Over the last decade, legislators have rushed to impose broader and broader restrictions on sex offenders that prohibit them from living within certain distances of churches, schools, and other locations. The result is often effective banishment or homelessness for sex offenders. Georgia’s politicians have been so careless in their legislation that officials are now recommending that sex offenders live in the forests.
We have seen how the definition of “sex offender” often leads to ridiculous and abusive results. However, even for legitimately classified sex offenders, the residential limitations have left individuals with no place to live.
Georgia laws were previously challenged in a case where it effectively banished an individual, here.
You will see the result if you venture behind an office complex in Marietta in the forest where probation officials have been sending ex-offenders to live like hermits. Other states have put offenders under bridges like trolls. Whether hermit or troll, the situation does not allow for these ex-offenders to return to productive lives in society and may actually increase the likelihood of recidivism.
These laws are very popular, but they impose restrictions that make it virtually impossible to create a stable life for ex-offenders and seem designed to force these individuals to leave the state. I was just interviewed on a case where an ex-offender was prohibited from attending church because it had children present. Such limitations raises serious constitutional questions. One would think that politicians would want ex-offenders to find spiritual guidance. Recently, a child molester succeeded in challenging restrictions that barred his access to a synagogue, here.
For the Georgia story, click here.
re: castration: Here in Germany we have the possibility of voluntary castration in exchange for early release on parole since 1973.
And the experience shows that castration isn’t a “magic bullet”. There are a few perpetrators who have a very low sexual impulse control _and_ the honest desire to control their impulses, for these inmates chemical castration _and_therapy_ is a valid option.
But these are not typical sex offenders, most sex offenders have a personality problem, not uncontrollably raging hormones. These offenders aren’t unable to control their urges, they’re _unwilling_ to control them.
And in a lot of cases sexual violence isn’t violent sex, but sexualised violence. So castration just turns serial rapists into serial killers.
Last but not least: testosterone is easily available under the counters of quite a few body building studios.
Beats getting chemically castrated:
http://www.euronews.net/2009/09/25/poland-first-in-europe-to-castrate-sex-offenders/
Byron’s original point gets to the core of the problem.
These “sex offenders” are far too broadly defined, particularly as they often ensnare everyday teenagers. This includes child porn charges and sex offender status for girls who emailed photographs of themselves in some of the co-called “sexting” cases. This system allows government to instantly ruin the lives of young adults for common indiscretions, all while it protected institutionalized molestation and rape for decades in the Catholic church. Our system as now applied is illegitimate and immoral.
rafflaw:
de nada
I am not worried here about a sex offender not enjoying the constitution ( let them suffer), but I just do not see this as a practical solution.
Wow! Will the State of Georgia be sending these offenders to live with the Lepers next? Why do many of these crazy laws and approches seem to occur in the South?? I am sure it is just a coincidence! Buddha, I realy enjoyed the reference to the Time Machine movie. It was one of my favorite sci fi movies from my youth. Then Mespo makes my day by quoting the lyrics from one of my favorite songs from CCR. Outstanding.
I wish I were a state legislator so I could propose life without parole for all of these crimes that now mandate effective lifetime punishment, so I could see how many of my colleagues would have the courage of their convictions (I mean, peeing on the wall behind a bar?). Of course the Supremes have determined that these registries aren’t really punishment I suppose (that was their reasoning in declaring the registries constitutional, as I recall)…
I suppose for this and a lot of other reasons, I’d be a one-term legislator.
Wishful thinking 9a lot of that in georgia, glad I left). this also adds to the misconception that sex offenders are leering strangers hiding in the bushes. Uusually, they’re a friend of the family, a boyfriend of the mother, a relative, etc.
Just what every predatory serial sex offender dreams of, a hidden isolated base of operations…!
Keep in mind that, under our idiotic laws, some “sex offenders” are 18-year-old boys who had sex with their 17-year-old girl friends.
“From what I know about child molestation is that it cannot be controlled, they are wired differently.”
The preference for children as sex partners is, just like the position on the homo-heterosexual spectrum and all other sexual preferences, turn ons, kinks and fetishes, fixed at least by the end of puberty.
But pedophiles (in this strict medical definition) can, just like everybody else, choose to act on their urges or not. It is as yet unknown how many pedophiles never act on their urges, i.e. never become child molesters.
Pedophiles must be abstinent (i.e. not act on their sexual urges) for life or they will hurt other people, i.e. become child molesters. We all know how well “abstinence only” programs usually work, but for pedophiles it’s the only solution.
That is why support and therapy programs for pre-delinquent pedophiles which have an interest in not acting on their urges are so important.
Well, it ain’t Georgia but it’s close:
“Now, when I was just a little boy,
Standin to my daddys knee,
My poppa said, son, dont let the man get you
Do what he done to me.
cause hell get you,
cause hell get you now, now.
And I can remember the fourth of july,
Runnin through the backwood, bare.
And I can still hear my old hound dog barkin,
Chasin down a hoodoo there.
Chasin down a hoodoo there.
Chorus:
Born on the bayou;
Born on the bayou;
Born on the bayou.
Wish I was back on the bayou.
Rollin with some cajun queen.
Wishin I were a fast freight train,
Just a chooglin on down to new orleans.
Chorus
Do it, do it, do it, do it. oh, lord.
Oh get back boy.
I can remember the fourth of july,
Runnin through the backwood bare.
And I can still hear my old hound dog barkin,
Chasin down a hoodoo there.
Chasin down a hoodoo there.
Chorus
All right! do, do, do, do.
Mmmmmmm, oh.”
Byron,
Thanks for bringing out the difference between child molester/pedophile and sex offenders. The sex offenders who get caught up in having relations with girls “just below” legal age, when they themselves are “just above”, are usually not hard core criminal perverts. Actually its only men who get caught in that net, when the tables are reversed women are not charged unless the ages are more extreme and the women are in a position of power or influence over the male “victim”.
The other part of this story is legal penalty for crimes here in the U.S. are no longer satisfactory. Our system allows for the ongoing punishment of people who have “paid thier debt to society”, as deemed by our leagal system, by local governments with hardly any restrictions. The indignity of having to live in such a manner leaves one with little incentive to become mainstream and so these folks are condemned to the fringes of society where they are more likely and acceptable to commit crimes. Since our prisons and jails are so overcrowded the hardcore sex offenders are often let out with the minor ones and all get lumped into the same group. Of course counseling to determine the folks more likely to recommit cannot be funded while our jails are filled with marihuana smokers and other non violent offenders. Prison lobbyist are fine with the status quo because they lose nothing in the deal and lobby for tougher laws for even the most mundane of law infractions. SO we continue our wasy of life with the attitude: “THE BEATINGS WILL STOP WHEN MORAL IMPROVES!” God save the United States.
all I can say is that the squirrels, deer and turkey better watch their backsides.
On a serious note, this is not a good thing. From what I know about child molestation is that it cannot be controlled, they are wired differently. But sexual offenders are another thing. I looked up some here in Virginia and a good portion were males age 18-22 that had sex with underage girls, I would guess 16 and 17 year olds. There is certainly a huge difference between them and a child molester and the courts should somehow recognize this distinction. Putting them together in the woods will not improve the one and will cause someone that might be able to be rehabilitated to become a hard core offender.
This is how the Eloi and the Morlocks started branching out on the evolutionary tree. I’m all for finding Rod Taylor and Yvette Mimieux and getting out of here in a rapid manner.
Ha ha ha, it’s the little science fiction funny.
Or is it?
For speciation to occur, some segment of a population must be put under pressures different from and/or in isolation from the main group. Historically this has been accomplished by geography. Not only was Welles on to something in “The Time Machine”, I recall a paper I read about a year and half ago from an biologist of some sort speculating that humans were already showing signs of branching into two species. I’ll share if I can track it down. We are eventually going to make actual physical child molesting cannibal trolls going down this path. Way to go Georgia. I hate pedophiles as much as the next sane person, but this is a really bad solution. It WILL exacerbate your social ills. It’s just a matter of how long decline will take.
This gives new meaning to the “screw the earth” movement. But mutha natchuh already has a plan.
http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2009/09/new-climate-catastrophe-policy-triage.html
Did we not have an elected official from Georgia that just loved his mule?
With the exception of child molestation, I think that the law has gone a lot to far.