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The sex-offender registry can be a life sentence

newyorker.com

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Re: The sex-offender registry can be a life sentence

#71

Post by noxToken »

sersi wrote: post #12

In the fight against the great boogeymen of Terrorism and Sex Predation, the US has lost common sense. As a kid, when I was 8 years old, I played doctor with my neighbor, we we were both curious about each others differences and so we explored them. So, if I read this article, if this had been in the US, we could have been tried as sex offenders? How does this even make sense? Of course kids are curious about body di…

I'm gonna go against the grain here. I'll preface this by saying that I think all sex-offender cases should be handled on a case-by-case basis, and if we use a bit of common sense, things would be a lot better for everyone. Here's a scenario that is likely rare but plausible.

Some girl and boy both at age 15 could be sexting each other. Pics are exchanged, and the pictures are removed from the phone and placed on a computer hard drive. Neither party wants the pics found, so the classic, "bury the pics 10 levels deep in a made up directory that looks like a legit folder hierarchy" is used. A week later, the pics are forgotten about.

Fast forward 5 years. The hard drive crashes. The once teen has a few sporadic backups, but they haven't been regular. They go to a data recovery business. "I'm mainly concerned with the pictures and a lot of the text documents. Try to salvage as many of those as possible. Everything else is whatever."

The business gets to work and applies a could of filters to list of recovered media. Among the media exists 10 or so pictures of a young teen. He received them when he was 15, and he forgot about them. He had no intention of ever looking at them again. Hell, he would have deleted them ages ago had he thought about it, but now he has a hell of a story to explain to the feds.

I don't think teens should be prosecuted as sex offenders for exchanging pics of themselves with other teens, but I think the heart of the matter is in the right place. I don't have a solution to magically fix everything, because there are always going to be implications. Just don't ruins a kid's life for the truly innocuous mistake of exploring sexuality with someone of the same age.

Re: The sex-offender registry can be a life sentence

#72

Post by dragonwriter »

inetknght wrote: post #67
bambax wrote: post #16

> Her friend, who had just given birth to a baby girl, had logged on to the Michigan Public Sex Offender Registry Web site to search for local predators. "Sex-offender" registry is of course a total and complete abomination. But if you're going to write against it, maybe you owe it to yourself and your readers to not use the words of the enemy -- namely "predators". There are no "predators". There may or may not be p…

> There are no "predators" Unfortunately, you're wrong. While there might be far fewer actual predators than the registry supposes, there are indeed actual predators on the list. The problem is that the registry is abused by law enforcement and the public through misunderstanding and continued by lack of intellectual integrity. Why read any public case notes of convictions when all you need to know is that they're on…

The whole point of the registry is that it's supposed to contain only people that are perpetually dangerous; if it doesn't and you need to go to case notes to find that, then both the burdens placed on people for permanent registration and the consequences of being on the registry (which go beyond just being findable as a sex offender) and the existence of the registry itself are unjustified.

Re: The sex-offender registry can be a life sentence

#73

Post by tehlike »

buro9 wrote: post #32
tehlike wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For immigration, it could make sense, at least in a utilitarian sense. You are trying to eliminate false-negatives, and checking criminal background (in other countries) is one way to do that. Now, many countries (esp. developing ones) people get imprisoned for expressing their thoughts (which is a shame), but whether USA would/should care about this or not is a different question. USA has a quota on how many immigra…

In the case cited in the article, of a child who as a pre-teenager ended up on a sexual register, does it make sense? Would it make sense if a homeless child had been caught shoplifting for food in their teenage years and 30 years later had turned their life around and become a professional... does it still make sense? And of refugees, does it make sense to offer foreign governments a mechanism to prevent emigration…

I totally agree with you, but my point is, why would US?

Re: The sex-offender registry can be a life sentence

#74

Post by stagbeetle »

pc86 wrote: post #69
stagbeetle wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is strawmanning and hyperbole. Hastert "cannot be prosecuted for sexual abuse because the statute of limitations has expired for his conduct decades earlier."[0] This also goes against the ethos of the article. Hastert apologized (although this cannot make up for heinous deeds) for his conduct and showed regret. If we believe for the sake of argument that he is truly sorrowful and wants to turn over a new leaf,…

> If we believe for the sake of argument that he is truly sorrowful and wants to turn over a new leaf, who are you to deny him this? While personally I am in favor of these types of registries (ideally with quite a few changes), the argument is that if you are placed on a lifetime offender list, you can be as sorrowful as you want, you can never turn over a new leaf. You effectively have a life sentence even if you n…

> You effectively have a life sentence even if you never had to step foot inside a jail cell.

Thus, the first thing to change would be public perception about this issue.

Re: The sex-offender registry can be a life sentence

#75

Post by buro9 »

tehlike wrote: post #73
buro9 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the case cited in the article, of a child who as a pre-teenager ended up on a sexual register, does it make sense? Would it make sense if a homeless child had been caught shoplifting for food in their teenage years and 30 years later had turned their life around and become a professional... does it still make sense? And of refugees, does it make sense to offer foreign governments a mechanism to prevent emigration…

I totally agree with you, but my point is, why would US?

To deprive a foreign power of influence in the decision making process.

To enshrine in the process one of the myths of the American Dream in the form of potential for social mobility.

To judge based on the virtues of the individual, rather than to judge based on the legal domain from which the individual originates (you should know that different countries have different standards, is the USA an enforcer of every standard?).

Those are a few that spring to mind.

Re: The sex-offender registry can be a life sentence

#76

Post by noxToken »

Odenwaelder wrote: post #6

The US are getting weirder and weirder and weirder. I just can't wrap my head around Trump, gun laws, life-time sex-offender registries, the messed up health care system. Yet, I have only met absolutely nice, intelligent, loving americans, and I've met many. I feel sorry for them. They deserve better.

Because most of use are just normal people who want great things for the people around us and (at the very minimum) nothing bad for other Americans external to our circles. Most of us aren't hyper-political. We're not getting abortions by the truckload. We're not hoarding guns in a weapons cache. We don't hate foreigners. There are exceptions to all of the above, but we're mostly just regular people who lead relatively normal lives wanting good things for everyone.

Re: The sex-offender registry can be a life sentence

#77

Post by tehlike »

buro9 wrote: post #75
tehlike wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree with you, but my point is, why would US?

To deprive a foreign power of influence in the decision making process. To enshrine in the process one of the myths of the American Dream in the form of potential for social mobility. To judge based on the virtues of the individual, rather than to judge based on the legal domain from which the individual originates (you should know that different countries have different standards, is the USA an enforcer of every sta…

This is where my "utilitarian" comment comes in, for the lack of better word. There are thousands if not millions of people willing to emigrate, with many decorated ones.

I see this similar to "tech interviews" where an individual is asked for arbitrary algorithm questions (that are deemed hard). The idea is to eliminate false positives, even if it comes at the expense of false negatives.

I disagree with the current US view on "criminal history", for the reasons you say, it also makes me scared because of false convictions, for example. I also don't trust the legal system of another country, and i agree each case to its own. something that's illegal in a country could be considered a human right / freedom in the US. But i think i see the point.

Re: The sex-offender registry can be a life sentence

#78

Post by tehlike »

Retric wrote: post #40
tehlike wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For immigration, it could make sense, at least in a utilitarian sense. You are trying to eliminate false-negatives, and checking criminal background (in other countries) is one way to do that. Now, many countries (esp. developing ones) people get imprisoned for expressing their thoughts (which is a shame), but whether USA would/should care about this or not is a different question. USA has a quota on how many immigra…

This assumes the 'best' people are least likely to get arrested. I reject that idea as pushing boundaries is very common among the most intellectually gifted.

Nothing is black and white.

We might be talking about 5 gifted people for every 1000 people with criminal history. But US might be optimizing for 20 gifted people outside of that group, even if it means losing 5.

Re: The sex-offender registry can be a life sentence

#79

Post by Retric »

tehlike wrote: post #78
Retric wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This assumes the 'best' people are least likely to get arrested. I reject that idea as pushing boundaries is very common among the most intellectually gifted.

Nothing is black and white. We might be talking about 5 gifted people for every 1000 people with criminal history. But US might be optimizing for 20 gifted people outside of that group, even if it means losing 5.

Except we are looking for the extreme outliers. Bill Gates was arrested, Steve Jobs and Wozniak made blue boxes and they went on to be the 'model' Americans. Feynman is famous for breaking a host of security rules. So, you may be rejecting 50% of the top 1% of 1% of 1% in favor of those less talented.

Re: The sex-offender registry can be a life sentence

#80

Post by Retric »

stagbeetle wrote: post #45
Retric wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This assumes the 'best' people are least likely to get arrested. I reject that idea as pushing boundaries is very common among the most intellectually gifted.

In the same vein, you could say that the intellectually gifted wouldn't have gotten arrested in the first place, but pushed the boundaries to just before the tipping point. It could be a sign of recklessness and an inability to mesh with society. But, arguing over this is useless. The majority of the people who've been arrested are not the "best" people. They are usually from low socioeconomic backgrounds[0], i.e usu…

Criminal behavior is very wide spread, arrests are most common at the bottom. EX: How many top bankers have we arrested after the banking crisis?
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