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When exactly does it start being "cruel and unusual" punishment?
Some of you have no doubt heard me rant about the overkill of the way most places treat registered sex offenders.
Well, I just encountered a new one. A friend of mine is one (and no, I thought these things were wrong before I ever met said person).
My friend now has 45 days to move because a neighbor just got approved for a day care center. Lord only knows where my and the person sharing the house with her are , going to get the money to move, much less do first & last month's rent, etc.
Explain to me again how this and all the other BS is *not* extra punishment over and above the sentence passed by the court?
And it's not as if my friend is even *capable* of repeating the offense (physically capable).
And my friend, if you read this, *don't* out yourself.
Well, I just encountered a new one. A friend of mine is one (and no, I thought these things were wrong before I ever met said person).
My friend now has 45 days to move because a neighbor just got approved for a day care center. Lord only knows where my and the person sharing the house with her are , going to get the money to move, much less do first & last month's rent, etc.
Explain to me again how this and all the other BS is *not* extra punishment over and above the sentence passed by the court?
And it's not as if my friend is even *capable* of repeating the offense (physically capable).
And my friend, if you read this, *don't* out yourself.
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People like that are mentally ill and dangerous, and they should not be running around loose and unsupervised with no warning to their potential neighbours.
That's the idea behind the sex offender laws, and I agree with it, period, end of story.
The problem isn't that we're not willing to say to a man who has raped 5 kids under 12 "okay, we're going to forget about that now," because that is not something it is EVER appropriate to forget about. Once you've done that, I personally think they should lock you up and throw away the key. But if they need to let you out you should be watched.
However, these laws, which are perfectly appropriate to apply to dangerous persons we don't know how to cure, should NEVER be applied to people who are not dangerous. The problem is not that this law exists and some poor serial rapist never gets to be free to live next door to the girls' dorm again, boo hoo.
The problem is that the puritanical assholes who are currently in charge can't seem to tell the difference between guys who rape women with curling irons and teenagers who flash their tits or gay guys who fuck in the park. There needs to be an understanding that not all sex crimes are alike. Some of them, you really should never, EVER EVER be allowed to run around loose again after. And some of them should be a $100 fine and community service.
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And you'll note I said that we can't and shouldn't treat them as animals, because they're not. But.
What is the humane thing to do with people who are suffering from a currently incurable disease that compels them to harm others? They cannot be allowed to rejoin human society without supervision. It is unjust to restrict what materials everyone else may read, view, listen to on the grounds that it might set them off. They need to be kept away from that class of persons they are compelled to harm (children, women, elderly people, whatever group it is) and monitored professionally. Perhaps they can lead useful lives; this would be a goodness.
Some of them would no doubt choose suicide over a perpetually monitored existence. I am not an advocate of euthanasia personally, especially not in cases where an unconscious patient can't ask for it, but if we're going to allow doctors to do in their patients (um, did I mention I'm more conservative than most of Shadow's readers? well you probably figured that out by now), I think that paedophilia is definitely one of those currently incurable diseases that interferes with one's quality of life to a sufficient degree that persons who suffer from it might prefer euthanasia.
I don't think that I would choose that.
But I have no idea what it is like to be a paedophile. My sexual orientation is really boring; I prefer to have a single partner of the opposite sex (or at least an opposing gender--I have had at least one terrific crush on an FTM, but he was a man to me) no more than ten years younger or fifteen years older than me. (The number of years older or younger has varied with my age. When I was 14 I only wanted older guys; when I was in my mid thirties I preferred younger men; but at no point during my sexual life have I ever preferred anyone under age except when I myself was within 4 years of that age.)
And I am also one of those people who does not want to have the plug pulled on me, period. As long as people think I might be in there I want them to let me live. If they later do an autopsy and discover that my skull was full of fluid, well, so be it, I certainly wasn't suffering. If I had any incurable disease, I'd stick around as long as I could in the hope of a cure.
YMMV.
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18 is an INSANE age of consent.
I don't particular care whether the psychosis is sexual in nature or not, if someone is incurably insane in a way that results in them being compelled to commit violent crimes, they should not be allowed to run loose just because they've spent a certain amount of time in jail. But most serial killers do have a sexual component to their crazy.
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All of my neighbors like me with the exception of 1. Now because of that 1, I must move.
Cayenne
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Mistress Cayenne
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