Michael R.

Member since: May 22nd, 2007

Michael R.'s Latest Comments

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Recent Comments:

MySpace blamed for 2 middle school boys' groping incident (Download Squad)

Sep 26th 2007 11:12AM They not only will learn their lesson, they will pay for it the rest of their lives. For what they did, they will NEVER be allowed to do the following:

Join the military
Join any government service, like Peace Corps.
Live in most college dorms

In addition, they will find that for as long as they are on the registry, they will have to endure civil humiliation, harassment, potential vigilante justice not just against them, but their families, and in fact, live a life that is FAR WORSE than ANY level of parole, including for murder.

Yep, these two boys have done it, and they will wish they were in prison instead of on the registry.

MySpace sex offender crackdown is a start (BloggingStocks)

May 22nd 2007 2:54PM Question to John Brewington:

1. What was the sex offender's original crime?
2. Was the sex offender on parole or probation, or was he clear of the correctional system with only the requirement to register?
3. Why wasn't the sex offender re-arrested for initiating contact through MySpace?
4. Were the conditions to avoid registration, in your opinion, more to avoid community exposure, or to avoid residency restrictions (i.e., no way of affording a place in a legal zone)?
5. Other than pedophilia, was the sex offender mentally disturbed in other ways?

To be frank, if the offender has inappropriately corresponded with children in MySpace, his parole should be revoked and he should be sent back to prison. On registration issues, I would have to submit that if it was his inability to obtain housing in areas where he's financially able to reside, then the State has some liability in this particular instance. Indeed, in some parts of the country it is illegal for a sex offender to be homeless, which may not be his entire doing. (And no, you CAN'T say his original crime got him into this predicament, because that crime was paid for at the end of his court ordered criminal sentence). Finally, it sounds as if the offender was a bit touched in the head with issues not related to pedophilia. In this case, there should have been an assessment to that effect while he was in prison, but that's another story.

In my opinion, the laws against sex offenders are becoming more irrational. We have been focusing on harsher punishments, particularly after the sentence is served, rather than focusing on the OVERALL goal, which is to prevent child molestation and solicitation.

Here is the problem as I see it.

When a non-sex offender criminal is sentenced, he is sentenced for a specific time period. In most cases, part of his sentence period is spent as parole. Parole, in my opinion, is just as important as time spent behind bars, as (in a perfect world) parole would help the offender re-integrate into society, ideally becoming a fully productive citizen by the time his sentence is finished.

However, with various sex offender laws such as residency restrictions, buffer zones, GPS montioring, and Internet usage bans, rehabilitation and reintegration are actually PROHIBITED, not encouraged. With this type of mindset, it doesn't really mean a hill of beans whether the offender is actually repentant of his crimes, or is someone who doesn't care (perhaps like the offender in John's experience above). We as a society demand that they serve their full time, then when it's time for them to get out, we refuse to believe that they will act any differently than before their incarceration. Indeed, politicians talk about their presence in the community as if they were CURRENT convicts who should be behind bars, rather than as FORMER convicts who have served their time.

For a sentence to be truly effective, though, we need to start migrating away from our current single-time-period method, and instead incorporate a two-phase, two specific time period approaches.

The first phase would essentially be called the "punishment" phase. This phase is a specified time period in which the convict must spend a set amount of time with no parole. No "good behavior" or other forms of inducements, this is the real time that society should demand that an offender spend behind bars. Certainly, most sex offenses nowadays are being mandated that most or all of the time be served, or at least the trend is heading in that direction.

However, just as important as the punishment phase is the community "reintegration" phase. Note I don't say "rehabilitation phase", because rehabilitation would necessarily have to encompass both punishment and reintegration to be effective.

For most convicts who are NOT sex offenders, reintegration is not usually a problem for those offenders who WANT to rejoin lawful society. If a convict is truly repentant, had "learned their lesson" and "paid their debt to society", then current society is, in general, very forgiving. Of course, some options remain unavailable to all felons, but at least they aren't shut out of society in general, and certainly not on a registry.

Please note: Punishment, acceptance of rehabilitation, and finally reintegration into society are the three main components of such a criminal justice policy.

We praise citizens who, after committing a crime and spending time in jail, lead a crime-free life starting a business, mentoring children, etc; in general, showing the world that redemption for certain individuals can be attained.

However, as currently set up in most of the US, it is virtually impossible for sex offenders to reintegrate into society. With such roadblocks, society is essentially saying that they don't want to deal with the sex offender problem in the first place.

I've been long-winded, but I wanted to provide some points that have been sorely omitted from most of the sex offender debates. Most offenders can, and do, have their behavior changed upon conviction and rehabilitation with a well-qualified therapeutic process. As the laws become more and more intense, I would hope that communities would at least consider the actual level of threat a registered sex offender actually represents, as opposed to arbitrarily coming up with laws that will soon be judged unconstitutional.