Know your neighbors (sexual predators)

i'm opposed to all that shit. if someone is deemed ready to return to society by the criminal justice system, then they shouldn't have their faces plastered on the internet for eternity. they don't do that with stick-up kids and murderers -- why are sexual predators somehow a different breed of lowlife? oh, right, because politicians can win points all day as "tough on crime" for inflicting draconian punishments against a group that absolutely no one will ever ride for. and before someone says that sex offenders are more likely recidivists than other felons, go and check the facts. it's a falsehood that's been recited so many times that it's because accepted criminology folklore. pedos and rapists obviously deserve to be punished, but having specifically harsh laws for them and them alone isn't justice.

young snitch wrote: i'm opposed to all that shit. if someone is deemed ready to return to society by the criminal justice system, then they shouldn't have their faces plastered on the internet for eternity. they don't do that with stick-up kids and murderers -- why are sexual predators somehow a different breed of lowlife? oh, right, because politicians can win points all day as "tough on crime" for inflicting draconian punishments against a group that absolutely no one will ever ride for. and before someone says that sex offenders are more likely recidivists than other felons, go and check the facts. it's a falsehood that's been recited so many times that it's because accepted criminology folklore. pedos and rapists obviously deserve to be punished, but having specifically harsh laws for them and them alone isn't justice.

This is because a little girl got raped and murdered by her convicted sex offender neighbor. If Megan's parents had known, perhaps her rape and murder could have been prevented.

There is obviously a lot of criticism on Megan's Law, but the fact that someone is released from jail isn't equal to that person being deemed ready to return to society.

its great there are so many schools around, as registered offenders aren't allowed to live within certain distances of them.

I would have thought it helps keep crime down too, such as drug dealing and gun-toting... In Chicago, gang/drug-related misdemeanors I believe are treated as felonies in School zones. I wonder if that law is federal or regional. Is it the same around here?

I've only moved into Prospect Heights two months ago, but I feel (and have been told by neighbors) its rather safe compared to prior years.

pitu wrote: http://www.fundrace.org/

is a different kind of quick access to public information

you can see about political donations by street/zipcode

Should I be just as fearful living near someone who donates to the GOP? :shock:

political donations have to be made public because of the laws limiting the amount individuals give to candidates. for example, a-rod gave $2000 (the max) to bush in '04. just another reason to hate him.

Sorry, I have no connection or experience with PACs or campaigns or contribution issues, and hope to steer clear permanently if possible. It does strike me as a privacy violation (of course limits strike me as a freedom violation), and I'd certainly rather keep that info to myself. Same principle as anonymous voting. And I personally don't care who gives money to what politician nearly as much as I care where the politicians stand on policy issues.

I enjoy this information being publicly displayed about myself.

It gives me the feeling that I am doing the brave thing by continuing to contribute to the losing Democratic national candidates. To me, it's sort of like going down with the ship...woman and children only to the lifeboats!

It seems like the root problem is recitivism, or repeat offences (whatever they are). Do something productive with the time spent by the person, and with the money we spend on keeping them, in prison, and it's less likely they'll commit the crime again, and be returned to the System.

And, if criminals (better: "people who commit crimes"; to say what they did, not who some think they are) will continue to be punished by publicity (for whatever wrong they did) once they're released to rejoin society, why bother to punish them first within in the privacy and with all the expense of a prison?

Of course, I'd be fearful of anyone who would do harm me or to my children, but it's a hard fact of crowded life that people have to be allowed (lest you kill everyone and play God, which some troll may here defend), to live somewhere. Knowing too much about my neighbors makes them too much like part of my family, which is too close for my comfort.

But, anyway, it's not clear to me what the logic is of the law treating sex offenders as threats apart from other offenders, since my kid could just as easily be killed as raped (God forbid). I do know, however, that very many people feel strongly otherwise, perhaps particularly once one makes it personal, when politicians make a part of the law the name of a victim.

escap wrote: It does strike me as a privacy violation (of course limits strike me as a freedom violation), and I'd certainly rather keep that info to myself. Same principle as anonymous voting.

Yeah, but... each person only gets one vote. Whereas when it comes to political donations, some people can "vote" with their wallet a lot more than others.

there's clearly a link between being a republican (at of least the socially conservative variety) and being a sex offender. self-hate, inability to come to terms with sexuality, whatever.

http://www.dkosopedia.com/wiki/Republican_Sex_Scandals

Now can we address the real issue? A search of political donations in 11238 yields the tantilizing fact that someone by the name of John Waters, who identifies himself as a filmmaker and made a $70 contribution to Howard Dean's campaign, gives his address as 633 Grand Avenue. Could it be that Waters has made his NYC piet-a-terre in our little corner of Brooklyn??

JJB wrote: Gotta agree with young snitch on this one. I'm sure that many people would feel safer, and in some cases perhaps even be safer, if only they had access to their neighbors' police records, psychiatric histories, and, well, any other documentation that might reveal an antisocial impulse or a reckless act; however, the law does not require that such information be made public about anyone except sex offenders. This is inconsistent, unfair, and very likely not justified by the relative number of people who are sexually assaulted by a repeat offender.

There may be a sensible reason to treat sex offenders differently from other types of felons. I am no expert on rehabilitation and recidivism, but I do not believe you can change a person's sexual preferences the way you can get a junkie-thief clean or get a fraudster to go straight. The best you can do with someone whose sexual behavior is criminal is to control that behavior and dampen urges to the point where they are hopefully no longer a threat. But neither society nor they themselves can normalize their brains.

NB: I'm not saying I support this practice by any means, but I am saying that if you're going down this road, it may make sense to do it for sex offenders first; it may be unfair in general, but it's not necessarily inconsistent or unfair to do it in that order if it's backed up by criminology and statistics.

Snitch, I think you may be right with respect to the percentages, but I think Megan's Law was originally directed at one group i.e. people who are repeat and unrepentant offenders that prey on young children.
Its turned into a law that focuses on anyone that has a been arrested for a sex based crime simply because this subject area is so sticky that no one wants to make judgments in terms of degrees.

So, should we be treating someone who is convicted of rape in a questionable date rape case the same way that we treat a man that has engaged in sex with 50 children under the age of 12 over a 25 year period? Probably not. It’s truly a slippery slope, and the current laws are imprecise at best, but I think that legislators operate from the perspective of preferring to limit the rights of the one "innocent" person if it means that they are effectively keeping children safer.

But I disagree with your view that having harsh laws for sex offenders isn't justice. The justice system has always been about degrees of criminality. Lying is less serious than stealing which is less serious than murder and the potential sentences for each are commiserate with their level of seriousness. While the placement of particular types of crimes on this sliding scale has changed over time, society has always recognized that some crimes are more horrible than others and deserve more punishment. Sex offenses happen to be in vogue in the 21st century. As society continues to evolve this will probably change again. It’s just the way of the world.