrounding the case, pertinent facts, whether or not the case was solid or tenuous, nor anything else. How would you react when you read the registry entries—like you react when you read Ms. Huot's? Wouldn't you react differently if you knew the above facts?

If you.....

1. Molest in any way a child under the state legal age of consent
2. Rape anybody, of any age, at any time
3. Facilitate or knowingly disregard any of the above...

You are a sex offender. Period. You should go to jail, forever.

Except for the first item, it sounds like you and I are on the same page and that we both support reforming these laws.

As for that item, remember the age of consent laws is what causes eighteen-year-old boys with sixteen-year-old girlfriends to be registered as sex offenders, which I thought you said you didn't agree with.

[J’raxis 270145]

I understand completely, RD. That's why I said this earlier.

Agreed, and I'd say that's what they should take into consideration in deciding sentences and deciding whether to release. I'd say we need to get off the fence and if they believe they're too dangerous to be around children, they should be pushing to keep them in prison. This registry approach provides a false sense of security (besides a sense of revenge).

Maybe this woman is the perfect example of someone that should still be in prison. I understand the argument for life sentences for serious sex offenders. You don't sound like you're "on the fence" as I put it.

I understand being emotional about it. Now the part about thinking with your head is where do you stand on the registration issue? Unfortunately, it's kind of two separate issues- sentencing and what to do if/when they are released. Do you realize it does nothing but provide a false sense of security and doesn't really protect people or their children?

This is a pretty complicated issue for me as a strict voluntarist. If we weren't depending on the state to protect us from crime, I think a lot of the really serious offenders would get an unofficial death sentence and the silly offenses would get blown off as they should be. More importantly, parents would take more personal responsibility for protecting their children and people would do a better job of protecting themselves which would reduce the number of these crimes (and all crime) dramatically. It doesn't surprise me that we have so many apathetic and even criminally irresponsible parents when we have such a nanny state. That sort of behavior is encouraged and even rewarded by the state.

Meanwhile, the state is doing things, and some of the things they're doing are just ridiculous and totally not helping the problem like this registry process. I'm going to speak out against it.

I don't agree with life in prison, but that's because I think imprisonment is a stupid form of punishment. Again an argument from historical perspective: Long-term imprisonment wasn't even invented as punishment, it was originally invented as a method to rehabilitate people. Religious leaders in the eighteenth century thought that if society forced someone into solitude with nothing more than a bible, the criminal would eventually be cured. This never worked right—people went crazy, mostly—and eventually prisons went on to become the modern combination of retributive justice and warehousing of undesirables that they now are.

But I do agree that rapists—of children and adults—deserve the worst punishment possible, whatever that be within a free system.

[J’raxis 270145]

Because the precursor to section (l) is " 632-A:2 Aggravated Felonious Sexual Assault. –
    I. A person is guilty of the felony of aggravated felonious sexual assault if such person engages in sexual penetration with another person under any of the following circumstances: "   

When know she penetrated a child under 13 in some way.  She is a true sex offender.  There is no mistake about that and her crime is undeniably INEXCUSABLE.  She admitted to her crime (it's part of treatment) and therefore it would be correct of us to agree that she is not an innocent convict and should be considered abnormal, psychologically speaking, to have done such an atrocious thing to a child. 

It sounds like she is a true sex offender, but I still don't know the facts surrounding the case. See the three cases I posted earlier to see why I'm always so skeptical about things like this. I have far too little faith in this country's criminal justice system, especially in cases where charges of child sex-crimes have been leveled.

Oh, and if I were in jail for one of these crimes, and I were told I had to admit it in order to leave treatment and be let out of jail, I might end up admitting to it, too.

As for teenagers and the AOC... unless some adult (18 and over) continually and repeatedly goes after 13 and 14 year old girls as their choice of bedmates, I'm not worried about the singular incidents of consensual experimentation between developed teenagers, regardless of their biological age, or those in a 'dating' relationship that the parents dont have a real problem with.  If the parents have a problem with an older guy or gal that their kid is dating (and their kid is under 18) then let them use the endangerment laws or restraining orders to keep the older person away.  Again, as long as the activity is mutual.  I'm not talking about those who are coerced (by coercion, I mean specific and deliberate coercion, not the mere difference in age being used as 'proof' of automatic coercion.)  These people are not a danger under these types of circumstances.  Judicial discretion should weed these cases out nicely from the mix of other sex offenders, but of course there is no room for such discretion currently.

This is what I've begun referring to as "a common-sense definition of consent" in order to differentiate it from the definition of consent as used by the law, originating from psychology, where people are assumed to be unable to give consent for a myriad of specious reasons, especially age.

Now... back to residency restrictions...  since when did registered sex offenders forget how to walk or drive to find their next victim and exactly how will these restrictions prevent abuse from occuring?

Back on topic. Did you want to set up a meeting sometime to organize for this, per your email? Let's talk about it here so we can get other supporters on board. We could meet at your house as you originally suggested, or perhaps Murphy's Taproom which is becoming quite the meeting-place for freestater organizing.

[Rocketman]

I'll stop complaining so much about the injustice system when they keep the murderers, rapists and child molesters locked up, stop putting pot smokers away entirely, and close 2/3 of the prisons.

Now yer talkin', Beavis!

I don't agree with life in prison, but that's because I think imprisonment is a stupid form of punishment. Again an argument from historical perspective: Long-term imprisonment wasn't even invented as punishment, it was originally invented as a method to rehabilitate people. Religious leaders in the eighteenth century thought that if society forced someone into solitude with nothing more than a bible, the criminal would eventually be cured. This never worked right—people went crazy, mostly—and eventually prisons went on to become the modern combination of retributive justice and warehousing of undesirables that they now are.

But I do agree that rapists—of children and adults—deserve the worst punishment possible, whatever that be within a free system.

This is a very interesting perspective.  But I want to think about something else now.  Goodbye, molester thread.

[Lloyd Danforth]

Rattydog:

I see, however, violent sexual perpetrators being locked up away from me as a service, a service I will gladly pay for.

Rocketman:

(In a perfect world, this would be voluntarily funded

Justly convicted convicts should work to pay their own way


Rocketman:

This is a very interesting perspective.  But I want to think about something else now.  Goodbye, molester thread.

[LaurieP]

Sure we can Meet at Murphy's or here, but probably best at Murphy's since it is already an established hang out!   I'm flexible for time usually... so let me know what works best for most (if such a time exists).  I have started compiling facts to distribute... and would love help in narrowing them down to determine which ones are best to keep it simple and to keep it to a 1 page handout.  I can email them to you.. let me know what you think... thanks.

[J’raxis 270145]

Sure we can Meet at Murphy's or here, but probably best at Murphy's since it is already an established hang out!   I'm flexible for time usually... so let me know what works best for most (if such a time exists).  I have started compiling facts to distribute... and would love help in narrowing them down to determine which ones are best to keep it simple and to keep it to a 1 page handout.  I can email them to you.. let me know what you think... thanks.

There are weekly meetings Tuesday at 19:00, called Taproom Tuesdays. A load of freestaters always show up—two weeks ago we topped thirty people. It's usually pretty busy but we can set up at a table away from the main crowd; we've done this a couple times for the Manchester Free Press meetings already.

We should definitely work on narrowing down whatever sex-offender facts you've collected to the best ones that fit this particular issue. As you can probably see from the comments in this thread, my own opposition position on sex offenses is pretty wide-ranging: everything from opposing this coming law, to the existence of the public registries, to the age of consent itself—but we need to remember to stay focused on this one issue in order to tackle it most effectively. I especially think we'd just scare away a lot of support I get into my AoC arguments with people.

[J’raxis 270145]

LaurieP and I will be meeting at the Taproom at around 20:00 tonight (2007-08-21). We have a handout we've put together, and a tentative name under which we're organizing: Citizens United to Reevaluate/Reform/Repeal Sex Offender Registries (CURSOR). We're not sure on the first R word there yet. There'll be a website put up sometime soon, with our handout(s) and more information, including in particular aggregated links to news stories documenting examples of sex offender–related legal insanity.

Anyone else interested is welcome to come chat with us—comments, suggestions, criticism welcome.

[J’raxis 270145]

The meeting at last night's Taproom Tuesday went well: In attendance were LaurieP, RattyDog, and myself, with Ron Helwig, dalebert and error/Beavis drifting in at times. Laurie, who is a true super-activist on this topic, had a very interesting slide show presentation on sex offenders that was recently shown at the state house in Concord—how recidivism rates are extremely low, how reports of sex offenses have been going down over the past decade, and so on. We'll be working more of this data into our handouts before we have anything to give out.

The CURSOR website should be up by the end of the week. PDFs of our handouts will be available, as will much of the data we've collected, and there'll be a news section documenting other examples of the injustices committed against accused sex offenders. There are other ideas we're kicking around, too.

And most importantly: We'll be attending the next Manchester town hall meeting, which is the first Tuesday in September (2007-09-04), in order to give people our handouts and educate people on this issue. I've added this event to the calendar.

Thanks for everyone's help on this!

[ny2nh]

So, I have to ask the loaded question.....especially to those of you who have kids. You're OK with a rapist or a child molester living next door to you and your family?

I have a problem with all "sex offenders" being lumped together. A perfect example is the 19 year old convicted of statutory rape with a 15 year old....and then having to be on the sex offender list for the rest of their life. That's just plain wrong and I think there are many people who would fight to change the laws regarding it.

I also have absolutely no pity for anyone who could rape or molest someone. I'm not talking about date rape, or taking naked pictures of your kids in the bathtub....I mean rapist and molesters. The fact they have a hard time dealing with the fact that they are labeled the scourge of society is OK with me. There was a woman on Will Infantine's MCAM show last year talking about her situation where I believe her husband, when younger, had been having consensual sex with his underage girlfriend and the parents filed charges against him. He should not have to be on the list....or at least be able to get removed from the list after a certain period of time with no further underage incidents. I would be curious to read what LaurieC's story is....is there someplace that I can read that?

Personally I think efforts would be better spent changing who and how we classify sex offenders moreso than beating up city officials that want to protect kids and the areas that those kids are in often. 1000 feet from a school is what 15 or 20 houses?

I know that there are predators out there who are not identified.....and that they are likely more of a concern than those on the list.....but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't know about those already on the list.

[KBCraig]

So, I have to ask the loaded question.....especially to those of you who have kids. You're OK with a rapist or a child molester living next door to you and your family?

"OK with it" in that I'd treat them like any other neighbor and not even think about their past? Of course not.

I would not be okay with the government telling that person they couldn't live next door to me.

[J’raxis 270145]

So, I have to ask the loaded question.....especially to those of you who have kids. You're OK with a rapist or a child molester living next door to you and your family?

The residency restrictions are about keeping sex offenders a certain distance from public schools. Your neighborhood will only become sex offender–free if you live within this same area—and if you don't, these new restrictions will be sending sex offenders into your neighborhood. This law is protecting a certain group of citizens lucky enough to live within a radius of the school, to the detriment of the rest of Manchester's citizens.

Secondly, sex offenders who go after other people's children typically do not do so close by to where they live, nor do they target schools, because it would be too obvious and easy for them to get caught. I understand people are creeped out by having a sex offender living next door, but he's no more substantively harmful to you than someone half a mile away.

I have a problem with all "sex offenders" being lumped together. A perfect example is the 19 year old convicted of statutory rape with a 15 year old....and then having to be on the sex offender list for the rest of their life. That's just plain wrong and I think there are many people who would fight to change the laws regarding it.

This is something else we're working on: A), oppose these residency restrictions as an immediate cause, and B) reform sex offender laws and the registries to not cover statutory rape, public urination, and other similar nonsense.

I also have absolutely no pity for anyone who could rape or molest someone. I'm not talking about date rape, or taking naked pictures of your kids in the bathtub....I mean rapist and molesters.

I think we mostly agree here. Forcible rape should be dealt with in the harshest way possible within whatever legal system you have. That is, life in prison nowadays—and perhaps getting shot by the pissed-off victim or her family in a free state.

The fact they have a hard time dealing with the fact that they are labeled the scourge of society is OK with me. There was a woman on Will Infantine's MCAM show last year talking about her situation where I believe her husband, when younger, had been having consensual sex with his underage girlfriend and the parents filed charges against him. He should not have to be on the list....or at least be able to get removed from the list after a certain period of time with no further underage incidents. I would be curious to read what LaurieC's story is....is there someplace that I can read that?

I'll let her share the details if she wants, but it was basically a statutory-rape situation.

Personally I think efforts would be better spent changing who and how we classify sex offenders moreso than beating up city officials that want to protect kids and the areas that those kids are in often. 1000 feet from a school is what 15 or 20 houses?

Well, we're doing both. And since these residency restrictions will apply to all people on the list, not just child molesters, it needs to be dealt with, too. Also see above how this is ineffective to begin with.

I know that there are predators out there who are not identified.....and that they are likely more of a concern than those on the list.....but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't know about those already on the list.

And this law will make more of the identified ones homeless, and thus harder to track. We haven't looked at Manchester's specific geography yet, but some cities have so many "sex offender–free zones" that there are few places they can find housing, leading to them living on the streets... leaving them roaming around at will, instead of being kept in a known location.

[dalebert]

Boy Scouts' secret "degenerate" files revealed

http://news.yahoo.com/s/po/20070829/co_po/boyscoutssecretdegeneratefilesrevealed

[J’raxis 270145]

The website is online, with a bit of content:—

http://cursor.eprci.com/