Turning Children Into Sex Offenders
September 23, 2009 · By Jonathan McLeod
A little over two years ago, ESPN.com told the tragic story of Genarlow Wilson. Genarlow was homecoming king. He was popular. He was a football player being recruited by Ivy League schools. Then he went to prison. At 17, Genarlow had consensual sex with a 15 year old. Because of a quirk in Georgia law, Genarlow was sentenced 10 years. He was sentenced to 10 years without parole.
By grace, Genarlow is out of jail. He served 32 months before being released in the fall of 2007.
Genarlow and others implicated in this case were offered plea agreements. All but Genarlow accepted. They did little time compared to Genarlow’s sentence. Accepting the plea was the fast track to freedom, but accepting the plea meant becoming a registered sex offender. As a registered sex offender, Genarlow could not have lived in the same home as his little sister, so Genarlow couldn’t accept the plea; so Genarlow had 32 months of his life stolen.
Debates are emerging about the efficacy of sex offender registries. There’s a worry that the registries do little while giving a false sense of security. A worthy topic, certainly, but not the only important aspect of this issue.
If Genarlow had accepted the plea and become a registered sex offender, he wouldn’t have been the only child on the list. Look at this post at Classically Liberal, and see some of the children who have been turned into sex offenders by overreaching, if well meaning, laws. Look at the Sex Offender Registry card a child received more than 6 months before his 15th birthday.
Read these stories and weep, if you must, but then, get angry. Get angry at a system, a government, a society that does this to its children.
(H/T: Mark Thompson, Radley Balko and Jamelle)
Surprisingly the law in Canada would not have allowed this to happen, but it is the paedophiles that I worry about.
It is heartening to know that Canadian law does not do the direct harm to children that U.S. law does. However, there is still a question of efficacy and fairness of sex offender registries.
(Note: I edited this because I realized I left out the word “not”. Kind of changed the meaning of what I meant to write.)
Insane registry laws and restrictions did not prevent the perverts, Philip Garrido AND HIS WIFE from doing what they did! The registry laws, and especially the residency / work place restrictions, have done far more harm than good. Forget about all the cases of vigilantism and suicide; forget about the fact that while these laws are proposed to protect the children, they include children, while a huge percentage of those on the list committed crimes that had nothing to do with children; forget about the fact that study after study has proven these laws not only are ineffective, but have actually made matters worse. Forget about the fact that upon release from custody, sex offenders have one of the lowest recidivism rates, not the highest. In fact those who receive counseling and treatment have outstanding records versus those convicted of other violent crimes! The fact is the registry and any restrictions should be limited to those who are proven child molesters and pedophiles; that Law Enforcement could handle and monitor effectively. Do you seriously believe a committed pedophile cannot walk or drive 500, 1000, 2500, 5000 feet or more? Jaycee Lee Dugard was abducted miles from where Philip Garrido lived!
I am sure we will see comments from hysterical, uninformed individual(s) who will suggest that all those on the registry should be locked up for life or worse and say there is no rehabilitation for these people. And for a few they are right, we need to focus on those! Once a person has done their time that should be it. That is the foundation of this great country and its legal system. Don’t like it, move to China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, or wherever individual rights are ignored. If a person is a pedophile, lock them up for a long time and provide treatment. Treatment not working, keep them locked up. Many families are being destroyed for political expediency; children of those on the registry are being abused and ostracized at school. Whole families are forced into isolation and restricted from the work place. If the registry is to truly protect the children, then let’s focus on the pedophiles and child molesters’. Get rid of the residency/work place restrictions, focus on the loitering laws. Let the rest on the registry re-assimilate into society after they have done their time, become solid, productive citizens; part of the solution not the problem. The facts, (and the Garrido case) as well as virtually all of the research, and study after study have proven what we are doing now, mostly for political expediency and to appease hysterical uninformed parents is not working and is in fact making matters worse!
VDog, thanks for commenting. You have a lot of the same concerns that I have.
Jonathan, we also have to be careful that in looking out for the “rights” of the accused don’t supersede or neglect the “rights” of the victim.
In the case cited, the so-called victim entered into the situation with consent. While there may be regret (maybe not), there was no serious harm done against the person (generally speaking). In this situation, the court should have taken that into account unless it wasn’t given the room to do so. As real conservative noted, this is taken care of in Canada.
In other situations where a malicious crime is acted out, the concerns over the aggressor should not outweigh the interests of the victim as the reason I believe they are a victim is because they are either not in a position to defend/protect themselves, or are victims in trust/naivete and weren’t otherwise protected. This is where the role of society comes in to protect those who can’t protect themselves, or aren’t aware they needed protection. Sympathy for the devil at the expense of the victim can’t be allowed to happen.
Just my opinion.
Sean,
True, the Genarlow Wilson case that I highlighted is a tangled mess of a lot of different problems (an antiquated law that was updated, but not sufficiently; a “crime” that had no true victim; a subsequent law that did not address the situation retroactively), however, that does not negate a lot of the other problems with sex offender registries.
Sex offender registries come into play after the convicted serve their sentence (or serve enough to get parole) or (if they are not sentenced to a prison term) after conviction. There’s no issue of balancing the rights of the victim against the rights of the accused. The debate surrounds the manner in which these people are treated after they serve their time.
If the criminal justice system is to have a component that permits the possibility of redemption – which ours, generally speaking, does – do we not have to consider the impact that the continued actions of the state have on the lives of those who have fulfilled their sentence? Public shaming, egregious regulations regarding work and living arrangements, these are not the hallmarks of a system that believes in redemption. These are often instances or domains for inflicting further and eternal punishment on the convicted.
Further, if the intention is preventative, shouldn’t the recidivism rate of these types of offenders be analyzed? Re-integration into society can be better achieved through treatment and counseling than through a scarlet A.
If it is our wish to protect the specific victim and community that was affected by the original crime (rather than protect future victims), rules can be created to preclude the convicted from returning to their previous neighbourhood or town. Draconian measures that seriously hamper the prospects of re-integration serve no one.
That’s true Jonathan. Everything you’ve said. And mandatory designation of someone being a Sex Offender and included in a registry is something I oppose because it is wrong. It precludes the possibility of rehabilitation and unjustly further penalizes those who have been rehabilitated, or in the case of Genarlow Wilson (where it was a technical violation by an individual) where there is no victim and no (virtually and reasonably) chance at recidivism.
But, the registry does serve a purpose for those who are reasonably proven to be, or expected to become repeat offenders.
I have problems with how people could be placed on such a registry, not that the registry exists.
That being said, to return to my previous statement, I do not believe that the perpetrator is entitled to the same protections as the victim where harm is done. Especially if there’s reason to believe they may do it again. In that case, the victim and potential victims need to be informed and protected. Even if the person never does repeat the crime, that’s not a foregone conclusion and therefore should not absolve society and the authorities of their responsibility towards vigilance.