Posted on 10/02/2006 1:28:40 AM PDT by Qwertrew
Mr. Hernandez is the first to tell you he's no saint. He's got a hefty juvenile record. He cursed and spit at police when they forced him – wearing nothing but boxer shorts – from his girlfriend's bed.
< snip >
Mr. Hernandez and hundreds of young men like him are casualties of Texas' zero-tolerance sex offender registration laws. Despite low-level sex offenses, they're cataloged as perverts, as monsters, by a system that paints most sex criminals with the same broad brush.
An 11-year-old who fondles a 10-year-old classmate could be forced to register as a sex offender for a decade. An 18-year-old who's more than three years older than his girlfriend could spend a lifetime on the registry for having consensual sex with her.
And once they're on the list, these young sex offenders are virtually boxed out of society – unable to find jobs and housing, and trapped in a vicious cycle of evictions, registration violations and more jail time.
After years spent making Texas' sex offender registration laws some of the toughest in the nation, legislators acknowledge some unintended consequences. They're working to design better risk-level assessments to help police departments distinguish between sexual predators and high school boyfriends. And they've passed legislation to allow some young offenders with negligible recidivism rates, particularly those in consensual-sex scenarios, to be removed from the registry.
< snip >
In 2001, after a lobbying effort by parents of young sex offenders, the state added a so-called "Romeo" defense, one that gives sex offenders under 19 who had consensual sex with someone 13 or older the chance to seek deregistration from the state. If the "victim" doesn't agree the sex was consensual, or if the offender has more than one conviction or adjudication, then the offender must remain on the registry.
(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...
Hmmm, thinking about my brother, who was 18 when he married his 14-year-old girlfriend, because her mother threatened him with jail time. They had a fairly happy marriage, until same mother-in-law moved in with them 22 years later and made their lives a living hell. He was no predator, but more likely just kind of stupid.
Is this a pro-Foley article?
It presents the predator-as-victim stance....it IS the DMN, afterall.
Not IMHO. I'd consider the 16-year-old boy caught diddling his 15-year-old girlfriend as being a completely different situation than if he were a 36-year-old man with the same 15-year-old girl.
I don't believe there IS such as thing as predator-as-victim.......but try convincing MSM of that.
Everyone is a victim of something. EX: I have a friend whose 19yo daughter throws tantrums at the least little thing. I was told she suffers from Intermittent Explosive Disorder. I guess I should be more sympathetic....I myself suffer from Seasonal Nordstrom/Saks Effectiveness. It causes hand and arm tics that lead me to search for my VISA card.
On his worst days, Andre Perez wishes he could do the same. As a child, he was sexually assaulted by a man in his church. As a difficult and developmentally stunted 12-year-old, he touched his 5-year-old sister's genitals with his own on a few occasions.
Mr. Perez's sister reported the molestation three years later to her Garland elementary school teacher. At 16, Mr. Perez – a sometimes runaway with major behavioral problems – was charged with aggravated sexual assault of a minor and sent to a juvenile detention facility outside of Austin.
Five years later, he had a GED and a healthy dose of optimism. But sex offender registration made his life "near impossible." No one would lease him an apartment; he spent two years bouncing between extended-stay motels and subletting rat- and roach-infested units. He lasted two semesters at Collin County Community College, until classmates found him on the sex offender registry and vandalized his car.
Employment options were no better. Business owners routinely ordered him off their property after conducting background checks. And he lost jobs at Blue Bell Ice Cream and Discount Tire when bosses and colleagues learned he was on the sex offender registry, he said. Humiliated and hopeless, Mr. Perez ignored registration requirements and fled Texas last fall for Illinois, where he moved in with relatives.
"It was the first time I ever felt like I was living a normal life," Mr. Perez, 24, said in August from behind a Plexiglas wall in a Houston detention center.
By April, he'd been caught and sent back to jail in Texas to serve several more months for a sex offender registration violation, a state jail felony.
On his worst days, Andre Perez wishes he could do the same. As a child, he was sexually assaulted by a man in his church. As a difficult and developmentally stunted 12-year-old, he touched his 5-year-old sister's genitals with his own on a few occasions.
I'd have to admit to having mixed thoughts regarding the lifetime designation of sex offenders. I think that the main distinction that I tend to draw is between acts done between kids and those done by an adult to a kid. In my mind, they're two very different situations.
Its a tough one, isn't it? On the one hand, I'm glad my brother was forced to stare down the barrel of a shotgun....my husband probably would have done the same thing if it had been our daughter. But should he have been labeled a sex offender for it? Should confused and angry kids, battling pre-adolescent craziness, have to fight this kind of stigma? The Romeo Laws are going to be hell to draft.
That's my basic solution.
Our society moved into an "anything goes" attitude and when parents raise children in that manner, then the children do not develop an ability to make sound judgements. That's a real shame. But, if society has clear expectations for moral behavior, and if everyone understands these expectations, and if violations are punished harshly, then (in time) the only folks who actually do the wrong thing, will be the dangerous folks who cannot control themselves.
In short: victims of real sexual abuse are punished severely by their abuser. The number of victims of sexual abuse is higher than the number of perpetrators. Having sympathy for perpetrators only increases the problem. A harsh response is better for society.
Well there is no argument about needing to put REAL sex offenders (meaning those who are most likely to re-offend) into any registry, state or federal.
The age of consent in many states (not all I believe) is 16, which is still 2 years under the age of recognized adulthood (18). Seems to me that if a standard were applied which specified that IF the MINOR (minors only now) victim of any sexual offense were 5 years (or more) younger than the perpetrator, than entry into the registry would be mandatory for no less than 10 years.
That means that if anyone 22 years or older has illicit sex with someone 17 or younger, they would be put into the registry. IOW:
Victim Perp
17 ----- 22
16 ----- 21
15 ----- 20
14 ----- 19
13 ----- 18
Any sexual offender under the age of 18 would be adjudicated as either eligible for entry into a sex offender registry based upon the decision of the judge, after considering all input and data from both the prosecution and the defense (and jury, if applicable).
Or, we could just shoot them all.
This kind of statement, which is an example of the dark side of FR, is a perfect illustration of why the registration of sex offenders needs an overhall. A guy gets drunk and pisses in an alley and the local yokels here want to castrate or kill him, and all the politicians start talking about how wonderful the registration system and the restriction on where this guy can live and work for the rest of his life is to 'protect the children'.
A lot of European countries use a system like that, and it is under debate in Canada, where the age of consent now is 14 (for girls) - I think it is younger for boys.
When the law starts making exceptions for people who sell to people who are near the age to buy alcohol or cigarettes and for people who are "nearly innocent" of other charges, I'll believe that Romeo & Juliet exceptions to statutory rape laws mean something.
A 36-year old with an 18 year old (or 17, which is age of consent in Texas) would also be a "completely different situation".
Condoms in schools was never about safety in sex. It was about winning the sex positive argument that teens would have sex. The sex positive proponents believe that everyone should be sexual at every age; they believe it is a birthright to happiness.
"An 18-year-old who's more than three years older than his girlfriend could spend a lifetime on the registry for having consensual sex with her."
If she is not the age of consent, then she, by definition, is unable to consent. So the above-mentioned "consensual sex" is bogus.
In my neighborhood, there was a registered sex offender, now age 22. He recently moved and did not re-register, I just noticed this on the DPS registry.
At age 14, he raped a five year old. He received two years probation since he was a juvenile. Excuse me if I don't cry a river over him. Since he moved, and hasn't reregistered, I think it might have been better if they just tattooed a big CR for Child Rapist on his pimply forehead..since the authorites, and my neighbors have no idea where the creep is now residing.
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