Joe,
Thank you for your recent discussion of sex offenses and the criminal justice (?) system. I am another devastated mother who is supporting a registered sex offender who would otherwise be sleeping under a bridge. We have turned to farming which is actually more fun than you might think -- and more work. I could go on forever. In fact, some of the things that have happened to him probably would make a good magazine article since he was an attorney who had some left-over cases that involved mobsters who attempted to use the sex thing to pressure him into changing testimony. We have been drummed out of the local Lions Club and even the county beekeeper's association!
What amazes me is how scared everyone is to talk about this. I am so old that I was at the organizing meeting at the University of Michigan when the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) started as the Voice Political Party. Where is everybody? You would think that sex offenders would be the easiest of all people to organize. After all, we have their addresses and photos. Right? We know where they are (unless they are under bridges). We are all so scared that the police will put our kids back in jail that we do absolutely nothing about the most egregious violations of civil rights never mind common sense and common decency!
This situation has lots of causes, of course ranging from the genuine outrage of parents of murdered children to pandering politicians to America's puritanism. However, I think it ultimately is turning into a rehearsal for the wholesale rounding up and monitoring of dissidents that is very likely to become necessary if national events continue on the present course. People say "well if they do this to sex offenders why aren't they doing it to other criminals?" Watch out, that is very likely to happen and not only to criminals.
Would you keep writing about this? There are plenty of "sex offenders" who were guilty of something but are not violent and/or have been successfully treated. All of your examples so far are of those who really did nothing. There are people who did "something" but are not the psychopaths who grab people off the streets and murder them. Those people you could count on your fingers. Yet there are thousands and thousands of others (mostly all male) whose behavior did not measure up to society's standards but who are now being treated to what one of our friends has described as "social homicide."
Even the ACLU doesn't really dare to confront this issue head on -- if they don't then how can we isolated moms and family members?
Mary
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Mary,
I am looking at the possibility of writing a national magazine article on this subject. May I put you on my list as someone to talk to if I get an assignment? Of course your name would never be used.
Joe
