4 ms·

>We must avoid "one-size-fits-all" labels for those convicted of a broad range of offenses. I don't know what the author is going on about. At least in my stat

>We must avoid "one-size-fits-all" labels for those convicted of a broad range of offenses. I don't know what the author is going on about. At least in my state (WA), sex offenders are registered on a spectrum from I to III (most violent). >Mario was a sex registrant because, as a teenager, he inappropriately touched a fully dressed boy on two occasions. Uh... so her sympathetic example is a serial child molester? Note she does not say how old a "boy" or how old a "teenager" he was -- you can bet that the "boy" was probably under 7 and Mario was a 19-year-old, otherwise she would have given more details to make him seem more sympathetic (like she did with "fully clothed"). I am more concerned about the victims of our laws regarding petty drug offenses (i.e. small amounts of marijuana) -- those people are true victims.

mgkimsal 10y ago
> At least in my state (WA), sex offenders are registered on a spectrum from I to III I think your state may be unique, or at least in a minority. > Uh... so her sympathetic example is a serial child molester? There are much more sympathetic examples - teen boy having sex with someone who lied about her age: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/indiana-teen-zach-anderson-labeled-sex-offender-after-sex-girl-lied-about-age/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/indiana-teen-zach-anderson-label...
- fucking_tragedy 10y ago
  > 25 percent of people on the sex offender registry are under the age of 18. This is the money quote. These people's lives are ruined forever and they haven't even begun.
  - nostrebored 10y ago
    There lives have certainly begun enough to become a sex offender. Holding people accountable for the crimes that they commit means that we have hard and fast boundaries. Especially in the case of sex-crimes which are pervasive throughout our society. When you keep in mind that a large number of those people have likely sexually assaulted someone their age, do you feel differently? You can talk to me about "not-fully-developed brains". all you like, but as a 16yo you certainly have the capability to make the decision to not rape/assault/etc.
    - Nadya 10y ago
      >You can talk to me about "not-fully-developed brains". all you like, but as a 16yo you certainly have the capability to make the decision to not rape/assault/etc. It can be far more innocent than that. Such as sending nudes to your SO: you are now in possession of and distributing child pornography. Something that many, if not most, sexually active millennials have done at some point in time ever since people could send each other nudes on their cell phones.
      - nostrebored 10y ago
        This is also something that teenagers are being made aware of at a young age. I am a millennial, and I had tons of school-hosted discussions about the legal issues re: sexting. All of my friends knew that this was illegal. And I'd actually suggest that this happens less frequently than you think.
        Nadya 10y ago
        I'm referring more to Gen Y than Gen Z. I know "Millennials" often includes both depending on who you ask with Gen Y's typically using it to reference Gen Z's. (personal note: Gen X/Y/Z as naming scheme is silly IMO, but those are the terms) I remember no such discussion about sexting ever occurring - and I've attended more schools in more states than a typical military brat. I believe you that the current generation (referring to those who are currently 18 or younger) are educated on the subject or at least have school discussions around the subject. It's also entirely plausible I only attended prudish schools that wouldn't discuss such topics. :) Just stating that I had the complete opposite experience and in >14 different schools. E: I'm also not implying that the above accounts for most of the cases, just saying that some of the reasons for being "put on the list" are not satisfactory to my opinion and listed one such occurrence where I do not agree with it. With a few grey areas, I'm of the opinion that two consenting minors should be able to be sexual without fearing it could ruin their lives.
    - Oletros 10y ago
      > You can talk to me about "not-fully-developed brains". all you like, but as a 16yo you certainly have the capability to make the decision to not rape/assault/etc. having sex with your girlfriend or sexting is the same as rape/assault/etc?
- nosegoes 10y ago
  >I think your state may be unique, or at least in a minority. Fair enough. Ranking sex offenders in such a way should certainly be the norm.
graeme 10y ago
This is a poor reply. There are 50 states, each with their own policies. Your state may have better policies, but you can't make a national argument by generalizing from your state alone. And you're cherry picking a single example. The point is not that Mario is blameless – is that they effectively have a life sentence for a crime which did not carry a life sentence. And relatively benign offences like public urination can carry a life destroying sentence too. You didn't even address the misdemanour element.
- nosegoes 10y ago
  Cite an example of someone actually being put on the sex offender registry for benign public urination? I've read that this was a myth perpetuated by people masturbating who claim to have been "just peeing" EDIT: Less 500 people in a population of 150,000 could even possibly be on the registry for peeing http://www.familywatchdog.us/BlogView.asp?ID=1 http://www.familywatchdog.us/BlogView.asp?ID=1
- bargl 10y ago
  I can't reply to nosegoes directly so I'm replying to you in the hope that he'll see it. http://www.solresearch.org/report/Look_Whos_on_Registry_Now http://www.solresearch.org/report/Look_Whos_on_Registry_Now http://web.archive.org/web/20070315180914/http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17589219/ http://web.archive.org/web/20070315180914/http://www.msnbc.m... There is your example for public urination. I found other comments and stuff about people fighting to get these crimes reduced to disorderly conduct, but I figured they wouldn't hold weight for you so I dug a little deeper.
  - nostrebored 10y ago
    Juan Matamoros had been charged with two counts of Lewd and Lavacious behavior at the time of that article being written. Pretty highly unlikely that they were both from the single incident of public urniation. When you're publicly exposing yourself repeatedly, maybe you should be a sex offender? Man of the cases on solresearch mention that the people have been removed from the registry. Which I know has happened to one person who has serially had relationships with his underage students, starting at or before 16. He is no longer on the sex offender registry list because he convinced a judge that it was fine in his culture, and he didn't see the big deal. Anecdote, sure, but people act like the sex offender registry is something that brands you forever, which just isn't the case. And ignoring that the registry has been wildly successful at reducing child sexual abuse is a huge oversight. These edge cases, who in many cases have legal recourse, outweigh the lives of rape and sexual assault victims?
kafkaesq 10y ago
I don't know what the author is going on about. Yes you do. She was referring to the average case labeling of sex offenders -- not the outlier policies of your particular state. Uh... so her sympathetic example is a serial child molester?... You can bet that the "boy" was probably under 7 and Mario was a 19-year-old Your unnecessary hyperbolization of what happened -- going so far as to blatantly invent extremified details of the case, just to make it sound as nasty as possible -- is exactly the kind of unfair and vindictive response the author is addressing in the article.

mgkimsal 10y ago

> At least in my state (WA), sex offenders are registered on a spectrum from I to III I think your state may be unique, or at least in a minority. > Uh... so her sympathetic example is a serial child molester? There are much more sympathetic examples - teen boy having sex with someone who lied about her age: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/indiana-teen-zach-anderson-labeled-sex-offender-after-sex-girl-lied-about-age/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/indiana-teen-zach-anderson-label...

fucking_tragedy 10y ago
> 25 percent of people on the sex offender registry are under the age of 18. This is the money quote. These people's lives are ruined forever and they haven't even begun.
- nostrebored 10y ago
  There lives have certainly begun enough to become a sex offender. Holding people accountable for the crimes that they commit means that we have hard and fast boundaries. Especially in the case of sex-crimes which are pervasive throughout our society. When you keep in mind that a large number of those people have likely sexually assaulted someone their age, do you feel differently? You can talk to me about "not-fully-developed brains". all you like, but as a 16yo you certainly have the capability to make the decision to not rape/assault/etc.
  - Nadya 10y ago
    >You can talk to me about "not-fully-developed brains". all you like, but as a 16yo you certainly have the capability to make the decision to not rape/assault/etc. It can be far more innocent than that. Such as sending nudes to your SO: you are now in possession of and distributing child pornography. Something that many, if not most, sexually active millennials have done at some point in time ever since people could send each other nudes on their cell phones.
    - nostrebored 10y ago
      This is also something that teenagers are being made aware of at a young age. I am a millennial, and I had tons of school-hosted discussions about the legal issues re: sexting. All of my friends knew that this was illegal. And I'd actually suggest that this happens less frequently than you think.
      - Nadya 10y ago
        I'm referring more to Gen Y than Gen Z. I know "Millennials" often includes both depending on who you ask with Gen Y's typically using it to reference Gen Z's. (personal note: Gen X/Y/Z as naming scheme is silly IMO, but those are the terms) I remember no such discussion about sexting ever occurring - and I've attended more schools in more states than a typical military brat. I believe you that the current generation (referring to those who are currently 18 or younger) are educated on the subject or at least have school discussions around the subject. It's also entirely plausible I only attended prudish schools that wouldn't discuss such topics. :) Just stating that I had the complete opposite experience and in >14 different schools. E: I'm also not implying that the above accounts for most of the cases, just saying that some of the reasons for being "put on the list" are not satisfactory to my opinion and listed one such occurrence where I do not agree with it. With a few grey areas, I'm of the opinion that two consenting minors should be able to be sexual without fearing it could ruin their lives.
  - Oletros 10y ago
    > You can talk to me about "not-fully-developed brains". all you like, but as a 16yo you certainly have the capability to make the decision to not rape/assault/etc. having sex with your girlfriend or sexting is the same as rape/assault/etc?
nosegoes 10y ago
>I think your state may be unique, or at least in a minority. Fair enough. Ranking sex offenders in such a way should certainly be the norm.

graeme 10y ago

This is a poor reply. There are 50 states, each with their own policies. Your state may have better policies, but you can't make a national argument by generalizing from your state alone. And you're cherry picking a single example. The point is not that Mario is blameless – is that they effectively have a life sentence for a crime which did not carry a life sentence. And relatively benign offences like public urination can carry a life destroying sentence too. You didn't even address the misdemanour element.

nosegoes 10y ago
Cite an example of someone actually being put on the sex offender registry for benign public urination? I've read that this was a myth perpetuated by people masturbating who claim to have been "just peeing" EDIT: Less 500 people in a population of 150,000 could even possibly be on the registry for peeing http://www.familywatchdog.us/BlogView.asp?ID=1 http://www.familywatchdog.us/BlogView.asp?ID=1
bargl 10y ago
I can't reply to nosegoes directly so I'm replying to you in the hope that he'll see it. http://www.solresearch.org/report/Look_Whos_on_Registry_Now http://www.solresearch.org/report/Look_Whos_on_Registry_Now http://web.archive.org/web/20070315180914/http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17589219/ http://web.archive.org/web/20070315180914/http://www.msnbc.m... There is your example for public urination. I found other comments and stuff about people fighting to get these crimes reduced to disorderly conduct, but I figured they wouldn't hold weight for you so I dug a little deeper.
- nostrebored 10y ago
  Juan Matamoros had been charged with two counts of Lewd and Lavacious behavior at the time of that article being written. Pretty highly unlikely that they were both from the single incident of public urniation. When you're publicly exposing yourself repeatedly, maybe you should be a sex offender? Man of the cases on solresearch mention that the people have been removed from the registry. Which I know has happened to one person who has serially had relationships with his underage students, starting at or before 16. He is no longer on the sex offender registry list because he convinced a judge that it was fine in his culture, and he didn't see the big deal. Anecdote, sure, but people act like the sex offender registry is something that brands you forever, which just isn't the case. And ignoring that the registry has been wildly successful at reducing child sexual abuse is a huge oversight. These edge cases, who in many cases have legal recourse, outweigh the lives of rape and sexual assault victims?

kafkaesq 10y ago

I don't know what the author is going on about. Yes you do. She was referring to the average case labeling of sex offenders -- not the outlier policies of your particular state. Uh... so her sympathetic example is a serial child molester?... You can bet that the "boy" was probably under 7 and Mario was a 19-year-old Your unnecessary hyperbolization of what happened -- going so far as to blatantly invent extremified details of the case, just to make it sound as nasty as possible -- is exactly the kind of unfair and vindictive response the author is addressing in the article.