Heartland

I just saw a feature in telly about Megan's Law. It is basically about preventing convicted sexual offenders to live in anonymity after their release from prison.

"Every parent should have the right to know if a dangerous sexual predator moves into their neighborhood." That is the core principle of the law: parents should know when a sex offender moves into the neighborhood so they can protect their children.

I would like to know what my fellow Heartlanders think about this law. And if you'd like to see a law like this in your homecountry too?

Will it help?
As it´s not exactly difficult to travel long distances today, local knowledge doesn´t help much.
If this has any effect at all then it may be some deterrment.
Then there is a wide span of personalities involved in sexual crime. From the pissed of mid-forty virgin who spontaneously wants a shag when severly drunk to the paedophil and the psychopath who gets arroused by aggression. Treating them all the same way doesn´t come up with the problem.
I expect a law like this to be absolutely worthless.
I say no.

That quote you gave there points specifically at paedophiles.
Am I wrong to think that most cases of child rape are committed by family members of the victims at home?

It's a law I disagree since I believe that if you served your time your punishment should be over. However from the supporters of this law they tell me that 'studies' have shown that those who commit this type of crime have a higher chance of repeating the same type of crime again. Personally I am not sure how true that is since I haven't studied it greatly.

On one side you have concerned parents and anyone who has a child would actually support this type of law, while those without children just don't see the need for it. So there is two sides of the coin.

However, the methods that parents find out is usually very discreet and it's not like someones picture is posted up on a telephone pole with a big warning sign for everyone to see. It's usually a letter sent home with the students for their parents to read and a picture of the person and letting them know about the person and to keep the information to themselves.
Usually the children do not know and neighbors without children do not know either.

Also agreeing with Eotunun about 'will it help?' I don't think so. I also think that if you have done your time you have the right to move on with your life.

The future will just bring more and more incidents of children being molested if we as a society do not stop the encouragement of it. If you look around, movies, music, models, etc.....all embrace you. How many older men were thinking about what they would do to Britney Spears when she first came out on the scene, what was she, 15 at the time

Exactly what is a parent going to do to 'protect' their child? That's always puzzled me...

Stay away from that house? "But Mum, I was planning to go and break in there!"

Sex offenders are not nearly punished hard enough; and the 'therapy' is by no means a cure - a LOT of recidivism.

Punishment to fit the crime? Guilt and a HUGE stigma, consequences for the rest of your life !!!! YES !!

i'd just like to remind that what you people seem to happily forget and ignore is that sexual predators (ehh) are not doing it for their own gain, they are doing it rather involuntarily because of an inner impulse. So there goes your alleged humanism down the drain...not even an attempt at understanding the phenomena, not even an attempt at understanding nature...and most probably, you are proud of this closed-mindedness as the topic is so unpleasant. (Have to add, i suppose, that of course there are such who are merely victims of modern day pornography and whose senses have been overexcited and are themselves to blame for their uncontrollable urges...i am not talking about these people, they are scum).

Is it a psychiatric illness? i have no idea. All i know is that it's an uncontrollable impulse so far as i've come to understand.

i think nature is an overwhelming phenomena and perhaps people are not supposed to over-protect themselves against it. Some people, beings, will always be victims and some will be predators. Victims of sexual abuse have a particular starting point in life, just like everyone else does. People have of course the right to protect themselves against it, but ruining the life of such a creature because of social concern is downright inconsiderate.

But what i am certain about is that the whole thing is made much worse with the hype surrounding it, and sexuality in general.

So. i have no suggestion on what should be done, but i do suggest an attempt at understanding a fully natural phenomena without mob mentality and with a clear head.
Perhaps a stay at a psychiatric asylum, but then, God only knows what goes inside those institutions and i am certainly against ALL kinds of "medicines" that deal with perceived imbalances. Besides, with the attitude people have towards psychiatric patients, i'd think the social stigma of being in one is enough to lessen much of the good effect such treatment might otherwise have.
i have the priviledge of knowing one young doctor who works in an asylum and unfortunately she is one of the coldest human beings i've met. Her attitude at care is to look at the chart for the proper dosage of a chemical, and in her private life she acts much like in the hospital, approving or disapproving the acts of her fellow human beings as if we also were her patients who need to be patronized.
Under the care of such individuals i don't see how anyone would benefit.

Also something could be suggested of God and His unfathomable designs and about accepting God's Will but i wouldn't suspect that falling any better on your ears than the above.

Involuntarily because of an inner impulse - Absolute Rubbish. This would imply natural instinct and if that is the case then the perpatrators are so far removed from being 'human' that they should be imprisoned for life in a dark room.

There is NO excuse.

That is actually not rubbish at all, and that is my point exactly, that it is, to those who are really sexual predators, a natural instinct.

But i spoke a bit in haste. Perhaps it's not a natural instinct, then it's worse and it's an instinct created by a completely sick social climate. But it is my understanding that it is entirely natural.

What many people fail to appreciate, that many individuals viled for their "criminal behaviour", are merely fulfilling their natural instincts. And i think it's high time someone suggests that nature itself is rebelling against the ways of humans. It most certainly is idiotic to say that these people are somehow _failed_. They are only failed according to YOUR standards.
Of course, many people will continue happily and voluntarily to fail to appreciate such subtleties that don't fit into their ideas of how things should be and how people should behave.

itnAklipse wrote: it's an instinct created by a completely sick social climate. But it is my understanding that it is entirely natural.

What many people fail to appreciate, that many individuals viled for their "criminal behaviour", are merely fulfilling their natural instincts. And i think it's high time someone suggests that nature itself is rebelling against the ways of humans. It most certainly is idiotic to say that these people are somehow _failed_. They are only failed according to YOUR standards.
Of course, many people will continue happily and voluntarily to fail to appreciate such subtleties that don't fit into their ideas of how things should be and how people should behave.

Even more rubbish. So how do you function in this 'completely sick social climate'? If you have no control of your base 'insticts' then society will take control and incarcerate you.

I can't believe how inane your comments are.

sorry folks, I should've included in my first post that intaklipse might please not talk out of his arse again in my topic.

of course there isn't a "natural instict" to rape little children, nor (even more absurd) a "instinct created by social climate"

Most of the sexual offenders suffer from a mental disorder f.ex. from an Antisocial Personality Disorder.
Paedophilia is largely considered to be not curable by experts. What paedophiles learn in therapy is to avoid situations which might let them loosing their control.

they are doing it rather involuntarily because of an inner impulse

I'm fed up with modern society. No one wants to take responsibility for their actions anymore. "Yes, I murdered all my schoolmates - but I was beaten as a child." "Yes, I sexually molested that two year old girl, but it's just an impulse, mister!"

Everyone has impulses of a sexual nature, but they have this little thing called self-control. Maybe it is stronger for perverts, but, in all honesty, they need to learn to improve their will-power.

this seems more to do with placating Mr & Mrs (or Miss) Tabloid Reader than constructively handling peodophiles as ex-offenders

on one hand I can understand every parent who doesn't want to live next to a paedophile on the other hand it all has a smell of vigilantism. *insert shrugging shoulders smiley here*

anyway aren't most cases of child rpae perpetrated by a person known to the victim?

King of Byblos wrote:anyway aren't most cases of child rpae perpetrated by a person known to the victim?

It certainly is true when it comes to violence against women in our societies (including rape), but I don't know about child abuse specifically.

King of Byblos wrote:this seems more to do with placating Mr & Mrs (or Miss) Tabloid Reader than constructively handling peodophiles as ex-offenders

Yeah, I can just see that woman in The Simpsons (is it Rev Lovejoy's wife?) with that worried look on her face saying "Will someone please think of the children?"

Eldorado wrote:Everyone?!

Not everyone, no, but the majority of adults.

Rubbish. A "sex offender" can be anything from a serial child rapist to someone who got drunk and pissed in the street, since indecent exposure is a sexual offence.

If someone's served their time, especially for minor offences, what good will informing the general public do? None whatsoever. Armed with their copies of The Sun and the News Of The World, vigilante mobs will automatically assume the "dangerous sexual predator" will molest and murder their precious little scum.. I mean children.

And so what will happen if this law's passed? "Not in our neighbourhood" crowds will start with the mob mentality, and drive them out wherever these men/women move. Nobody's ever going to serve their time if the mob keeps on serving no other purpose than driving away the least dangerous, and sending the most dangerous underground.

Dark wrote:...someone who got drunk and pissed in the street, since indecent exposure is a sexual offence...

I know that the plural of anecdote is not data but...

There was a brilliant teacher who taught me when I was at school, whose career was ended precisely because he did just that -- got drunk and pissed in the street, and indeed was convicted of indecent exposure.

nick the stripper wrote:

Eldorado wrote:Everyone?!

Not everyone, no, but the majority of adults.

Such a sweeping statement. This must mean that within this forum there is a number of sex offenders, whether convicted or not.

I'd want to know and I'm a parent, all parents I'm sure would want to know.

Toolbags are toolbags and all other opinions are certainly interesting but bottom line is the safety of my family. Personal liberities, society et al can go take a flying f*ck

Eldorado wrote:

nick the stripper wrote:

Eldorado wrote:Everyone?!

Not everyone, no, but the majority of adults.

Such a sweeping statement. This must mean that within this forum there is a number of sex offenders, whether convicted or not.

* Baaaa! *

sshhh, be quiet you!

IZ.

I have a "natural instinct" too find women attractive, and because of this instinct I do want to have sex with women. Fortunately I can draw a definite boundary between the consesual and nonconsensual. Maybe because of the Moral Law or maybe due to my own good soul.

If a person has a "natural instinct" to find children attractive then I do pity them, they probably have a hard life. If they cross the boundary children need to be protected, thus punish them as hard as possible.


PS I did find Billie attractive when she started singing. Does this mean I'm going to hell.

Dunno bout youse, but it strikes me that it's not the sexual offenders that have already been caught that parents really have to worry about...

Coming from a country where the State Religion (and yes, that's what it was up until comparatively recently) not only turned a blind eye to this stuff, but came bloody uncomfortably close to actually endorsing it, I don't think I can make an unbiased opinion on the topic at hand.

No, I wasn't abused, and no, none of my friends were either (that I know of - but these things seem to have a way of suddenly coming up decades afterwards). But there was a teacher at my school who was doing it, and those of us who weren't certainly could have been. So like I said, I can't make an unbiased opinion.

And anyway, I've yet to see an answer to it that doesn't end up raising even more questions. And getting it tangled up for years in squabbles sure ain't gonna do anything for those who have already been victims, nor will it do anything for those who may yet become victims.