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I'm as disgusted by sexual predators as anyone, but I am not in favor of the registry as it is currently. It would only make sense to me IF:
1. Common sense was used regarding who is included on the registry (NOT the drunk who urinated in an alley and happened to be seen).
2. Other violent criminals were also included on the registry (Why just sex crimes? Why not assault or attempted murder, for example? I'd kinda like to know if my neighbor had tried to kill someone)
3. If there is such concern that the offender may commit sexual crimes again, then he should NOT be out of jail
We'd like to think it's rare, but honestly, though there aren't stats...kinda hard to have them I guess, I see a new news article everyday or so about someone who was falsely accused....those are just the ones we know about where someone's come forward and confessed or have been caught out...how many more don't we know about? It's TOO easy to falsely accuse someone. People believe that because there's no "evidence" there won't be a case...but it only takes an accusation from someone who claims they were 13 or under when the alleged incident supposedly occured. I read almost everyday where a family member or an accused person comes on a message board, asking, "How can this be?" "What do I do?" "I didn't do anything, and there's no proof, I can't possibly be put on trial!?!"....sad to say, Yes, you can, and you'd better get a good lawyer and start praying. Until it happens to you or someone you know...you won't understand, just how easy it is.
And people like brush it aside like it's nothing...it's not nothing...false accusations RUIN LIVES...plural. IT's a very big deal...and just one innocent person put in jail, or caught under this label is too many
It CAN'T be an incident that happens often because looking at the statistics most rape cases don't even make it to court out of the ones that do get reported, I know a girl that got raped in April, after almost a year of waiting with I don't know how many signatures on her petition, knowing where the guy lives, knowing the guy's name, with a $3,000 or $4,000 or $5,000 emergency room visit as a result of the rape that didn't make it to court. I don't see why people like you must belittle this terrible epidemic by bringing up false accusations and saying they happen all the time when clearly they can't when if RAINN is to be believed out of every 100 rapes in these past 5 years only 46 get reported to the police, 12 lead to an arrest, 9 get proxecuted, 5 lead to a felony conviction and only 3 spend a day in prison. How many false accusations can possibly make it that far? A lot of people don't even know they were raped or just try to nod it off, giving surveys without asking "were you raped"? rather "were you ever in any way coerced into sex" or "were you ever taken advantage of while drunk", they will answer yes, and that's rape, some weren't even aware at the time, so drunk they were passed out.
I will say I honestly don't know much about child molestation, but I do know of a danzante that was molesting children and they needed many kids to speak up. That's what they seem to generally need whether it's priests, teachers, coaches, etc. I'm sure that's a huge epidemic too, I don't know what stories you heard on the internet and what sites you go to, and I don't know how reputable they are, and I don't know what experiences you've had with this, but from the experiences of me, the people around me and the statistics I know from reputable organizations like RAINN, both rape and child molestation are huge problems that shouldn't be shrugged off with talk of theoretical widespread false accusations
In my opinion the way crime is handled, this retributive justice is awful, it doesn't really solve anything and doesn't seem to serve anything but the prison industrial complex, that's an entirely different issue, we need restorative justice just like we need to put a stop to these attitudes that make rape and child molestation so prevalent, and we certainly don't need to make every sexual deviancy a sex offense and stick people with an un-deserved label the rest of their life. But those are big projects. And I understand your concerns about false accusations but you need to understand just how big of a problem rape is and not just belittle it, because that's what you seem to be doing.
Depending on the level of the offender yes.
a convicted rapist or diddler of kids yes.
a 18 year old messing around with his 16-17 year old girlfriend no.
Why do we protect these losers that go on to offend again? Are we that PC that we just want to protect the criminal from getting hurt? what about the victims? They always seem to forget the victims
I say once found guilty put the rapist or molester in old timey stocks and let society throw garbage at them for about a week. It would make the next molester think twice before he acts on his urges.
I'm certainly NOT "naive" and was not specifically talking only about rape as the statement included "Sexual Assaults" which covers a large swath of offenses of which any will put you on "the list".
I know rape is a tough issue for both sides, the accused and the accuser. I don't subscribe to the "boys will be boys" attitude nor do I subscribe to the "women are never at fault" attitude either it's rarely that cut and dried (obviously leaving out the unknown assailant behind the bush type offense).
Just for information I went and looked at the more current stats from the same source that was given and was actually surprised at what I found.
From FBI crime stats 2012:
All city groupings experienced a decline in forcible rapes except in cities with 500,000 to 999,999 inhabitants, which had the increase in forcible rapes (0.5 percent). Forcible rape offenses declined 6.8 percent in metropolitan counties and 9.0 percent in nonmetropolitan counties.
One other thing of note I found while looking at the Uniform Crime Stats and just as a surprising aside was this little nugget; For UCR reporting purposes, can a male be raped?
No. The UCR Program defines forcible rape as “The carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will” (p. 19). In addition, “By definition, sexual attacks on males are excluded from the rape category and must be classified as assaults or other sex offenses depending on the nature of the crime and the extent of injury”
I still stand by my original belief that reporting of Sexual Assaults is not as low as is insinuated by the posts above.
Why must they use the term forcible rape? It's redundant, it implies that there is rape that isn't forcible, rape is by it's very nature forcible. In my opinion this whole 'forcible rape" newspeak only exists to serve an agenda, goes along with this talk of "legitimate rape" and "how it doesn't get women pregnant"
And I bet FBI stats are only taken from rapes that are convicted which is extremely low as echoed in the RAINN stats I posted earlier, I mean how else would the FBI gather data, unless they use NCVS data
[SIZE=2]"Because the new methodology mainly affected data only from rural areas, comparisons to prior years can still be made for urban and suburban areas. These show that the rate of sexual violence remained stable between 2005 and 2006. Urban and suburban areas experienced a total of 166,615 sexual attacks in 2006, an increase of less than 5% over 2005, which is not considered statistically significant. "[/SIZE]
As for the bit about male rape it is unfortunate about gender roles doing that, male rape is a problem too, not as often but the ones it happens too are even more afraid to report it because their masculinity will be mocked, definitions do need to be changed and attitudes need to be changed for that as well
Sex offenders have to register where they live for life. It's a crime that's so abhorrent, that YES their addresses should be public. They are the scum of the Earth.
Sex offenders have to register where they live for life. It's a crime that's so abhorrent, that YES their addresses should be public. They are the scum of the Earth.
Except when it's someone in your family or that you know who's offense has nothing really to do with the label.
All offenders on the list have committed "abhorrent" acts? Not hardly, are there some? Sure. Does that list protect anyone? Not as of yet that anyone's been able to show. Has it hurt people? Yes as has been proven many times.
Easy to jump on a popular band wagon, much harder to make sure that bandwagon is actually going in and maintaining the right direction.
Sex offenders have to register where they live for life. It's a crime that's so abhorrent, that YES their addresses should be public. They are the scum of the Earth.
Moreso than someone who bludgeoned a person with a hammer repeatedly and left them for dead? Why shouldn't this bludgeoner have to be on a registry when he is released from prison?
It CAN'T be an incident that happens often because looking at the statistics most rape cases don't even make it to court out of the ones that do get reported, I know a girl that got raped in April, after almost a year of waiting with I don't know how many signatures on her petition, knowing where the guy lives, knowing the guy's name, with a $3,000 or $4,000 or $5,000 emergency room visit as a result of the rape that didn't make it to court. I don't see why people like you must belittle this terrible epidemic by bringing up false accusations and saying they happen all the time when clearly they can't when if RAINN is to be believed out of every 100 rapes in these past 5 years only 46 get reported to the police, 12 lead to an arrest, 9 get proxecuted, 5 lead to a felony conviction and only 3 spend a day in prison. How many false accusations can possibly make it that far? A lot of people don't even know they were raped or just try to nod it off, giving surveys without asking "were you raped"? rather "were you ever in any way coerced into sex" or "were you ever taken advantage of while drunk", they will answer yes, and that's rape, some weren't even aware at the time, so drunk they were passed out.
I will say I honestly don't know much about child molestation, but I do know of a danzante that was molesting children and they needed many kids to speak up. That's what they seem to generally need whether it's priests, teachers, coaches, etc. I'm sure that's a huge epidemic too, I don't know what stories you heard on the internet and what sites you go to, and I don't know how reputable they are, and I don't know what experiences you've had with this, but from the experiences of me, the people around me and the statistics I know from reputable organizations like RAINN, both rape and child molestation are huge problems that shouldn't be shrugged off with talk of theoretical widespread false accusations
In my opinion the way crime is handled, this retributive justice is awful, it doesn't really solve anything and doesn't seem to serve anything but the prison industrial complex, that's an entirely different issue, we need restorative justice just like we need to put a stop to these attitudes that make rape and child molestation so prevalent, and we certainly don't need to make every sexual deviancy a sex offense and stick people with an un-deserved label the rest of their life. But those are big projects. And I understand your concerns about false accusations but you need to understand just how big of a problem rape is and not just belittle it, because that's what you seem to be doing.
I think the difference here is: in cases of alleged child molestation the 'proof" that's needed is scaled way back in some states. PA being one of them. I know that's not the case in all states, but I know for a fact that in PA it states (my paraphrase) that all that is needed for evidence is an accusation of someone who is under 13 OR claims they were when the alleged incident occured.
And I'm not belittling anything...
I think the misconception here is that I'm addressing adult rape, and I am not. A person can get on the registry for any one of over 200 'offenses" and my concern is primarily the fact that people can so easily be falsely accused of child molestation.
The reason being, is that I have a loved one who was falsely accused, and I know what we have all been put through because of it. I'm also a survivor of childhood sexual abuse...and it burns my britches that someone can lie about such a thing and ruin lives just for their own gain
Except when it's someone in your family or that you know who's offense has nothing really to do with the label.
All offenders on the list have committed "abhorrent" acts? Not hardly, are there some? Sure. Does that list protect anyone? Not as of yet that anyone's been able to show. Has it hurt people? Yes as has been proven many times.
Easy to jump on a popular band wagon, much harder to make sure that bandwagon is actually going in and maintaining the right direction.
Thank you!
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