Sex Offender Registries and Further Punishment: The Thread

[Captain Jack Harkness]

If nothing else, I think it'll just encourage rapists to "hide the evidence."

Somehow suggesting that those who're smart enough to think to do that don't already.

Well, making things harsher sure the hell isn't going to do much to deter people with a problem severe enough to take things far enough where "death is warranted."

Also, that would be too logical, Ravenous.

[Distind]

Why not just make it possible to get OFF the registry?  Excepting cases where people ought not to even be put ON the registry in the first fucking place, give people on the registry a yearly evaluation.  If they prove that they're reformed, then take them off it.

Seriously.  This is NOT a hard concept.  Deleting records have been around since people first started recording data and making databases on -any- media, not just digitally.  Shit, nowadays, its 50 times easier to do that, and it wouldn't take much work at all.

Because it wouldn't accomplish a thing.

Give it 30 seconds after that passes, someone sets up a site cataloging historic sex offender registrations. Search there rather than the official place.

Frankly if you get nailed for rape, molestation or actual sex crimes I sincerely doubt reform is going to be a thing. Which is more or less where this thing came from. However the joys of mindless prudeness have pushed it to involve so much as forgetting to zip one day and getting charged with indecent exposure.

There's plenty of reason to reevaluate what gets you on the list, but I'm not sure what would get someone off of it.

[mellenORL]

Child molesters, especially, no longer hold a membership card with the human race IMO. That being said, I would feel better if my 79 year old child rapist neighbor had a permanently affixed security neck collar that would shock him unconscious if he got within 10 feet of a child. Maybe using video biometric ID software. Then I would like him to try and push the envelope - the shock would stop his nasty fucked-up heart.

[Auggziliary]

I would give death penalty for rapists but I think that would cause both the rapist and the victim to hide the evidence. Since most rape victims know their rapist, who might be a friend, relative, or partner, they might stay silent because they are still blaming themselves for their rape.

[Captain Jack Harkness]

I would give death penalty for rapists but I think that would cause both the rapist and the victim to hide the evidence. Since most rape victims know their rapist, who might be a friend, relative, or partner, they might stay silent because they are still blaming themselves for their rape.

Well, there's also the ethical concerns of putting someone to, y'know, DEATH.  I mean, molestation is messed up, but I really don't like all of the dehumanization going on in this thread.

[JohnE]

Well, there's also the ethical concerns of putting someone to, y'know, DEATH.  I mean, molestation is messed up, but I really don't like all of the dehumanization going on in this thread.

I agree with this whole-heartedly. I realize it's an emotional topic and a very traumatizing crime, but I'm surprized how many here are jumping on the death waggon.

[Auggziliary]

Sorry that sounded pretty cold.
I don't really have an opinion the death penalty yet. I just usually keep it an option in my arguments since it is obviously an option. I didn't mean to argue for it, since I'm undecided.

[mellenORL]

http://www.kmov.com/news/crime/Police-St-Charles-child-sex-abuse-case-one-of-the-worst-theyve-ever-seen-156119115.html

Read about that case. It's one of those litmus test things, it's so bad. Some acts are so heinous, it is hard to argue the high road, that society should be above capital punishment, that death is not a justified sentence. I don't think very many death sentences are really necessary, but some just are.

[syaoranvee]

http://www.kmov.com/news/crime/Police-St-Charles-child-sex-abuse-case-one-of-the-worst-theyve-ever-seen-156119115.html

Read about that case. It's one of those litmus test things, it's so bad. Some acts are so heinous, it is hard to argue the high road, that society should be above capital punishment, that death is not a justified sentence. I don't think very many death sentences are really necessary, but some just are.

No one was killed in that case.  Therefore a death sentence is unjustified in that case.  "Eye for an eye" is the way to go.

[Art Vandelay]

http://www.kmov.com/news/crime/Police-St-Charles-child-sex-abuse-case-one-of-the-worst-theyve-ever-seen-156119115.html

Read about that case. It's one of those litmus test things, it's so bad. Some acts are so heinous, it is hard to argue the high road, that society should be above capital punishment, that death is not a justified sentence. I don't think very many death sentences are really necessary, but some just are.

No one was killed in that case.  Therefore a death sentence is unjustified in that case.  "Eye for an eye" is the way to go.

That's a tad arbitrary. If you ask me, if the death penalty is to be used, it should be used only when rehabilitation is impossible, either because the criminal is beyond reform or it's simply too great a risk to release them.

[Askold]

http://www.kmov.com/news/crime/Police-St-Charles-child-sex-abuse-case-one-of-the-worst-theyve-ever-seen-156119115.html

Read about that case. It's one of those litmus test things, it's so bad. Some acts are so heinous, it is hard to argue the high road, that society should be above capital punishment, that death is not a justified sentence. I don't think very many death sentences are really necessary, but some just are.

No one was killed in that case.  Therefore a death sentence is unjustified in that case.  "Eye for an eye" is the way to go.

That's a tad arbitrary. If you ask me, if the death penalty is to be used, it should be used only when rehabilitation is impossible, either because the criminal is beyond reform or it's simply too great a risk to release them.

On theoretical level I'm gonna agree with Art. I would also like to add that until we have a way of being 100% certain that the convicted person is guilty I will oppose death penalty. Sometimes courts make mistakes, sometimes the court and the police are corrupt. I'd rather not make a mistake we can't undo.

In fact, we have already discussed people who end up in these registries due to minor and non-harmful things like pissing in a place you only thought was private, but I am also certain there are people who are falsely convicted. How hard is it for them to get off the list?

[chitoryu12]

It takes no effort at all on Google to find dozens and dozens of cases where people were falsely convicted of crimes as high up the ladder as rape and murder. Sometimes they were even convicted based on DNA evidence, which was later found to be incorrect. Any laws that give an automatic death penalty to people for particular crimes, even with DNA evidence, will inevitably catch innocent people. I don't think anybody can justify killing innocent people for the crimes of others just out of emotional rage at particular crimes.

[Jack Mann]

I'm perfectly all right with child molesters being put to death.  That said, I don't trust our judicial system to always find the right person.  I would rather lock up the molester than chance letting an innocent man be executed.  You can always release a prisoner if the courts make a mistake.

[mellenORL]

I donate money to the Innocence Project, because I strongly agree - over and over again, wrongly accused people have their lives ruined and are in fact murdered by the state. No doubt, many thousands of innocent people have been wrongly executed around the world from botched or corrupt evidence gathering by police and prosecutors over the years. I am not meaning that to include victims of dictators, rouge states etc.- just "regular" first world criminal prosecutions.

In the child rape case I linked to, it looks pretty much open and shut. The man who forced his penis into his 7 month old daughter's vagina while the mother held her down confessed immediately, plus rape kit evidence confirmed, immediately. It wasn't like the all too common scenario of police using psychological torture (8 to 16 hour aggressive interrogations) to force a false confession. If we don't execute someone like that, due to taking the high road, I understand, but I don't like it. A new, more "humane" Devil's Island? Sentence them to life in induced coma (Glasgow Scale 3 or 4)?

[JohnE]

That's a tad arbitrary. If you ask me, if the death penalty is to be used, it should be used only when rehabilitation is impossible, either because the criminal is beyond reform or it's simply too great a risk to release them.

Then why not just keep them locked up? What practical purpose does killing them serve that keeping them locked up for life does not?