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Comments

shelley

Amen, brother -- and I don't even have kids. But what really fascinates me is that, aside from the actual sex offender problem, there is apparently enough rampant drug use and (presumably consensual) sexual activity going on in the stacks to merit increased police patrols of city libraries. Who knew? (Not me, obviously.) Forget Craig's List; now I know where to hang out on a Saturday night when I'm looking for a "casual encounter." (*ahem*)

L

Call me a monster, but I really don't give a fuck about the civil rights of convicted sex offenders. I figure, you rape a person, you've made your choice. I'm strange like that.

carpundit

OK: you're a monster.

I must be a monster too, because if I so much as see a sex offender near my children, I'll shoot him dead on the spot.

theautoprophet

If lawas that register sex offenders who live within a certain radius around a school are OK, then laws requiring them to register in public libraries and other kid-heavy areas are probably OK too...

We could even give them a different color library card, say flourescent red.

But the ACLU will fight for the pervs until we pry their legal licenses from their cold, dead hands.

Ever wonder what would happen if the ACLU was a passionate about RKBA as it was about pervert protection? (hint--personal rocket launchers would be for sale at Wal-Mart)

Lis Riba

Curious how there are no comments in the article by librarians saying that they've noticed any problems or wanted this kind of help.

I heard that Florida is going to deny anybody on sex offenders lists permission to enter hurricane shelters in the event of emergency. Do you support that as well?

carpundit

Hurricane shelters? Yes. I support banning convicted sex offenders from public hurricane shelters, where the lights go out at night, families are in disarray, there is general chaos, and everyone is thinking about things other than keeping perverts off kids. It's a target-rich environment for a sexual predator. So let's just stop them at the door.

Lis Riba

So they should just die in hurricanes then?

Remember sex offender does not necessarily equate to child molester or predator.

And I still haven't heard any librarians say that this is an actual problem in the libraries.

Lis Riba

Back in 1999, California first put their sex offender registry online. I picked a county with a reasonable quantity of offenders to examine and http://www.osmond-riba.org/lis/essay_megan.htm has my findings.

I'll confess, I don't regularly read your blog (I found this from UniversalHub) so don't know how long you've lived in the Boston area. But there used to be a regular problem of police entrapping gay men by soliciting for sex in public cruising spots and then arresting those who said yes. And before Megan's list, lawyers often advised closeted clients it was better to plead guilty, accept a probation, and thus avoid publicity and being outed. Where is the threat?

If this is supposed to protect us from public menaces, why aren't there similar lists of convicted murders, who seem like a much greater threat than (for example) a 19-year-old who was having a consensual relationship with a 15 year old. But the latter is to be publically shamed, denied access to libraries and hurricane shelters, while the former walk around anonymously?

Where's the justice in that?

carpundit

Lis,
You make some very interesting points. I'll respond in bullets, for time:

1. There should be lists of convicted murderers who are let out of prison;
2. Most murderers should never get out of prison;
3. If we decide to be concerned about sex offenders in hurricanes, we could open a sex offender shelter; just keep them away from the regular shelter;
4. Librarians often don't know their asses from their elbows; they got so upset about the non-problem that was the Patriot Act business records order, that I can't be concerned whether they spot a problem or not. It's the patrons who should be consulted.
5. When I get a minute, I'll read your essay; thanks.

CP

carpundit

One more:

Yes, there are degrees of sexual criminality. The 19/15 consensual thing doesn't bother me nearly as much as some others, but until we can get a working registry and good compliance, we can't start shading things too much. Better to be overinclusive at first.

theautoprophet

Violent and sexual felons have, in my opinion, traded away their rights to societal protection.

No access to hurricane shelters, if mixed population is all that is availbile. No access to libraries.

Think about what these people *did* for a moment. It wasn't a "goof", it was a willful act.

Lis Riba

What you call "societal protection" I see as support structures designed to prevent recidivism. Which benefits all of us.

If we continue to treat ex-cons as lesser beings even after they've served their time, then what incentive do they have to stay on the straight and narrow?

I'm not talking logic here, just unremitting emotional weardown until it's no longer worth trying to make the effort because it's easier to live down to others' expectations.

Rather than lumping "these people" in a group, maybe this should be something left up to judges and sentencing -- showing a little human discretion rather than making blanket pronouncements based upon the label assigned the crime.

carpundit

Lis,

There's a difference between the two groups, "Ex-cons" and "sex offenders."
The latter is but a subset of the former. I think most of us in comments here are saving the most severe sanction for the murderers and sex offenders. I didn't see anyone wanting to ban car thieves from hurricane shelters. (Maybe from shelter parking lots....)

Serious sex offenders cannot be rehabilitated. They almost always repeat, if given the chance. We shouldn't give it to them.

CP

Lis Riba

There's a difference between the two groups, "Ex-cons" and "sex offenders."
The latter is but a subset of the former.

Actually, I picture the groups overlapping, like a Venn diagram.
After all, not all sex offenders are ex-cons.

The people I'd want to be protected from are the potential threats, and that includes some (but not all) sex offenders and some (but not all) ex-cons.

As I understand it, the goal of Megan's Law is to find a way to protect the public from further crimes by dangerous individuals with as few false-positives (in either direction) as possible.

If the list is intended as a tool for public safety, it needs an element of human discretion with inclusion determined by judges, juries or parole boards. Putting people who aren't threats on public registries not only harms those people but undercuts the effectiveness of the list as a whole.

Automatically including everybody convicted of a particular crime feels more error-prone (including non-violent sex-offenders and excluding those who might've pleaded to a different sentence) and less effective as a public safety measure.
That approach seems more like a Scarlet Letter means of shaming ex-cons or continuing to punish them after they've served their sentence, rather than a way to protect the public and prevent crimes. If we (as a society) prefer the former to the latter, let's be honest and upfront about that.

But if the goal is public safety and crime prevention, then I think discouraging them from public libraries is the wrong approach.

wavemaker

Gee sorry Lis, but there's a bg difference between hanging out in (the kids section of) a public library all day making use of the public Internet access and seeking refuge in an emergency shelter during a hurricane. No?

carpundit

What if we let them use the libraries during hurricanes?

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