
The sex-offender registry can be a life sentence - teslacar
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/03/14/when-kids-are-accused-of-sex-crimes?intcid=mod-most-popular
======
buro9
From everything I've ever read, there is no concept of rehabilitation in the
USA. If you have ever been convicted, or even accused, of a felony or sexual
crime in the USA then life as you knew it was over.

The concept of being able to pay a debt to society and for that to settle the
books, and to then allow those people to return to society and contribute
value again... is alien to America.

The problem _starts_ with the lack of rehabilitation and not with the original
incident. If a person is deprived of the hope of ever living a meaningful life
again, then what incentive exists against their prior behaviour? There is no
disincentive that works when a life has already been destroyed.

Regardless of what it was, drugs, sex, violence, theft, or simply going to a
demonstration and being arrested when someone else kicks off and you are
convicted by proximity... once you deprive people of a future, of hope, then
you really start bringing out the worst in them when you could have brought
out the best in them.

~~~
forvelin
Is this related to fact that there are people who profit over correction
services in United States ? After digging around VICE article[0], lack of
rehab in US made bit sense at least.

[0] - [https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/whos-getting-rich-off-
the...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/whos-getting-rich-off-the-prison-
industrial-complex)

~~~
buro9
It is bigger and deeper than just that.

I've even seen comments on here regarding immigration that simply said if
someone has ever been arrested then they shouldn't be allowed into the USA.
(No qualifying statements on recency or severity, or even acquittal.)

With regards to crime (including the mere accusation of sexual things) the
sentiment of the USA runs counter to the aspiration and promise of social
mobility of the USA.

Yes others profit from maintaining the status quo, but worse is that people
are judged for life, based on a single incident in their past. And as the
article points out, the zero tolerance amplifies the destructive nature of a
society that judges.

~~~
mabbo
I've heard it said that much of it goes back to the Calvinists roots of
American culture. The idea that there are good people and bad people, that you
are one or the other.

Bad people deserve to go to prison, and therefore people in prison are all bad
people. Why should any mercy by shown to bad people? Why should good people
have to pay to help bad people? That sounds immoral.

By the same set of rules, good people deserve to be rich, so therefore rich
people must be good.

It may not be correct, but it sure does seem to accurately describe how
American culture works.

~~~
vijayr
The ironic, depressing thing is this - strong support for the registry _and_
openly making jokes about prison sexual assaults (in movies, real life etc).
How can someone support both at the same time, is beyond my understanding.

~~~
mabbo
Because the goal is for bad things to happen to 'bad' people. Both of those
things are pushing that agenda.

------
sersi
In the fight against the great boogeymen of Terrorism and Sex Predation, the
US has lost common sense.

As a kid, when I was 8 years old, I played doctor with my neighbor, we we were
both curious about each others differences and so we explored them. So, if I
read this article, if this had been in the US, we could have been tried as sex
offenders? How does this even make sense? Of course kids are curious about
body differences between men and women.

And, when I read those stories, I really don't understand how a teenager could
be convicted for having sex with a girl 2 or 3 years younger than her. I can't
imagine how a girl sexting could be convicted for producing "Child Porn", that
absolutely makes no sense.

And then the treatments describe are a form of abuse. I wouldn't want to be
subject to a “penile plethysmograph”.

It's really scary how easily it is to pass Orwellian by invoking "Think of the
Children" or "To prevent terrorists". As soon as those two things are uttered,
people seem to lose all common sense.

~~~
noxToken
I'm gonna go against the grain here. I'll preface this by saying that I think
all sex-offender cases should be handled on a case-by-case basis, and if we
use a bit of common sense, things would be a lot better for everyone. Here's a
scenario that is likely rare but plausible.

Some girl and boy both at age 15 could be sexting each other. Pics are
exchanged, and the pictures are removed from the phone and placed on a
computer hard drive. Neither party wants the pics found, so the classic, "bury
the pics 10 levels deep in a made up directory that looks like a legit folder
hierarchy" is used. A week later, the pics are forgotten about.

Fast forward 5 years. The hard drive crashes. The once teen has a few sporadic
backups, but they haven't been regular. They go to a data recovery business.
"I'm mainly concerned with the pictures and a lot of the text documents. Try
to salvage as many of those as possible. Everything else is whatever."

The business gets to work and applies a could of filters to list of recovered
media. Among the media exists 10 or so pictures of a young teen. He received
them when he was 15, and he forgot about them. He had no intention of ever
looking at them again. Hell, he would have deleted them ages ago had he
thought about it, but now he has a hell of a story to explain to the feds.

I don't think teens should be prosecuted as sex offenders for exchanging pics
of themselves with other teens, but I think the heart of the matter is in the
right place. I don't have a solution to magically fix everything, because
there are always going to be implications. Just don't ruins a kid's life for
the truly innocuous mistake of exploring sexuality with someone of the same
age.

~~~
verulito
The problem with "common sense" is that Americans have so little of it. Even
though it's entirely legal, to most Americans a 40yo dating a 20yo may as well
be illegal. And yet those were the ages of my grandparents when they met, who
remained married until death and produced a wonderful family.

~~~
InitialLastName
Americans can't feel that strongly about it... the current president and his
(current) wife are 24 years apart in age.

------
bambax
> _Her friend, who had just given birth to a baby girl, had logged on to the
> Michigan Public Sex Offender Registry Web site to search for local
> predators._

"Sex-offender" registry is of course a total and complete abomination. But if
you're going to write against it, maybe you owe it to yourself and your
readers to not use the words of the enemy -- namely "predators".

There are no "predators". There may or may not be people who made a mistake
earlier in life -- many of those mistakes would not even be frowned upon in
many other parts of the world.

But to call people on a sex-offenders list "predators" is like calling
everyone on a no-fly list "terrorists".

It's bigoted, it's despicable. And it's at least counter productive to use
that word in an article that tries to fight the very principle of those lists.

Also, to continue on a related wording controversy that's really irritating,
victims shouldn't be able to automatically call themselves "survivors". You're
a survivor only if you narrowly escaped death. If your life was never at risk
then you're not a survivor.

~~~
inetknght
> There are no "predators"

Unfortunately, you're wrong. While there might be far fewer actual predators
than the registry supposes, there are indeed actual predators on the list. The
problem is that the registry is abused by law enforcement and the public
through misunderstanding and continued by lack of intellectual integrity. Why
read any public case notes of convictions when all you need to know is that
they're on the registry? It takes so much _time_ to actually find out _why_
someone's on the registry. It takes a lot of thinking to actually figure out
"hey this person was simply exploring their sexuality and no harm was
intended". Why spend time and thought on that when you can just assume the
worst and let someone else worry about truth?

~~~
dragonwriter
The whole point of the registry is that it's supposed to contain only people
that are perpetually dangerous; if it doesn't and you need to go to case notes
to find that, then both the burdens placed on people for permanent
registration and the consequences of being on the registry (which go beyond
just being findable as a sex offender) and the existence of the registry
itself are unjustified.

------
mritun
That a society is fine with incarcerating 9 (NINE!) year old kids is
disturbing... but, I am _haunted_ by the thoughts that a society on earth
incarcerated ten year old kids for non-violent acts in the name of zero
tolerance.

Zero tolerance for kids!! They don't understand the damn /meaning/ of that
word for god's sake!

~~~
Latty
We must protect children from having their lives ruined!

We shall do that by ruining their lives!

------
kobeya
I have a friend who plead guilty to two statuary rape charges that were false
accusations, serving more time with parole than the maximum sentencing of the
one charge he was guilty of, solely because the prosecution would drop the
request for sex-offender registration, which would have done him permanent
harm.

There are some real predators out there, and I understand the threats that
make something like a registry necessary. However it has become a tool of the
plea-deal legal industry and a mechanism by which non-predatory individuals
have had their lives ruined by the state.

~~~
bambax
> _I understand the threats that make something like a registry necessary_

Necessary? But why do sex-offenders registries only exist in (a small number
of) English-speaking countries, and in no other [1]? Are there no sex crimes
in other countries?

Or does it have something to do with Puritanism and a general fixation with
sexuality in those countries?

A registry is not necessary, it's yet another manifestation of American racism
[2] and cruelty.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_offender_registry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_offender_registry)

> _Sex offender registration does not exist outside of the English-speaking
> world, however. The United States is the only country with a registry that
> is publicly accessible; all other countries in the English-speaking world
> have sex offender registries only accessible by law enforcement._

[2] [http://www.albanystudentpress.net/large-racial-
disparities-i...](http://www.albanystudentpress.net/large-racial-disparities-
in-sex-offender-registry-prof-finds/)

> _The study indicates that approximately 1 percent of African American males
> in the United States are registered sex offenders while white males are
> registered at approximately half that rate. The growth of sex offender
> registries reflects “a new form of punishment developed by the state that is
> specifically tailored to punishing sex,”_

~~~
kobeya
The problem with the sex offender registry is not that it exists, it is that
there is no way to rehabilitate and get off it.

------
Odenwaelder
The US are getting weirder and weirder and weirder. I just can't wrap my head
around Trump, gun laws, life-time sex-offender registries, the messed up
health care system.

Yet, I have only met absolutely nice, intelligent, loving americans, and I've
met many. I feel sorry for them. They deserve better.

~~~
pluma
I find that it's easy to hate the US for what it has been doing to others
(yes, yes, _tu quoque_ and at least the US isn't literally Nazi Germany) but
what's really astonishing is what it's doing to its own people.

Sure, in theory citizens of the "home of the brave" have it pretty good but
between the atrocious healthcare and welfare systems, the insane criminal
justice system, the mass surveillance, the militarised police force, the
widespread influence of religious conservative groups, and everything else...
I'm not so sure US citizens are any less victims of the US than anybody else.

~~~
Overtonwindow
What you're seeing is the "though on crime" trap all politicians fall into.
Vote for law X and show you're tough on crime. Oh you didn't vote for law X?
Then you're not tough on crime, and that's why votes should go to your
opponent in the next election. US politicians MUST be tough on crime or risk
losing election.

~~~
aanm1988
> US politicians

In a lot of places in the US the Judges are elected. So never mind the
politicians, the guy who just sentenced you to an absurd sentence did it
because he needed the press for his campaign.

~~~
Overtonwindow
What I am speaking of are the crimes themselves, mandatory minimums, funding
for rehabilitation, etc. That is set by politicians, not judges.

------
makecheck
There is a huge problem with “accusation equals conviction”, and a huge
problem with “let’s just keep adding punishments to already-convicted people”.
There also seems to be no automatic apology mechanism after wrongful
accusations or convictions, requiring one to spend even more time and money to
be given even the most basic repayments for a life-destroying situation.

If I had to pick one thing to fix first, it should be COMPLETELY ILLEGAL TO
DISCLOSE MERE ACCUSATIONS (no media coverage, etc.). Disclosure, particularly
for sexual crimes, has been shown to have just as much of a career-destroying
and family-destroying effect as an actual conviction, and the “hehe, sorry,
wrong guy, you are free to go” after the ordeal never undoes the damage. It is
a shameful, garbage way for society to operate.

------
tracker1
_sigh_ ... I'm not sure what else to say. The problem with "Zero Tollerance",
minimum sentencing and lifetime registries, is there's no accounting for edge
cases or practical exceptions. I'm hoping that over the next decade or two, a
lot of this can be rolled back into sensible laws, and justifiable actions.

~~~
stagbeetle
It seems to be a prevalent mindset:

False positives are better than letting one slip through (see: MicroSoft
hiring).

------
imroot
As a society, we have no way to differentiate who we're mad at, and who we're
truly afraid of. Rehabilitation options are nonexistent, as most prisons and
jails removed them in the 90's. Offenders go to Prison and come out Convicts
-- with better training, some more street smarts, complete with access to more
drugs, guns, and tools of the trade.

America is not a country of second chances. Look at sites like beenverified
and mugshots -- their sole purpose in life is to shame those who have been
arrested/convicted and allow employers/landlords to discriminate in ways that
really skirts the FDCPA (beenverified isn't a CRA, so, there are no
repercussions of reporting inaccurate information, nor are there ways of
getting that information changed).

Hell, even AirBnB performs silent background checks on people who are renting
homes -- even after presenting them the official copy of my clean (aside from
a few speeding tickets and an accident from 1999) FBI background report, they
still say that there are 'public records' that they are using and for the
'safety of the AirBnB platform,' they don't want my money.

We have a long way to go until this country can truly start to fix the
'prison' problem, but, it won't start until the country, as a whole, starts
taking a different view of rehabilitation, corrections, and punishment.

------
gigatexal
Well if the predilection towards pedophilia could be managed or "cured" and if
prisons did more than just house inmates I.e if they worked on rehab instead
of punishment then perhaps the lifetime listings wouldn't be necessary. I
won't begin to insinuate that I have the right balance between parents wanting
to be cautious with who their kids interact with and the belief that people
can change for the better. And then there's the case of adolescents who get
caught up in the system before their minds are fully formed...

~~~
lb1lf
This.

In Norway (heck, in Scandinavia, and, is my impression, in most of
North/Central Europe, too), there's strong focus on rehabilitation.

Inmates are encouraged to pursue education while incarcerated. If you want to
enter a trade, there are workshops &c in the prisons where you can do your
apprenticeship.

Also, in all but the (rare) cases where you are deemed to be a lasting danger
to society, you are automatically eligible for parole after serving 2/3 of the
sentence. This, combined with a maximum sentence of 21 years imprisonment,
means that most offenders are released back into society after a maximum of 14
years behind bars.

During the latter part of your sentencing, you are progressively granted more
and more freedom - for instance, halfway houses where you can go to work in
the daytime but need to observe a curfew in evenings/nights. The idea, of
course, being to prepare you for civilian life again.

Result? The recidivism rate is among the lowest in the world, at approx. 20%
overall. (I didn't know that until I googled it while writing this comment.)

That being said, liberal me still feel somewhat less lenient towards
paedophiles; I guess any parent does.

However, I don't think the solution is locking them up and throwing away the
key; much better to provide counseling and treatment to bring their recidivism
rate down as well. It is my firm conviction no society can imprison anyone for
life just in case they should reoffend and still consider themselves
civilized. Obviously, your mileage may vary.

~~~
sgift
> That being said, liberal me still feel somewhat less lenient towards
> paedophiles; I guess any parent does.

It's a sickness. And we have (mental) hospitals for sick people. Problem
solved, no leniency required.

~~~
stagbeetle
There was a short documentary about pedophilia showing the opposite:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-Fx6P7d21o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-Fx6P7d21o)

It's a sensitive subject, but treating pedophilia as something that can be
cured with medical intervention is rash.

This mindset is akin to treating homosexuality with shock therapy.

~~~
ionised
> This mindset is akin to treating homosexuality with shock therapy.

If like homosexuality it's not a mental illness then that means it is either a
conscious decision to only be attracted to and target childrent (which I find
unlikely) or it is natural occurence somewhere on the human sexual spectrum.

How do we reconcile that with the attitude most people seem to have, that
paedophiles need to be severely punished for being what they are? Are they
this way from birth like we consider homosexuals to be?

------
arjie
Why not just make it a complete registry. Put speeding on the list too so I
don't have to worry about my kids getting hit by an unrepentant speeder.

------
robbiep
Interesting catching a thread about America before all the americans wake up
and start defending the status quo

------
Overtonwindow
IMHO acts committed prior to 18 should not warrant inclusion on the sex
offender registry, unless they are so egregious and violent that a high bar
has been crossed.

~~~
DanBC
Siblings are one of the main perpetrators of sexual abuse.

This isn't normal sexual exploration, but actual abuse.

[http://www.med.umich.edu/yourchild/topics/sibabuse.htm](http://www.med.umich.edu/yourchild/topics/sibabuse.htm)

------
kirykl
The key problem is the registry seems almost like a minimum penalty. Life in
prison is a major penalty, life on the registry should be also considered as
such. It loses all meaning when it contains people who have been convicted of
taking selfies.

------
skissane
The article mentions machines attached to young men's penises to "measure
their arousal", a prosecutor demanding a photo of a teenage boy's erect penis,
masturbation diaries – their so-called "therapy" sounds like a sexual assault
in itself, sexual abuse committed by the state and its agents.

------
bnolsen
cruel and unusual punishment anyone?

------
gillianlish
lets be clear. rich people do not have to deal with this. denny hastert rapes
a bunch of people and is still thought of as a good guy by the powerful and
wealthy. how many more like him are protected? catholic church
institutionalizes criminal sexual abuse but nobody in management goes to
prison. corey feldman knows who raped him but cannot say it because that
person has too much money and power in hollywood. hedge fund managers go to
thailand and fuck child prostitutes but they come back here and invest in
private prisons that make money putting kids in lockup for playing doctor.

some teenager sends a nude pic and get years in prison.

welcome to 'freedom'

i actually support the 'crackdown on sex crimes'... if it went after actual
criminals!!!! politicians, CEOs, cops, bankers, all those people who routinely
rape kids and get away with it.

but as usual, it just is a way for the rich to enslave the poor, extract money
from them, abuse them, and discard them.

~~~
jacquesm
The current president is at a minimum guilty of multiple cases of sexual
assault. Rich people do not only not have to deal with it, they are next to
untouchable.

~~~
igor_filippov
Wait what? Isn't he innocent until proven otherwise?

~~~
jacquesm
He pretty much admitted it himself, what else do you want? Or do you feel that
because he lies all the time we should not believe him at all, even when he
incriminates himself?

I'm fairly confident in declaring Trump guilty of that, this is not a court of
law, it's an internet forum and the standards for both are different. In fact,
the standards of proof for criminal law are different from those for civil law
(see OJ), and I think it's a bit much to require the standard of proof for
criminal law to apply to a forum discussion for someone who is on the record
as stating the does _exactly_ that which others claim he did to them.

~~~
mistermann
Myself and half the guys _and girls_ I grew up with are also guilty of sexual
assault based on many people's current definition.

~~~
jacquesm
By what definition would that be?

~~~
mistermann
Touching or suggestive language without explicit verbal or written consent
would be one example.

I've personally been raped thusly on numerous occasions.

