Why Protect The Guilty

I've noticed a lot of news blurbs about sex offender registry lists, and the websites they're posted on, being unfair to the offenders, even violating their civil rights.

Do you know any sex offenders? I've gone through the state site here and found a few acquaintances and most of them didn't, in my mind, do much wrong. See, according to Illinois law, if a guy is seventeen and his girlfriend is fifteen they can have all the sex they want because they are presumed to be at about the same maturity level. In other words, they're both teens so neither one is really taking advantage of the other's naivete. But once the guy turns eighteen then the sex they've already been having becomes a criminal act, punishable by jail time and lifelong registration. The problem is that the legal terms listed on the offender lists don't make much sense to the average person. What is the difference between Criminal Sexual Abuse and Criminal Sexual Assault? And even if a person is able to decipher that the "abuse" charge is the current wording of what used to be called Statutory Rape, the registry often doesn't list the victim's age, or only lists it in a vague categorical sense (Victim between the ages of 13 and 17). Well if you're nineteen there's a bit of a difference between sex with a thirteen year old and sex with a seventeen year old. So I have my problems with the list as it stands; I think it should somehow differentiate between predatory offenders and college kids who kept their high school girlfriends. But I understand why we have the online registry lists, while apparently some people don't.

We have the list so that parents, like myself, can check every once in a while to see if maybe there's a pedophile living down the block, or to make sure that this weekend's sleep-over party isn't being held at the home of a rapist. Yeah, I know; the registry only shows the ones who've been caught so the chance is still there regardless. But it gives me a chance to at least keep my daughter away from a portion of the perverts out there and it bothers me when people get upset that it exists. I'm sure that it must be difficult to be a registered sex offender, to have your name and crime on a website anyone can look up at will. I'm sure it comes with some pretty extreme prejudice and even the threat of violence. But although I'm sure many pedophiles and rapists are fine upstanding people I also believe that all people are judged by their past behavior and actions and no one will ever convince me that sex offenders are the one group who should be exempt from that universal truth. And does the threat facing registered offenders from the general public even come close to the threat these people may POSE to the general public? My daughter is young; she can't help but look young and it is readily apparent to anyone who sets eyes on her that she is young. What is not readily apparent to anyone is whether or not the guy on the bench at the park wants to violate her. See, the predators want a level of anonymity their victims don't have, and I don't buy that.

It must be a bitch to have the cops at your door every time a kid goes missing or a woman is raped. It must be a hassle when your kids' friends aren't allowed to come over and play. And getting dirty looks at the grocery store when all you want to do it buy your food and leave must be pretty humiliating. But that's the price you pay for your sins. Having the urges is not a crime, and no matter how offensive those urges may be to the rest of society it shouldn't be a crime. Thoughts are not criminal acts; actions are. And once a person chooses to act on the urge to grope a kid or force someone into having sex with them, they take on the risk of getting caught and paying the price. All the dirty looks and restrictions are part of that price. And if it's hard to see your kids being told that their friends can't come over then do the right thing and move out of the family home. It's probably best that the children not live with a sex offender anyway.