Scarlet Letter
April 15, 2007
Alabama Legislator Proposes “Sex Offender” License Plates If punishing sex offenders in this country hadn’t already become a full-on witch hunt, it’s certainly getting to be that way. I completely understand the concerns that parents have, but treating sex offenders as though they are fundamentally more “evil” than any other violent criminal would be laughable in its shortsightedness if it weren’t so dangerous. With regard to everything from drug offenses to sex abuse to murder, more and more the people of this nation believe in punishing people, not doing a damn thing to discover the genesis of this crime epidemic in the first place.
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First, I agree with your assessment, Matt. But the specter of the sex offender as evil incarnate will NEVER be out of the minds of most parents. I have a solution for sex offender regulations that are constitutional and provide the least bit of resistance. But first, let me tell you why license plate identifications are HORRIBLE, and goes well beyond the “scarlet letter” you have signified in your title.
Without a doubt, when most people associate “sex offender” with “child rapist murderer”, or at LEAST that association comes with regard to their own children. Therefore, by putting a license plate on their car signifying them as such, you will CLEARLY create a VERY DANGEROUS situation.
First, let me say that most people, when they see a car with a sex offender plate, their heart immediately races and their adrenaline goes to town, so right off the bat, their driving control will be affected. Now note: I said when they see a car with a plate, NOT if they see a sex offender!! You see, sex offenders may have families who also need to drive the car, and they have children whom are also going to be passengers in the car. So right off the bat, those people will be in JUST as much danger as the sex offender.
You see, I don’t think the legislature understands the concept of “road rage”. That is, simply, a situation where people whose adrenaline has been affected by bad drivers, where they react, usually subconsciously, by responding to the bad driving event with one of their own. Perhaps speeding up to tailgate, or to pass and cut off, or any other form of retribution that can endanger not only the drivers and occupants of both vehicles, but of OTHER vehicles and pedestrians in the area.
Do you see where I am going? Put together the fact that most people’s blood will race when they see something that represents a very consious threat, a sex offender, with the fact that road rage usually results from said responses to threat.
Result: Many cars will be run off the road, and many people will be hurt or die. While most people would not complain and actually cheer the death of an offender in this manner, and perhaps exonerate the road rage driver in a court of law, what would happen if INNOCENT people were hurt or killed? (I’m using the term “innocent”, by the way, to differentiate the offender from non-offenders; technically, the offender is just as “innocent” as any other citizen).
I’ll be honest: if I see a car with a plate myself, I don’t know WHAT I’d do. If I, a rational person with a healthy interest in maintaining safety for my own children and family, can be brought to the edge by such a sighting, what would happen if the person ALREADY unstable, or perhaps former victim, decides (or reacts) to run the car off the road?
I’m not even talking about the obvious things, like vandalism, because many people wouldn’t care if this happened. I”m strictly talking about the actual safety of the other drivers and pedestrians themselves with regard to the law.
I’ve been long winded here, but I hope I’ve given food for thought to other people. Do we truly want to risk the lives from PROVABLE cause (road rage)? I mean, what is the TRUE upside of having a license law for sex offenders that can justify those provable risks?
If this column is active, I will post my solution, which involves adding an amendment to the US Constitution which would create Sex Offender Colonies where all sex offenders would have to live and work once they’ve been released from prison. The amendment is necessary because it involves curtailing ex post facto, first, fourth, fifth, and eighth amendment rights of the offenders.
I’ve worked with sex offenders, self-harmers, dangerous psychotics and the just plain violent.
Of those 4 groups, the first are impossible.
The drive is too deep, the scheming so clever, the time they will take so long.
I have had to open the door for a guy who I knew was going to go and abuse some children that night. I had no legal grounds to detain him. He knew, I knew. There was nothing I could do. He went to court, agreed to “treatment” and when he was told to go he laughed when he got back to the unit and left to “celebrate” no doubt.
These are dangerous dangerous people.
My wife has worked with the most dangerous in the UK and in all her experiences, they are the worst.
She went to one unit and on her first day was told not to be worried about the murderers – they had got who they wanted. The rapists were pointed out and she was told to be very careful indeed because they were not finished.
I believe sex offenders should be known, be findable.
I believe child sex offenders should never ever be let out of a secure penal institution. Never. They cannot be treated.
How do you treat sexual urges? You can’t. If you can’t treat then you control.
To have the right to life in a community you need to have the responsibility to do so.
If you can’t handle the responsibility you lose that right.
It’s that simple in the end.
What a crock Mark.
Get a life.
Turn off Dateline:Predator.
Stranger danger does not exist, it lurks in your family and friends.
Will you visit them in their secure penal colony?
Mark—I’ve heard the same from others who’ve worked in your field, and I believe it. I think the aforementioned idea of sex offender “colonies” is a bit extreme, but I do believe that if we really believe a sex offender is dangerous for life, we should make the penalty match that reality. To me, it is disingenuous for US lawmakers to suggest that marks on driver’s licenses, fluorescent-green license plates, or mandatory registries and community notification are really appropriate solutions. If they are dangerous for life, they should be in prison for life. The steps we’re currently taking to try to isolate and identify sexual predators work neither to deter crimes from occuring in the first place, nor to stop repeat offenders. A special license plate is such a politician’s answer to a societal ill.
Matt,
My purpose for writing my initial commentary was not to defend sex offenders from having to get special license plates. It is my very real and valid question for vehicle safety that leads me to believe that the requirement for offenders to display sex offender plates can lead to road rage as I described above, and my concern was frankly for innocent citizens in other cars or on foots around the potential road rage contact point.
Now, you said that offenders should be in jail for life, and I find that sentencing on a whole is finally getting to that point. However, there are over half a million sex offenders in the country who have ALREADY spent their sentence in jail and are now either on probation or, in many cases, free of the correctional system altogether except for the requirement to register. In my opinion, we need to segregate them from society, and to do that legally, it has to be done within Constitutional contraints. That is why I am in the process of creating an amendment to the constitution to restrict the residency, employment, and communications of ALL registered sex offenders to that of sex offender zones, or colonies, for the remainder of the time they have to register.
Nobody wants sex offenders to live in their neighborhoods, or even their cities. I’m a parent, and I would fight tooth and nail to prevent sex offenders from living anywhere that children may live.
Unfortunately, these sex offenders have rights. If they are not in prison, they will probably get the ACLU to sue the city and we will have to spend thousands of dollars defending the restrictions.
The ONLY thing, therefore, is to create an amendment to the US Constitution, creating sex offender colonies to restrict where these convicted sex offenders live in the first place. How to do this?
The first thing that needs to be done is to create an outline of such an amendment. I looked at the process for how an amendment is created. Here is the process:
Under Article V, there are two ways to propose amendments to the Constitution and two ways to ratify them.
To propose an amendment
1. Two-thirds of both houses of Congress vote to propose an amendment, or
2. Two-thirds of the state legislatures ask Congress to call a national convention to propose amendments.
To ratify an amendment
1. Three-fourths of the state legislatures approve it, or
2. Ratifying conventions in three-fourths of the states approve it.
I would submit that the state legislature route would probably be more effective, but the congressional method can be tried first. It can effectively be used as a litmus test for voting, i.e., if someone doesn’t want to vote for proposing the amendment in congress, their 2008 opponent can have a field day in saying that the incumbent protects sex offenders at the expense of children’s safety, etc.
Such an amendment would solve many problems. First of all, the registry would not exist in its current form. Parents don’t have to worry where the monsters live, as they all would, by law, have to live in the colony. This also eliminates the need for GPS, as the sex offenders would be restricted to the colony in the first place. No worries about convicted child molesters stalking your children’s school or favorite park, or trolling on the Internet.
Next, registrants would constitutionally have to be subjected to non-court ordered search of their premises within the zone. In addition, all their mail and phone calls would constitutionally be authorized to be monitored for illicit activities. Internet usage would also be strictly regulated, with all file storage for every computer actually done at the server-level. In addition, emails would be assigned by the administration, no Instant messaging or accessing MySpace or other children sites allowed, and all keystrokes and sites visited will be recorded 100%. All costs for such usage would be borne out by the offender, incidentally.
All registrants would be required to work, with their paychecks being handled by the administrators. Deductions for medical, rent, all services, and everything else would be done automatically, and any credit the registrant have be used for discretionary income ONLY from the colony store. Also, EVERY registrant will be required to go through treatment appropriate to his crime, and be certified as cured; otherwise, he can be subject to a felony charge and returned to prison.
Now, please keep in mind one thing: The sex offender colony is NOT…repeat…NOT a replacement for tough, appropriately long, non-paroleable sentencing guidelines in the first place! THAT IS PARAMOUNT. The colony would exist because society cannot handle the large amounts of offenders in their neighborhoods, with the inherent terror parents have with the knowledge that offenders are around their children. Therefore, the colony is SPECIFICALLY for offenders to spend their entire registration periods in a constitutionally-approved manner, eliminating the need for registries as they exist now.
Keep in mind, many offenders also are able to leave the registry for certain crimes after a specified amount of time has passed. Therefore, once a registrant’s time period has expired, he can petition the administration to be relieved of the duty to register and live in the SORERA zone. A panel of professionals, law enforcement individuals, and the offender’s victim representatives, will go over the request. If they feel the offender is ready to join society, then he can leave the zone and live anywhere he wants, although he will have to permanently register with law enforcement wherever he goes for the rest of his life. Bear in mind, also, that any registrant who has to register for life will NEVER get the opportunity to leave the zone. Only the most benign of the registrants will ever be allowed to leave.
Incidentally, I am working in conjunction with some of Nancy Grace’s fans and hopefully, she will introduce such an amendment this summer.
Genarlow Wilson
Exactly.
Boooooring. You need to start adding more interesting stuff to your website. Maybe a game where you are a monkey at the zoo and you fling poo at people watching you. You would have to control your diet to make sure the poo has the right consistency and stuff. You are good at programing, you could do it!
The poster who suggested that the U.S. adopt a constitutional amendment for sex offender colonies is obviously off his rocker. If he did his research on exactly who can make it onto the list as thoroughly as he researched the process of a constitutional amendment, he would know that the majority of “registered sex offenders” are low risk and do not pose any risk to children. He has obviously fallen for the political and media line that a registered sex offenders = a child molester. Of course, those of us who have done our research know just who is getting posted to these lists, and they’re not molesters waiting in the park or playground waiting to grab children.
Stranger danger has been extensively overplayed and for all this poster’s concern that parents are concerned about child molesters, may be he should realize it is those said say parents, relatives and close family friends who pose the greatest risk to children, not the strangers.
But maybe it’s too difficult to get around the fact that most abused children are abused by their own families and not the guy down the street.
I think if we were to strap a peter meter on on a random sample of the
american public, if that were possible, I’d bet the farm that the
needle on the meter would be all over the place if you’d subject the
subjects to child ####. hmmm!
Very true. Scarlett letter for the “sex offender”. With the laws that are being passed, and the fear that comes to everyones mind when the word “Sex Offender” is spoken, unconstitutionality comes to mind. There are so many different circumstances involved when it comes to “Sex offender”. I am a survivor and also by the legal sense sex offender. I was abused as early back as I can remember at the age of 3, by my biological father. At the age of 15 he actually raped me til the age of 16, where good friends of me to open up. He spent 6 months in jail and 6 months in a mental institution and the state droppped the charges! I had no self esteem or self worth. When it came to sexual situations, I blotted out what was going on and didn’t know how to say NO! Then I met a man just like my father. His first words to me was “I’m an alcoholic” My response “so what” There was no fidelityin the marriage, and he only thought of one thing. Lots of mental abuse in the marriage. Drugs and alcohol through out the marriage! By the time I got out of the marriage, I was a full blown ADDICT. Divorced him because he got another woman pregnant, and he convinced me that if I left the marriage he would get custody of the child. Then went right back to him! One night totally drunk, in my room. He brought a female in the house whom I believed was 18. 2 secs of touching on my part, and I’m branded for life. Found out later that she was a minor, along with finding out my ex had a bunch of porn of minors, along with the fact he RAPED an 11year old. My life was a disaster. Lost my children to the state. Testified against my ex, spent year in jail and year in a alcoholic treatment facility. After all this transpired, my life has changed in every sense of the word. I have custody of my children, been sober 10 years, and doing my best to give my children a good life. HOLD IT. I also live in fear, my information is out there for anyone to find, one of my children was at school, and someone brought up the offender website for the whole class to see for my 12 YEAR old daughter. She came home a wreck! Not including when the newspaper printed my picture for the whole world to see and lots of people saw me, and of course it gets back to the school and children. Better yet, what am I to do now. My eldest child is driving and the citizens are pushing for a license plate that says “SEX OFFENDER” Not including the citizens are pushing for Driver License that says SEX OFFENDER across it. I go anywhere with my children, and what’s going to happen? When is this madness going to end. I don’t make much money, so I have no way to fight it. All I want to do is protect MY children. What am I supposed to do?