Megan's Law

[Whoha]

Originally posted by Japher
Thing is, these people aren't just child molestors. The site doesn't discern between a child molestor, a rapist, or some guy who locked himself out of his house naked and was arrest for indecent exposure.

I'm pretty sure said idiot could petition that his name be removed from that list and added to the dumbass list.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly
You know what's going to kill programs like this?

Eventually, somebody is going to sue the state of California, claiming that the state's disclosure of sex offenders living in their neighborhood caused property values to decline. And that will be the end of Megan's law, because this is America.

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by GePap


Fine, give them life in prison then.

I was just saying what research suggests. And possibily they should be locked up for life. However, I think that we feel that is unfair (with the idea that even if someone feels those desires, that they can still choose not to act on them).

Jon Miller
(the evidence also says that if rehabilitation is tried when the sex offender is young (like a teenager), than there is some chance of training it out of their system)

[Jon Miller]

and yah, when I say sex offender I am basically saying peadophile and the like

not a guy who masturbates in public or something

Jon Miller
(also I don't consider 14 and teh like peadophilia, I think there should be some different description for sexual acts with minors who have reached puberty)

[Agathon]

I always thought that the main problem with these laws (besides the fact that they are popular with right wing nutters who attempt to suppress their own sexual self doubt and inner perversions by inflicting draconian punishments on the "evildoers") is that they violate the notion of proportionality.

Whatever your theory of punishment, be it Kantian or utilitarian, particular punishments are supposed to be proportional to the offence committed. Allowing the public to inflict additional punishments by exposing released offenders to personal risk and discrimination violates that proportionality by introducing a large amount of arbitrariness into the equation.

By all means keep sex offenders in prison, if there is no other means of preventing them from committing crimes. But encouraging baying vigilantes is not going to make things better.

I always love the self-appointed "community leaders" who push for these sorts of laws. Invariably, they are irritating and egomaniacal busybodies.

[Brundlefly]

Originally posted by GePap


And it is exactly people with children, who are not rational about the issue, who should not be making the decisions.

The majority of people in society have children. Therefore they are entitled to make decisions for society at large.

Do you have any idea what kind of responsibility it is to raise a child? Maybe you or others would not take such a responsibility seriously, but I believe most people take it so seriously that they would die for their children. How irrational is it to use all means necessary to take care of such a responsibility? It is in the interest of society at large for people to ensure the safety of their children by whatever means necessary. Children are our future. They are the ones who will take care of us when we are old. What does a child molestor do for us? Drains us of our taxes to support his prosecution and incarceration. The safety of a child trumps an ex-con's need for secrecy about his past.

You are simply guarding a principle by taking this position. I am guarding a child's safety.

Its not an issue of "having kids", its an issue of making sure society and individuals both are safe- again, if child molestation is deemed so horrible a crime, then harsher punishment is warranted-but be upfront about punishment, instead of tyring to make shame a weapon.

Shame is part of the weapon and can be used as a deterrent for those considering committing a crime.

Do you honestly feel like you need to go to great lengths to protect the rights of a child molestor who had preyed on an innocent child, took away that child's rights, and caused them psychological harm forever?!

*

Put down your Nietchsze and read some Sartre. An individual is 100% responsible for his situation. An individual should accept full responsibility for his actions and their consequences. There are no excuses. This is what a child molestor must realize..

[GePap]

Originally posted by bfg9000


The majority of people in society have children. Therefore they are entitled to make decisions for society at large.

The mayority of people aren't rich- I guess you would support taking the money of the wealthy away then-

Do you have any idea what kind of responsibility it is to raise a child? Maybe you or others would not take such a responsibility seriously, but I believe most people take it so seriously that they would die for their children. How irrational is it to use all means necessary to take care of such a responsibility? It is in the interest of society at large for people to ensure the safety of their children by whatever means necessary. Children are our future. They are the ones who will take care of us when we are old. What does a child molestor do for us? Drains us of our taxes to support his prosecution and incarceration. The safety of a child trumps an ex-con's need for secrecy about his past.

Boo Hoo HOO. Yes, I do not doubt for a second that you care for your kids, that most people do as well, and you want all the best for them. You know what thought? That is not the point. What if YOUR CHILD was prosecuted for a sexual offense- would you like to think this is his life, having to behave in a manner not expected of any other ex-cons? You think the crime is so heinous, then why would you let them out of prison? Cause you don;t want to pay for it? But then you are OK with letting them live next to you, as long as you know?: And what would that do for you? Would you sleep safe at night, knowing? Your statement seems to indicate otherwise, than in fact you would missuse than info- and would you do ANYTHING? Yes, I am sure when you are in prison your children will be much better off not having the child molestor next door.

You are simply guarding a principle by taking this position. I am guarding a child's safety.

No you are not- you are reacting out of fear and undermining freedom for percieved safety- and we all know how that ends- you will get neither.

Shame is part of the weapon and can be used as a deterrent for those considering committing a crime.

So is mutilation- should we cut thief;s hands off?

Do you honestly feel like you need to go to great lengths to protect the rights of a child molestor who had preyed on an innocent child, took away that child's rights, and caused them psychological harm forever?!

YES. You know why? because said person went to prison for their crime, the time YOU, throught your legislators, felt was the correct response in order to pay for his sins. If you think that is not enough, write your state legislature, demand they increase the prison terms.

Put down your Nietchsze and read some Sartre. An individual is 100% responsible for his situation. An individual should accept full responsibility for his actions and their consequences. There are no excuses. This is what a child molestor must realize..

Put down your Satre and read Locke, or the federalist papers. People's rights as citizens matter more to society as a whole than your feelings as a parent, because in 100 years you and your children will be dead, the but Law lives on.

[Whaleboy]

The majority of people in society have children. Therefore they are entitled to make decisions for society at large.

No, while I disagree with democracy full stop, if you have a democratic society, it goes as far as the law, but justice is still performed by independent judges, indeed in matters such as this they are the best sources of balance, and will generally (or at least ideally) take balanced decisions. Using democracy in your argument is a fallacy.

Maybe you or others would not take such a responsibility seriously, but I believe most people take it so seriously that they would die for their children. How irrational is it to use all means necessary to take care of such a responsibility?

Thus far supporting my point, that parents cannot be given the power to decide these people's fate. Civilisation is all about balance, to give parents all powers possible to raise their children would destroy the economy, reduce rights and artistic licence and pretty much collapse society.

Drains us of our taxes to support his prosecution and incarceration. The safety of a child trumps an ex-con's need for secrecy about his past.

Actually no, if a childs safety is threatened by an ex-con, he should not have been released from jail, that he is is the states declarations of that person's innocence. That works better for the more severe crimes, when time of release is further from time of incarceration and clauses of rehabilitation are added. That it "drains our taxes" is frankly a stupid argument to use in this, if you accept that justice has to be about objectivity, balance and reasonable measures. To use that argument does result in state-sponsored vigilantism.

You are simply guarding a principle by taking this position. I am guarding a child's safety.

Bull. No child is being saved by your argument, you are motivated by (to go on past experience) some measure of emotion against the criminal and some measure of revulsion against the crime. No-basis for an argument, but of course we're not discussing your motivations. If we don't have principles and applied concepts then why have any laws or principles at all? You're all happy and dandy whenever a concept agrees with you, or they rap it up in the flag, but when it works to protect someone you don't like, oh no the **** hits the fan and people start to want the removal of all the barriers to the actualisation of their wrath, never mind the pretty principles. Answer? Actually understand the principles involved and be aware of the consequences, hence no-one who knows what they're talking about takes the logic of taxpayers money in this debate seriously.

Do you honestly feel like you need to go to great lengths to protect the rights of a child molestor who had preyed on an innocent child, took away that child's rights, and caused them psychological harm forever?!

No disrespect intended but that's emotive BS, designed more to appeal to peoples hearts and testicles than their reason. I value the concept of innocent until proven guilty, of the concept of libertarianism (to a point) and the notion that when one has served ones debt to society and been punished according to their responsibility, then they're absolved of the need to be further punished. If you want to talk about Sartre, that's far closer to his argument than your bastardisation. You seem to be assuming that the criminals have not been punished, and yet, you release someone from prison, they are once more free men and not elligible to be punished. Or would you say that consequences of responsibility should outweigh the responsibility itself and that accordingly, these people should be made to suffer for life, out of all proportion to their offense, and how they are deemed by the state?

Put down your Satre and read Locke

Or better yet, Machiavelli

[Arrian]

quote:
Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly
You know what's going to kill programs like this?

Eventually, somebody is going to sue the state of California, claiming that the state's disclosure of sex offenders living in their neighborhood caused property values to decline. And that will be the end of Megan's law, because this is America.

He speaks truth.

-Arrian

[Imran Siddiqui]

You are simply guarding a principle by taking this position. I am guarding a child's safety.

Yes, the child's safety overrides ALL rights! People should not be able to buy knives because they may fall into the hands of children who may hurt themselves! Bad words on TV corrupt kids and thus should be banned! Their safety is in danger, let's shred the Constitution!

"simply guarding a principle"

[DanS]

Eventually, somebody is going to sue the state of California, claiming that the state's disclosure of sex offenders living in their neighborhood caused property values to decline. And that will be the end of Megan's law, because this is America.

This is looking at it the wrong end 'round. People have every right to government information that would bear on their property values. If a murder happens in a neighborhood, then property values will plunge. Rapes and the like are the same way. Now you might say that past misdeeds are past misdeeds and don't predict future misdeeds, and I might agree with you. But this doesn't seem to me to be the government's decision, but rather the people's decision. Perhaps some crimes have higher recurrence than others and we would develop algorithms to create neighborhood-specific or address-specific risk profiles.

All of this increased information is good to my mind. Again, I follow the small town model where this information is known (if informally) and judgments are made on an individual basis. I see absolutely nothing wrong with the way small town society treats these things and find it quite artificial for the government to aid and abet moves by convicted felons to move to a different areas for anonymity. Just because you're in a city, and cities tend to foster anonymity, doesn't mean that the government should make the situation worse by artificial secrecy.

By and large, the US is letting more sunshine in to government matters that impact people's lives. You have the Freedom of Information laws that have proliferated recently. These are extremely positive to my mind and I don't believe law enforcement should be exempt from this positive trend.

[Az]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly
You know what's going to kill programs like this?

Eventually, somebody is going to sue the state of California, claiming that the state's disclosure of sex offenders living in their neighborhood caused property values to decline. And that will be the end of Megan's law, because this is America.

That's Brilliant!!!!!!!

[Brundlefly]

Originally posted by GePap


The mayority of people aren't rich- I guess you would support taking the money of the wealthy away then-

Do you have any idea what kind of responsibility it is to raise a child? Maybe you or others would not take such a responsibility seriously, but I believe most people take it so seriously that they would die for their children. How irrational is it to use all means necessary to take care of such a responsibility? It is in the interest of society at large for people to ensure the safety of their children by whatever means necessary. Children are our future. They are the ones who will take care of us when we are old. What does a child molestor do for us? Drains us of our taxes to support his prosecution and incarceration. The safety of a child trumps an ex-con's need for secrecy about his past.

Boo Hoo HOO. Yes, I do not doubt for a second that you care for your kids, that most people do as well, and you want all the best for them. You know what thought? That is not the point. What if YOUR CHILD was prosecuted for a sexual offense- would you like to think this is his life, having to behave in a manner not expected of any other ex-cons? You think the crime is so heinous, then why would you let them out of prison? Cause you don;t want to pay for it? But then you are OK with letting them live next to you, as long as you know?: And what would that do for you? Would you sleep safe at night, knowing? Your statement seems to indicate otherwise, than in fact you would missuse than info- and would you do ANYTHING? Yes, I am sure when you are in prison your children will be much better off not having the child molestor next door.

You are simply guarding a principle by taking this position. I am guarding a child's safety.

No you are not- you are reacting out of fear and undermining freedom for percieved safety- and we all know how that ends- you will get neither.

Shame is part of the weapon and can be used as a deterrent for those considering committing a crime.

So is mutilation- should we cut thief;s hands off?

Do you honestly feel like you need to go to great lengths to protect the rights of a child molestor who had preyed on an innocent child, took away that child's rights, and caused them psychological harm forever?!

YES. You know why? because said person went to prison for their crime, the time YOU, throught your legislators, felt was the correct response in order to pay for his sins. If you think that is not enough, write your state legislature, demand they increase the prison terms.



Put down your Satre and read Locke, or the federalist papers. People's rights as citizens matter more to society as a whole than your feelings as a parent, because in 100 years you and your children will be dead, the but Law lives on.

If my child committed a sex crime, I expect him to accept full responsibility for his actions and their consequences.

Standards for prison terms are not created based on the length of time needed to rehabilitate an individual they are created with punitive measures in mind. So your argument of "make longer prison sentences" is not a solution to securing rehabilitation of sex offenders through prison systems. ExCons everywhere have to find a way to survive once they finish their sentence. No matter what their crime, their record hangs around their neck as an obstacle to their life outside of prison. Child Molestors need to face the additional weight of Megan's Law because the crimes they perpetrate are against innocent, defenseless children. Yes, it really sucks to be a criminal in our society.

I worked as a prison guard in a maximum security facility for 3 years. There is only a small percentage of the inmate population that take advantage of opportunities to rehabilitate themselves and be productive upon their reentry to society. And I was truly amazed at the number of repeat offenders come back into the system during my short career in Corrections.

I used the example of the tax drain placed by sex offender on society only to match his relative worth to society to that of keeping a child safe. Utilitarianism, in its most basic form, says that an action is good if it has a net gain on the happiness of a society. An action is bad if it has a negative net effect on happiness. As John Stuart Mill put it, "actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness''. I'm saying Megan's Law provides society with a net positive gain on happiness.

You also jumped to the same conclusion as Whaleboy in your assumption that people would take this information and become vigilantes when you implied that I would harrass a sex offender once I had identified one. I dont deserve that characterization and I dont believe that most proponents of Megan's Law do either. I would use the Megan's Law information for making decisions about my children's movements and social interactions within the neighborhood. That's all. There may be a small minority who would use this information to harrass and ruin the lives of sex offenders. ON the flipside, without Megan's Law, there maybe another Megan Kanka that gets killed under the cloak of a sex offender's anonymity. Which would we rather deal with as a society?

[Whaleboy]

If my child committed a sex crime, I expect him to accept full responsibility for his actions and their consequences.

No-one said otherwise

Standards for prison terms are not created based on the length of time needed to rehabilitate an individual they are created with punitive measures in mind. So your argument of "make longer prison sentences" is not a solution to securing rehabilitation of sex offenders through prison systems. ExCons everywhere have to find a way to survive once they finish their sentence. No matter what their crime, their record hangs around their neck as an obstacle to their life outside of prison.

And yet in other cases without being turned into pariahs they are still allowed to be judged on virtue of their abilities. That the state would release people who haven't been rehab'd and then effectively leave protection of children up to the community is firstly disproportionate and hit&miss, and secondly a sad indictment on the ability of the state to maintain an effective justice system. The arguments against Megans Law stands, but it's an argument against the state for endorsing and not the proponents, latterly their proposal is somewhat determinable and understandable (the desire to protect ones children as the motivation), but the government has other concerns and it is frankly idiotic to adopt it. Of course, in a democracy one would expect such idiocy in government .

Child Molestors need to face the additional weight of Megan's Law because the crimes they perpetrate are against innocent, defenseless children. Yes, it really sucks to be a criminal in our society.

Why do they need to face this additional weight? The fact that innocent children are involved does not change the responsibility of the perpetrator any more than if the victim was an adult or an elderly person. You point is another example of the disproportionate influence of parents attempting to influence justice. If the government should protect children and not what is effectively mob actions.

I worked as a prison guard in a maximum security facility for 3 years. There is only a small percentage of the inmate population that take advantage of opportunities to rehabilitate themselves and be productive upon their reentry to society. And I was truly amazed at the number of repeat offenders come back into the system during my short career in Corrections.

That is largely an American problem where i believe rehabilitation is somewhat unfashionable, and the cause of abuse is unaddressed.

As John Stuart Mill put it, "actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness''. I'm saying Megan's Law provides society with a net positive gain on happiness.

An example of Mills classical utilitarianism that he later rejects for something that looks like preference utilitarianism which would disallow something like Megans law. Classical utilitarianism is useless, unless you want 100% democracy, in other words, those that cause unhappiness to be eliminated, common prejudices and hatred in the people endorsed by the state (i.e. "we don't like a minority population like Muslims, let's kill 'em all"). The point is irrelevant, unless you contradict yourself and endorse such vigilantism.

You also jumped to the same conclusion as Whaleboy in your assumption that people would take this information and become vigilantes when you implied that I would harrass a sex offender once I had identified one. I dont deserve that characterization and I dont believe that most proponents of Megan's Law do either.

People invariably will. I am not saying that all will, but do you honestly think it will be anything less than a sizeable fraction? Multiply that by the number of people with access to this information and you have yourself a very unstable situation. As I said earlier, the assumption that people will act intelligently is one of the most unintelligent assumptions one can make, certainly should not be enshrined in law! Particularly so when children are involved.

ON the flipside, without Megan's Law, there maybe another Megan Kanka that gets killed under the cloak of a sex offender's anonymity. Which would we rather deal with as a society?

One assumes that such ex-cons are being monitored by the state, which is a far better option. The bigger risk is that sex-offenders are driven underground by vigilantes, or the fear of vigilantes and it is *there* where there is the bigger risk.

This thread has been neglecting something. Abuse breeds abuse. It is often the victims of childhood abuse themselves that go on to abuse, if you had worked with such people you would know that many sociopaths possess the mental age of an abused child. Children do not learn by responsibility, they don't learn through logic or politics, they learn by rote and imitation. Address the cause of childhood abuse and prevent it from occuring through education, improving the economic situations of poorer communities and more emphasis on longer prison sentences with rehabilitation, and the problem will reduce. Look I know people that have worked with abused children, that are involved on the sharp end of things, so we can debate this all we like but it is their experiences that have real value here. A very strong indicator of childhood abuse is in the sexual nature and covert power-games in prepubescent childrens play. Children of all ages are dealt with by nurses and doctors who recognise the signs of abuse but can do absolutely nothing about it... you learn to accept that it is deeply engrained in the recesses of the Western consciousness, both in the US and UK and not to have some intellectually dishonest moral outrage, that in effect is little more than saving face. You think in terms of what will actually solve the problem and what will make it worse, and one thing is clear (incidentally I know this through research I am currently conducting into a thesis on a related topic), that parents, communities and tabloids cannot be trusted to protect the law by their own actions. I'm told that during the first witchhunts in Southern England a few years ago (when the News of the World published faces), many of those who attacked ex cons were subsequently convicted of abuse themselves. I cannot substantiate that, that and the pediatrician incident are relatively common knowledge among social services circles.

It's an endemic problem that will not be fixed by moral panic and emotionally motivated laws on the back of a tragic, but all-too-common kind of story; such that will result in giving power of decision to people who fundamentally cannot be trusted to do the same kind of job and use the same kind of restraint as a government. And ultimately what needs to be done is not what appeases the parents, or you or I sitting at our desks tapping at our keyboards with all the best intent in the world about freedom of information and utilitarianism, what needs to be done is that which will cease the abuse of children, and while it may be a popular law likely win politicians many votes, it's not going to protect children and it's not going to stop witchunts.

[GePap]

Originally posted by bfg9000

Standards for prison terms are not created based on the length of time needed to rehabilitate an individual they are created with punitive measures in mind. So your argument of "make longer prison sentences" is not a solution to securing rehabilitation of sex offenders through prison systems.

If you believe that sex offenders can be rehabiliated, then why do you need to know that they have moved next door? If you think prison is for punishment, aren;t you done with punishment, when you are done with prison?

ExCons everywhere have to find a way to survive once they finish their sentence. No matter what their crime, their record hangs around their neck as an obstacle to their life outside of prison. Child Molestors need to face the additional weight of Megan's Law because the crimes they perpetrate are against innocent, defenseless children. Yes, it really sucks to be a criminal in our society.

The issue is why sex crimes need addition restrictions not placed on any other crime- You are saying I child murderer, or abusive parent, should face less scrutiny than a child molestor for some archane reason.

I worked as a prison guard in a maximum security facility for 3 years. There is only a small percentage of the inmate population that take advantage of opportunities to rehabilitate themselves and be productive upon their reentry to society. And I was truly amazed at the number of repeat offenders come back into the system during my short career in Corrections.

If you are worried that repeat offenses of child molestation are so horrible than extra punishment is necessary, then why is incarceration, or being placed in state mental facilities not in order?

I used the example of the tax drain placed by sex offender on society only to match his relative worth to society to that of keeping a child safe. Utilitarianism, in its most basic form, says that an action is good if it has a net gain on the happiness of a society. An action is bad if it has a negative net effect on happiness. As John Stuart Mill put it, "actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness''. I'm saying Megan's Law provides society with a net positive gain on happiness.

How does Megan's Law increase happiness? You would be happy to KNOW a child molestro lives in your area? Does the illusionary happiness of knowing about the existance of the law overwhelm the real unhappiness it causes not only the victim of these regulations, but also those forced to KNOW this?

You also jumped to the same conclusion as Whaleboy in your assumption that people would take this information and become vigilantes when you implied that I would harrass a sex offender once I had identified one. I dont deserve that characterization and I dont believe that most proponents of Megan's Law do either. I would use the Megan's Law information for making decisions about my children's movements and social interactions within the neighborhood. That's all.

And how does that really protect your child from predatory molestor?

There may be a small minority who would use this information to harrass and ruin the lives of sex offenders. ON the flipside, without Megan's Law, there maybe another Megan Kanka that gets killed under the cloak of a sex offender's anonymity. Which would we rather deal with as a society?

All ex-convicts have "anonymity", as much as anyone does today- you spoke of all the repeat offenders- how dare society accept that any criminal be able to return to society to act again under saidf cloak? The man who killed Megan Kanka was obviously still criminally dangerous. What would have saved Megan is that that man would have remained in prison.