

America's unjust sex laws - MikeCapone
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14165460

======
elai
If i was a politician, I could spin it as "Catching Real Sex Offenders Act"
where I would refocus the list towards the "scary types" and put the the
frivolous ones on a second tier (drunk guy pissing on a wall, kids doing
stupid things) or forgiven; and viciously attack politicians who want to
distract and waste our police's time & money bothering with a guy who
drunkenly pissed on a wall 20 years ago and go after the Real Bad Guys who
parents are actually scared of.

~~~
sh1mmer
The problem is your opponents would still slap up a bunch of ads saying "elai
would let monsters take your children". Most people aren't following the
debate they are being sensationalized by 30second editorials.

~~~
TomOfTTB
Not if you sell it right. In fact, I'd argue it isn't even that hard a case to
make if you push the right points.

Put it this way: If 10 people are marked as sex offenders in your area but
only one of them is actually guilty of a violent sex crime than the 9 other
guys wrongfully on the list only serve to make your children less safe.
Because they end up distracting you from the real danger and making it so you
only pay 1/10th of the attention you should to the one guy who is actually
dangerous.

Follow that up with a bunch of real life stories about 17 year olds put on the
list for having sex with 16 years olds and you'll be set. Because you'll have
proven the current laws make children less safe while themselves harming
innocent people.

That's not hard to understand and I don't think it's hard to sell to the
American public.

~~~
jonknee
Don't doubt the power of spin. Living wills = death panels in a sizable
percentage of the population. You're right, but the truth doesn't matter very
much.

~~~
mediaman
Remember, spin can go both ways, even if it seems one party is better at it
than the other, and I think that might be what the OP is trying to get across.

Call it the "Serious Sex Crimes Act."

Spin it as:

"America's worst sex offenders are putting our wives and daughters, our
mothers and sisters, in increased danger because of a new political plan to
force our police to spread their resources too thinly to put these criminals
behind bars. Our choice is clear: put our families in danger, or return to a
time when we prioritized our law enforcement to protect what is most valuable
to all of us."

Done well, it would be difficult to fight -- any protest would be a direct
attack on our families.

~~~
andreyf
Sounds nice having both just read the same article, but in the end, people
rarely get gung-ho about "spreading law enforcement too thin". Example: war on
drugs. It's just not an issue people care enough about to affect their vote.

A better way to sell it is "iron brand the dude that might rape and kill your
daughter (but not the mom of the now-married couple)".

------
mquander
Extremely harsh laws branding and shaming sex offenders for life seem very
easy for politicans to pass, and wildly popular. Once they're passed, as the
article noted, it's hard to imagine anyone mustering the political willpower
to strike them down.

From the perspective of someone pretty young - why are these laws being
instituted now, instead of, say, a hundred years ago? What's changed? Is it
simply a matter of finally having enough central organization to actually
effectively track and monitor them?

~~~
MikeCapone
Is it possible that one thing that has changed is the media/entertainment
world?

Most of what people know about people who commit sex crimes comes from movies
and the evening news, and is not representative of the vast majority (90%+ ?)
of people who end up on these lists.

Same with people in prison. People imagine that it's a bunch of murderers and
career criminals, while it's mostly pot smokers and non-violent offenders.

~~~
cellis
_Mostly pot smokers and non-violent offenders._

Citation needed. My father works in a medium-security prison, and it is
exactly as "people imagine".

~~~
MikeCapone
I don't have the articles handy, but The Economist had some statistics on
prison populations in the US. That's where my information comes from.

IIRC, even China doesn't have as many people in jail as the US.

~~~
shpxnvz
The Bureau of Justice Statistics contradicts your information.

The official numbers on their homepage show that in 2005, 53% of state inmates
were sentenced for violent crimes, versus only 20% for drug crimes.

<http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/prisons.htm>

Note that the statistics only count the most serious of the offenses for which
the person was sentenced, which means that some of the violent offenders may
have also been charged with drug crimes.

~~~
req2
Suppose every violent crime has a sentence of one year, and every drug crime a
sentence of five years. You'll retain drug inmates and lose violent inmates,
quickly yielding a situation in which there are more drug inmates than violent
inmates.

(This is simply to demonstrate a logical contradiction in your proposed
evidence, and is not intended to make a factual argument.)

~~~
req2
It's not kosher to complain about a downvote, but this is a logically sound
and complete demonstration of why the evidence posted above doesn't actually
support the purported claim. It indicates, yes, but it is in no way, shape, or
fashion proof. I'm not sure how a correction is liable for downvotes.

~~~
Dilpil
Because HN is turning into Digg.

------
geebee
These laws are a product of a very toxic combination of factors.
Unfortunately, I think these factors are especially prevalent in the United
States, though they also exist elsewhere.

The first ingredient is intensely sympathetic and aggrieved victims. Mothers
who have lost children to drunk drivers or sex predators, are not a group
anyone wants to ignore. Not just for political reasons, but because we
(society, politicians) really are profoundly disturbed by the crimes and want
to bring justice and do something about it.

The second is a bad set of laws that don't protect the innocent (at first)
Laws that allow a convicted child rapist to live in a neighborhood without
notifying the neighbors, laws that allow a guy who makes a habit of drinking
15 beers and driving home to say "sorry, I didn't mean to cause that
horrifying accident". These things motivate society to form and back up
organizations that lobby for strict laws.

The third is "lobbying as therapy." When you lose a child, you are so full of
grief, and for many, fighting against the wicked is the only way to get over
the grief. The problem is, what do you do when the basic legislation that
should have always been there is put into place? When drunk driving is illegal
and punished. When genuine, dangerous sex offenders are identified and barred
from activities where they would come into contact with potential victims?

This leads to the fourth ingredient: the inertia of organizations.
Interestingly, when organizations achieve their goals, they don't go away.
They set new goals. Got the BAC illegal at 12%? Go for 10%. 10%? Go for 8%.
Raise the drinking age to 21. Raise the jail time from one week to two.
Eventually, the good and righteous work (and I'm not being sarcastic here, the
early work on drunk driving and sex offenders was absolutely the right thing
to do) is gone, but the organizations have funding, positions to fill, calls
to make. They don't just go away.

The fifth ingredient - and this is more endemic to the US, I think - is a
puritanical society that has always secretly hoped to criminalize certain
types of "immoral" behavior. Prohibition didn't work, but there are still a
lot of Americans who, for whatever reason, want to criminalize the demon rum.
Drunk driving laws are an outlet for them. Many US states still have enforced
laws that make selling a vibrator illegal (seriously). Sex offender laws may
be an outlet for these folks. The problem is the same as above - what do you
do when the good laws are now in place? You go for laws that are stricter, and
stricter, and stricter...

Until it becomes counter productive, which is especially tragic. There's an
article on SF gate today about a 29 year old woman who was abducted when she
was 11 years old. She was kept in a compound by a convicted sex offender, the
kind nobody, and I mean nobody, would ever defend, the kind who should without
question be on these lists.

The police went to his house. He was on the registry. They just didn't find
the girl for 18 years. The laws didn't protect her at all.

This is the only hope for reasonable laws - when we can explain how diverting
resources to monitoring someone who peed against a wall is the same as
diverting them away from monitoring the truly evil and dangerous. It's a hard
sell, though. People understand how getting strict on crime can reduce it, but
it's harder to connect with how being more _lenient_ on minor offenses can, in
some cases, reduce really serious crime.

The human tragedy of some of these stories is pretty serious too, and may some
day help unravel the mess this has created.

~~~
pyre
Part of the problem is information overload and poor journalism and people who
are so apathetic to the political process that they make their decisions based
on 30 second sound bytes.

------
ccc3
Making laws bigger instead of stronger seems to be an increasingly common
problem (At least in the US. not sure if the same is true of other countries).
It seems to be the result of an imperfection in our political system. In
certain communities, any legislation that would increase the scope of sex
offender laws, no matter how senseless, will be met with support. And given
the nature of sound-byte journalism these days, it's politically impossible to
oppose one of these laws and still be reelected.

I think drunk driving is another example of the same pattern. We've ratcheted
down the blood alcohol content limit to 0.08% in most places (generally
equivalent to a couple of drinks) yet there are habitual offenders still on
the road. I had a friend get hit head on by a drunk driver with 8 DUI's.

In both cases the focus should be on dealing with the serious offenders
swiftly and severely and not on maximizing the number of infractions.

~~~
thismat
I can agree, the public freaks out and band together without really thinking
about what should be considered a serious offense or not. And I can definitely
see it doing more harm than good. Really, though, every issue these days seems
to be driven on fear and panic, which leads to people wanting to see more
action, not refined action.

~~~
pyre
Reminds me of a dilbert-esque quote that I heard (on Digg or /.) a few years
back... It was a 'call to action' by a manager, "We need to do _something_
even if it isn't the right thing"

------
dusklight
Why is this hacker news?

~~~
cturner
It's definitely taken a dive recently. There wasn't even enough momentum to
bin the kennedy story the other day, and there were people even defending the
post! The signal-to-noise ratio is the most important factor of a system like
this, and there is zero value in the site if it degenerates into the same gray
goo that has consumed everything else.

~~~
sh1mmer
To point out, as someone always does, hacker news is news that is interesting
to hackers.

The best hackers tend to have a wide range of interests, including current
affairs.

~~~
alex_c
This is neither news, nor current affairs.

It is a political trend that has been going on for many years, and is unlikely
to change any time soon. What's even less likely is that the discussion here
will produce any new insights or solutions.

Sure, the story itself or some of the arguments in the comments might be news
to SOMEONE, but I'm not convinced that's a good enough justification. This is
precisely the kind of conversation - emotional, low barrier of entry, "common
sense" outrage, the same points being endlessly echoed - that makes Reddit
what it is.

~~~
davidw
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=790361>

Compare the comment ratio here ...

------
kennu
It was a good article 3 weeks ago when it was featured on other sites. I
dislike reading (slightly) old stuff in Hacker News.

~~~
p_h
Here here, how did this get to the top of HackerNews? Maybe the whole
California kidnapper put this back in peoples minds.

------
semiquaver
As with many of their headline articles, the economist also did a much more
in-depth "Briefing" about this topic in the same issue:
<http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14164614>

------
jacquesm
It wasn't until too long ago that rape within the marriage 'did not exist' in
America.

With 'did not exist' I don't mean to say it didn't happen, just that since you
could not call it rape there was no way to do anything about it.

Fortunately that has changed now, but still, in a large number of US states
this is considered a 'lesser crime' according to this wikipedia article:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spousal_rape>

~~~
pyre
The problem is that stuff like this can arise from 'domestic disputes.' Maybe
it wasn't rape, but the other spouse just wants to 'get revenge' for losing an
argument or something.

Not to say we should ignore it, but the courts hate dealing with these sort of
issues because they can be so messy.

~~~
jacquesm
I think that the courts have their ways of dealing with frivolous lawsuits.
People that lie to the court are found out - most of the time, not all of the
time - and that's one situation you really don't want to find yourself in.

Lying under oath is generally not a good idea.

~~~
pyre
Really? I was under the impression -- at least in the US at the local/state
level -- that perjury was not a highly prosecuted crime. In most cases, it was
just a charge that was brandied about to force a confession or something
similar.

It might be different if you're the star witness in a big case, or you're the
one that's actually bringing the charges...

In most domestic disputes, things really end up in a 'he said/she said'
situation where there aren't many facts to back things up. Which is why the
courts hate dealing with this. You end up having to just listen to both sides
and try and make a decision about which person is more believable...

------
sup7rstar
Sex laws are really crazy in this country. Even politicians get in trouble
after having certain affairs. You can't even have a private life anymore...
where are our liberties going?

------
p_h
I don't think sex offenders are being punished too much, it's just America's
definition of sex offender that goes too far.

------
nazgulnarsil
this isn't just a problem with sex offenders, that's just the most egregious
example. our entire legal system revolves around a puritanical, deontological
justification rather than a rational, consequentialist distribution of
resources where it will help prevent the most harm.

------
january
goatse'd by the economist?!
[http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=1...](http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14164614)

------
keltecp11
There is no bright line law here... every state is different. We once had a
developer working for us who in 1992 had a server that was unsecure and
someone was sending kiddy-porn via it. Of course he is now considered a 'sex
offender' and his life is well... over. But what can we do? Everyday you hear
a story about a kidnapping and American's are scared, protective, etc...

I do agree that something needs to be done. In fact, I wrote my Thesis on 'The
Illegalities of The TV Show To Catch a Predator" I think some of you will
enjoy it:

[http://stalemelon.blogspot.com/2009/04/to-catch-predator-
inv...](http://stalemelon.blogspot.com/2009/04/to-catch-predator-invasion-of-
privacy.html)

-P

~~~
pyre
Ignoring any illegalities of 'To Catch a Predator,' there is the moral issue
that they are fueling this mass hysteria over 'oh noes my child!' that is
largely the product of less fact than fiction. They are blowing the dangers of
the 'lone child raping stranger that will kidnap my child' out of proportion
just to get ratings. They are playing on some of the same human viciousness
that the Roman Colosseum played on (getting people to watch slaves fight for
their life/to the death).

------
chrischen
Because a hundred years ago 40 year old men married 12 year old girls.

~~~
astine
Not in America, they didn't. 200 years there were some youthful betrothals
happening, but marriage has kind of always been reserved for those that could
make legally binding decisions.

~~~
helveticaman
The parents of the youthfully betrothed, in this case.

~~~
helveticaman
I.e. they are the ones that have to back the decision legally.

