Where should sex offenders live?

The town of Dyersburg, Iowa has just passed an ordinance banning convicted sex offenders from entering their city limits at all. Sickos are sickos and we should keep a damn sharp eye on them, but at what point do these kinds of bans become unrealistic? It's easy to pass a new law barring them from this place or that place, but at some point we have to ask ourselves where they CAN legally be.
How far should bans on convicted sex offenders actually go? They're going to have to live SOMEWHERE so where should that be?


(Click here for the Dyersburg story.)
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IA_SEX_OFFENDER_BAN_IAOL-?SITE=VARIT&SECTION=US&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2005-12-20-01-24-47

Sorry, but whatever happened to paying one's dues to society and then having no further punishment. This whole "scarlet lettering" of sexual offenders is wrong on too many levels. It deals in a broad category, and thus snares many of the undeserved into its net. The guy who was drunk and peeing in an alley downtown, and got caught, gets the same treatment as the child molester. Secondly, while this sort of deal might be popular with regards to sex offenders, how long before they start applying it to other crimes? And finally, it is simply unAmerican. Once you've paid your dues in this country, your slate is clean. Anything else smacks of totalitarianism.

I agree about the unfairness of some sex abuse laws on the books, but the hard core, unable to be rehabilitated, recitivists should be in prison for the rest of their lives.

this is a tough question as a liberal and a parent. The problem with sexual offenders, they really can't be rehabilitated. The desire to engage in the act is always there. It's like trying to take a Gay man and make him straight, you can't. Or make a hetro suddenly prefer men.

The sexual preference of a child molester stays the same.

So what do we do with them? Do we round them up and force them to live in their own sectioned off communities? That would be leaving them to be a sitting target.

Do we keep it as the law is? Allowing them to live among communities but with exceptions? X miles from a school (which is consistently broken and not monitored).

How do we go about rehabilitating those who molest?

Do we educate ourselves about those who commit the act? (which seems reasonable to me) Should we be forced to attend some sort of awareness program that instructs us in what a pedophile is and is not?

What about those who are victims of sexual abuse? What do you say to them? It's a very a sensitive question, if pedophile can't be rehabilitated, and most studies seem to suggest they can't. Castration wouldn't work because you'd have to remove anything else a molester could use (use your imagination) to violate a child.

The first myth is that total strangers will abuse your child. Not true. The vast majority of child molestation is done by people who are known to the child, friends or family. It is much more likely that your creepy uncle will go after your child than the child molester who is just out of jail and living down the block.

The second myth is that child molesters have the highest rate of recividism rate of all criminals. Again, that is not so, that spot belongs to people who engage in property crimes, drug offenses and non-lethal assault. Also, there is some success in treating child molesters, either through therapy, drugs or both.

It is a tricky question, but I still think that once a person has paid their debt to society they shouldn't be continually punished. It is an unpopular position to take with child molesters right now, but if we don't take a stand on this issue now, it will start being applied to other crimes in the future. After all, if we apply it to pedophiles with their lower recividism rate now, why not apply it to drug offenders, or burglars or muggers in the future?

.....but i feel that once you've committed a rape or molested a child, you should lose your right to ever live in society again.

we can pretend to be open minded on this subject if we want, but if you have small children, would you want a released child molester to move in next door to you? personally, i don't think child molesters should ever be let out of prison.

they -- and we -- wouldn't have to worry about that, now would we?

I do know what you're saying, but these people have committed horrific crimes against women and children and if this is the price they pay, maybe they'll start paying attention.

They can live in towns that don't ban them... how's that?

people would stop murdering, we wouldn't need the death penalty.

people would stop speeding, we wouldn't need the highway patrol.

people would stop flying planes into buildings, we wouldn't need the patriot act.

people would stop voting thier psuedo-Christian morals, we wouldn't need the Republicans.

of any developed nation on the planet... oddly.

In fact, overall, the US crime rate is the highest of all developed nations. Whatever the US is doing to deter crime doesn't appear to be working. At all.

Perhaps people need to be responsible for their own behavior.

was my point.

And if people were responsible for thier own behavior, we could get rid of the lawyers.

Just for the sake of the story, let's say you're a convicted sex offender, have done your time, and kept your record clean since you've been released from jail.

You've been living in the same house for 10-15 years.

The city decides to pass an ordinance that states that sex offenders cannot live within X feet of a school. You live half that distance away from a school.

Now, because the law has been changed, and despite the fact that you have been following the law, you have to move.

Who is being unreasonable?

you can get a more focused argument. In Texas, a person can become a sex offender by getting caught having consensual sex with a high school girlfriend/boyfriend. I had a student in the state prison system who was in prison for 8 years for just that offense and will have to register as a sex offender when he is released. They were both 16. Truthfully, how many of us would be forced to register as sex offenders under similar circumstances?

It's not the first time that this has happened - consensual sex by two minors where only the male is charged with statutory rape. There was a case in MA a few years back where that male was charged was black and female (who wasn't charged) was white.

No discrimination there, nope, not a bit.

there a couple of years ago..

some forms of pedophilia are actually obsessive compulsive behavior, and are often NOT treatable.

there needs to be more 'real' research on this subject, and if they can be identified and can not be treated they need to be removed form society to walled communities. the OCD cases are not usually effected by even castration.. tho a sexual behavior it has no real sexual motovation, it is related to a mental illness

edit.. there is a prison there that paroles them to el paso. and it is easy for them to live there a study concluded

I (wife, mom, small business owner) spoke with every member of Council to oppose it. Didn't make a difference. This is all about providing citizens the appearance of safety and, like every other law based on appearances, it will fail.

:evilgrin:

Kill them.

Or for having had sex with your 17 year old girlfriend while being 21 yourself? These are lumped into the "sex offender" category as well, and it's sick. Unless you missed a sarcasm icon in that post of yours, you are one fascist fuck.

I am talking about rapist that attack women and children. Not some moron peeing in a alley.

Facist fuck? Maybe this stikes a little to close to home for you, you fucking piece of shit, is that why you are so angry? LOL

I take it you will then differentiate between who you'll kill or not?

Regardless, this relating to individuals who, having already served their sentence, are denied entry into whole cities, I think calling for their execution constitutes an irreconcilable differing in opinion and one which I do not wish to see anyone purporting to be of the same political stripe as I hold. I will say no more.

I'll do you the favor of not directly quoting your post, since, assuming it will be removed - though not through any action I'll personally take - that will lessen the chances that people find out how much of a retard you actually are. Unless you choose to make it clear soon again, that is.

As for the subject at hand, I hope the ACLU looks into it. This is clearly going too far.

In prison!