Last night I was watching "Our America" with Lisa Ling on the OWN network. Have you guys seen this show? I would have NEVER thought that I would actually watch the OWN network, but the "Our America" one hour shows have been fascinating. Last week's episode was on the state of sex offenders. Sex offenders, and rightly so, are reviled in our society. They have done dirty, unspeakable, and disgusting things with minors. However, because there are sex offender free "zones" around schools, child care facilities, playgrounds, etc. offenders are sometimes hard pressed to find a place to live. In fact, it has driven a lot of them into the wilderness into tent camps. Tent camps with no running water and no electricity.
While I am watching, the thing that popped into my brain was that CP and I would be safe(r) if we ever had kids b/c we live so close to two schools. I'm sure that there are sex offenders in our town, but they would not be able to live right across the street. There would still be plenty of opportunities in other places, but maybe the risk is decreased because there may be less interaction? However, if a sex offender wants to re-offend, he could potentially do it wherever.
Despite the awful things that they did to children, do these people deserve to be pushed out into the outskirts of society? Do they deserve to live amongst their own feces? Without the modern amenities that we take for granted? Pushing them into the wilderness may keep them away from society, but does it keep them from re-offending?
I do believe that people can change, but sex offenders have the highest rates of recidivism. When I start to feel bad about how the sex offenders have to live, I then just have to think about their victim and how the assault most likely changed their life (and not for the better). And maybe once I have kids the balance will tip even further towards wanting to protect kids rather than feeling sorry for the sex offenders. But how far can you go to protect kids? There will always be dangers out there that you can't control. There is definitely no easy answer.
Thoughts?
4 comments:
A co-worker and I were having a conversation about this recently. It's a sticky situation. As depressing as this is, statistically most molestation happens within a family. The chances of an offender abusing a stranger actually aren't that high. And the notification system is great, but what do you do if you live in a house and an offender does move in across the street? You can't exactly move. I mean, you can, but selling your house and just moving elsewhere isn't an easy thing to do.
So I wonder if the registry and notices and all really do that much. It doesn't keep offenders away from minor family members, people can't really do anything if an offender moves into their neighborhood, and they haven't really educated the public on the registry. They classify offenders as predatory or non-predatory, but I don't know exactly what that means.
I've been DVRing Our America and really love it. Always loved Lisa Ling's personal journalism style. We saw the episode on sex offenders, too.
I think you need to distinguish between a sex offender and a child abuser. A child abuser is a sex offender, but the opposite does not necessarily hold true.
I actually felt pretty bad for a lot of the sex offenders. I don't feel bad that we want to keep our societies safe from all criminals. But, I don't think we really know how to process criminals after they're released from jail. Could be sex offenders, burglars, drug dealers ... we just don't have a good system for rehabbing the ones who can be cured and for handling those who cannot.
Those are very interesting thoughts on the subject as a whole. I'd never thought about living near a school in that way, but I will now! (Especially since we're in the market for a home).
There really is no easy answer when it comes not only to sex offenders, but other criminals as well. I understand the idea that once someone has served their time for their crime, they should get another chance, and that might work sometimes, but more often than not, with our flawed prison system, people are way too likely to commit a criminal act again, making trust and understanding a hard thing to develop.
Post a Comment