This has been a problem in this country for years. I can understand why people don't want sex offenders near schools and parks, but its kind of unavoidable in some ways...

Other cities have tried to "ban" sex offenders--Miami, Cleveland--and if they magically "fall off" the registry b/c of the zoning laws, well, then we're all f*cked. I'm a little sick of communities putting the burden of safety on residents, instead of on parole officers and those who could TRY to maintain a low rate of re-offense in sex offenders (the notion of "rehabilitation" for many sex offenders doesn't look good...and thats from sympathetic psychiatrists who are highly critical of the criminal justice system's dealing with sex offenders).

I'm on the fence about this...I'm a Democrat but it pisses me off when organizations like the ACLU represent sex offenders who are ordered to go through chemical castration as a condition of parole (in addition to therapy).

All of it--research, parole officers' making sure offenders comply with conditions of parole (no, booze, drugs, porn, etc.), pharmocological stuff, cognitive therapy, it all costs money...we'd rather lock them up. (And then they get out 25 years later and they're even worse than before).

Sometimes when I read about sex offenders stepping it up a notch--a rapist who gets out of jail, supposedly receives treatment in jail,and upon release adds "rapist/murderer" to his record--I wonder how much I disagree with the whole "It's hopeless, lock 'em up forever" notion. And I have alot of problems with our criminal justice system and its failures to us, potential victims.

Its all so frustrating and disturbing.

Someone very close to me has to register as a sex offender because when he was nineteen, his girlfriend was seventeen. There are violent, mentally ill sex offenders out there, but there are also people who made mistakes and now have to endure the humiliation of registering for the rest of their lives. There is no reason in the world why my friend couldn't live next door to a school. His original 'crime' had nothing to do with children. These kinds of laws just make it so much harder for people who messed up to get their lives back together.
Plus, even if you were a not-so-nice person and were a convicted and paroled sex offender, if your originally offence had nothing to do with children, you've never given any indication of being a danger to children, why couldn't you live near a school? You may not be a person I'd want my kid interacting with, but I shoudn't be able to say where you can live.
And what's so special about 2,000ft. You think child rapists can't walk?

Agreed. Also, I have a big problem with people who are "sex offenders" b/c they're 18 and their partner is 14, but its mutually consensual...also have a problem with a lot of juvenile sex offender registries (not always, but often)...the NY Times Magazine wrote a really depressing article about it.

Community notification and zoning largely puts the burden of safety on civilians, and that pisses me off.

It is wrong to classify all sex offenders in the same way. There are MANY ways to get on that list (as has been pointed out), and most of them have nothing to do with kids. In some states, urinating in public or having sex in your car is enough to make you a "sex offender". Most of these people are of no more danger to children than you or I.

I'm okay with restricting people with child-related offenses from living near schools or parks, but to restrict everyone, regardless of the nature of their "sex crime", is just dumb.

helena sorry, but recidivism rates for sex offenders aren't actually as high as is commonly believed and are linked to feelings of isolation and stress upon re-entry into society. rehabilitation can't be dismissed so easily.

as for chemical castration, it doesn't really do any good because rape and molestation aren't about sex; they're about power.

it's clearly a complex and frustrating issue.

Residency restrictions *don't work.* They are definitely there just to make the rest of the community feel better. As Riley mentioned, the chances of recidivism are greatly increased when the offender is able to live near/with friends/family that will be able to support the offender as he(or she) readjusts to life outside of prison.

Also, what the hell to the supreme court for dropping the charges against the four who raised a law suit but not taking ANY action against the hundreds of other "offenders" who are in danger of being arrested?

"as for chemical castration, it doesn't really do any good because rape and molestation aren't about sex; they're about power. "

Does anyone actually know of studies on this? Because even if molestation is about power, it's fueled by a sexual attraction. If you take away that sexual attraction, then the impulse to molest would be less.

From what I've read (and since I'm a dilletante on this issue, I don't have any citations), psychiatric rehabilitation efforts are at this stage pretty hopeless. Add to that, I'm not convinced that all--or even most--rapists are mentally ill. It seems to me that they're taking years of male privilege for granted with callous disregard for anyone else. That makes them lousy people. But people who are mentally ill--are schizophrenic, say, or severely bipolar--actually cannot control their actions do brain malfunctions.

That said, I don't have a problem with restricting those sex offenders who commit crimes against children from living near places where children are likely to congregate. I think it may be a lost cause--surely they can just live near a toy store--but I can live with that. For the others, I just don't see the point of this law.

My understanding of how our hormones work suggests that we could also regulate, to a certain degree, levels of aggression. If rape is more about power and aggresssion than about sex, perhaps that would make more sense than removing the offenders' sex drives. How that would work out with respect to the legal system and civil rights would another story.

why are we assuming that sex offenders are mentally ill? personally, i think thats a cop-out. that implies that these people are incapable of controlling their actions, that what they do is something that is brought on by physical issues that are out of their control.

bullshit.

we should all know by now that sexual assault, including child sexual abuse, is about power and control. im sure that some sex offenders do suffer from mental illnesses but they do not CAUSE sexual assaults to occur. again, sexual assault is a result of someone wanting to control someone else.

therefore, it takes more than psychiatric rehab to change a sex offender. there needs to be large-scale systematic and CULTURAL changes that create a paradigm shift in the way that we view women's and children's bodies.

i do not think that sex offenders should be in jail for life. i do not think they should be castrated. and i do not think they need to undergo psychiatric treatment.

instead, their crimes should be understood not as individuals committing crimes against other individuals but as crimes that are apart of a larger patriarchal society that accepts (and sometimes condones) sexual violence. so lets push prevention, awareness, and advocacy.

UCLA said, it desire fueled by power, RELATED to sex and to testosterone. The psychiatric treatment IS pretty hopeless thus far...the only consensus from psychiatrists seems to be "Uh...we don't know...we can HELP, but don't expect a full 'cure'". Therapy is supposed to alter behavior/"temptation", so to speak, and encourage coping strategies and empathy, not deal with "mental illness" (the Supreme Court looks at some sex offenders as having "mental abnormalities" for civil confinement).

Some sex offenders ARE genuinely mentally ill....meaning, they're diagnosable for retardation or paranoid schizophrenia.

That and some sex offenders should never f*cking be let out of jail. Not "25 years to life", just, "Sorry, Mr. Psychotic Sexual Sadist, you're gonna die in here...hope ass-raping a weeping victim for 8 hours was worth it!"

Actually, Ahnold doesn't have a choice. These restrictions were voted into place by the California electorate via ballot initiative. The State has no legal option but to enforce the law unless and until the courts specifically overturn it. It is a screaming nightmare for the Department of Corrections and the parole officers, who lack the resources to even begin enforcing this new law. I also agree that it is stupid - all the rapists will either just move to isolated rural areas where they are less likely to be caught if they do reoffend, or will "forget" to register their new address when they move into a prohibited zone. Unfortunately, laws passed "by the people" are not always brilliantly thought out. All those initiatives prohibiting gay marriage come to mind as a prime example.

UCLA - actually i dont think that it is even related to sexual desire. there are plenty of cases of self-identified heterosexual men who rape OTHER self-identified heterosexual men...i dont think there is any sexual attraction there.

and rape is used as a tool of warfare. babies are raped by soldiers as a symbol of conquest and power, not because the soldiers have a sudden sexual attraction to an infant.

you know what i mean?

Ok so I have had a huge question about this issue:

Are the majority of sex offenders really convicted because of their assaults on children? If one out of 3 women are sexually assaulted in their lifetimes, is the number of assaults on chrildren really that much higher?

I ask this because EVERY time I hear anything about sex offenders in the media, it is in relation to children and protecting children. As if our culture is denying that sex offenders also assault (teen and) adult women (and men in lesser amounts.) Is this because we as a culture would only like to consider children as the innocent victims of sexual asault? Sexually assaulting ANYONE is the most horrible thing I can imagine, pergaps short of murder. But is this really valid for the media/law to only conseive of children as the only victims/survivors of sexual assault? What does everyone else think about this? Am I way off the mark to think this?

The ultimate attraction to children may be the result of mental illness, but they choose to act upon it. I don't believe anyone is forced to rape or molest anyone. It's a choice. A choice I believe is worse than some murders because it is something no one deserves and affects the victims for the rest of their lives. I say they should be locked up for as long as long as they have the ability to reoffend(life). Giving them a second chance isn't worth the risk IMO. If it means higher taxes so be it. What could be more important than a safer society. I do want to add that I'm not including individuals who had consensual sex with teenagers. I'm talking about actual rape and molestation.

The problem I have with these sex offender registration requirements is that they're based more on the chapter of the Penal Code a particular is placed in than any rational concern for future dangerousness.

In Louisiana, persons convicted of wholly consensual "sodomy" are classed as sex offenders and required to be registered (though it's not clear what the status of those registrations will be post-Lawrence v. Texas). Similarly, all kinds of other offences fall under registration requirements because they are somehow tangentially sexual. Public urination (categorised as "indecent exposure"/"lewd act in public), statutory rape, consensual adult "sodomy", and many other things fall inside this wide net.

The only legitimate, rational interest the state can have in requiring registration is the protection of the public from a reasonably probable danger. While it might be argued that there's a shaming element present, this probably would make no difference to child molesters and rapists, who are generally quite good at rationalising their conduct and seeing themselves as the victim, so it's doubtful at best that these offenders would actually respond to a shaming device.

These registration and community notification laws should be strictly limited to those offenders likely to present a danger to the public (generally, non-statutory rapists, child molesters and similar). Imposing these restrictions on anyone else serves no legitimate purpose whatsoever, and would be damn near impossible to enforce.

As for the zoning approach mentioned in an earlier post, I can't think of a more stupid idea (though non-zoning residency restrictions will amount to pretty much the same). Are we going to zone certain neighbourhoods "sex offender"? I'd certainly love to have my car break down in that part of town.

Apart from the lovely thought of entire neighbourhoods populated by sex offenders, there's also the issue of the dangerousness of concentrating dangerous sex offenders geographically. The last thing we need is for them to start organising and working together.

"Agreed. Also, I have a big problem with people who are 'sex offenders' b/c they're 18 and their partner is 14, but its mutually consensual..."

I heard this kind of thing even applies when the offense is no longer illegal (for example, if an 80-year-old is a "sex offender" because 60 years ago he got caught making love with his consenting 20-year-old boyfriend).

"Community notification and zoning largely puts the burden of safety on civilians, and that pisses me off."

Indeed. If they're still a threat to us, shouldn't they still be in jail? If they've already paid their debt to society and shouldn't be in jail anymore, shouldn't they be free?

"'as for chemical castration, it doesn't really do any good because rape and molestation aren't about sex; they're about power.'

"Does anyone actually know of studies on this? Because even if molestation is about power, it's fueled by a sexual attraction. If you take away that sexual attraction, then the impulse to molest would be less."

Meanwhile, if rape has nothing to do with sex...

...then how come cases of forcing someone to have sex are rape but those cases of armed bank robbery, drive-by shootings, etc. which are 100% non-sexual aren't rape too?

"Add to that, I'm not convinced that all--or even most--rapists are mentally ill. It seems to me that they're taking years of male privilege for granted with callous disregard for anyone else."

Yeah, that's the impression I got too.

"If one out of 3 women are sexually assaulted in their lifetimes, is the number of assaults on chrildren really that much higher?"

I heard that many of those 1 in 3 were attacked in the part of their lifetimes before they were women.

The breakdown I saw (and wish I could remember the cite for) goes: 1/3 of sexual attacks of female victims in the US happen to girls age 0-10, 1/3 happen to girls age 11-17, and the remaining 1/3 happen to women age 18+.

"Meanwhile, if rape has nothing to do with sex...

...then how come cases of forcing someone to have sex are rape but those cases of armed bank robbery, drive-by shootings, etc. which are 100% non-sexual aren't rape too?"

Mina - obviously it is sexual in that the act is that of sexual intercourse, or other sexual acts. But just because a man is forcing penetration to a woman, for example, does not necessarily mean that he is sexually ATTRACTED to that woman.

its that type of thinking that has caused women to be blamed for sexual assault. ie. rape is about sexual attraction, therefore women should cover up, not wear "scandalous and revealing" clothing and rape will stop.

uhh i dont think so.

"Mina - obviously it is sexual in that the act is that of sexual intercourse, or other sexual acts."

Exactly.

"But just because a man is forcing penetration to a woman, for example, does not necessarily mean that he is sexually ATTRACTED to that woman."

Good point. For example, it's still rape when a guy doesn't have an erection and shoves a rifle instead of his penis up someone else's vagina or anus, right?

"its that type of thinking that has caused women to be blamed for sexual assault. ie. rape is about sexual attraction"

Actually, I *don't* think that victims of sexual assault should be blamed for it. At the same time, I *also* don't think "rape is about power, not sex."

I mean, isn't it obvious that rape has *both* power and sex involved? Claiming it doesn't have both makes as little sense as claiming that bank robbery is about power or about money but can't be both...

mina -

i didn't mean to imply that YOU thought that survivors should be blamed, but simply that this type of thinking has been used by people who DO want to blame survivors as rationale for their arguments.

thankfully, we are on the same page when its comes to that :)

but, i am wary in accepting that rape is about sexual attraction AND power. again, i think that sex is involved in that it is a sexual act, but as you said, "it's still rape when a guy doesn't have an erection and shoves a rifle instead of his penis up someone else's vagina or anus".

I think that rape can be about sex but not about attraction. Rape is about sexual power dynamics, in my opinion, and has to do with a misogynist male either feeling entitled to use a woman's body or feeling the need to assert his dominant place in gendered and sexual hierarchies. In my opinion.

I think you got it, EG.

It IS about humiliation through sex in some cases, in others, it's other sexual attraction. Remember...some "sex offenders" actually have twisted "intimacy" with their victims (i.e some child molesters, who "groom" ). Tests with penile cuffs show arousal when diagnosing likelihood of re-offense. It CAN be about sex; it can be about control/humiliation; it can be about both simultaneously.

Many studies on lowering likelihood of re-offense have shown that the conditions related to re-offense are reduced (NOT entirely removed though)with some other treatment AND chemical castration. Testosterone is related to both sexual arousal AND aggression, isn't it?

I'm not convinced that the large portion of sex offenders--i.e., adults who have committed an "offense" that involves denying someone's capacity to refuse (possibly including if the "someone" is a child under the age of, say, 14 who "consents")--can be "rehabilitated." The threat they pose can be reduced, but that's about it. And considering the limits on what research we DO have and the cost (financially and human...what if a "rehabilitated" offender strikes again?) of actually testing the efficacy of no-incarceration methods, we're not going to get anywhere soon.

Sad...we're kinda f*cked on the whole "prevention" part too, aren't we, especially considering most victims know their attackers, thus making violence an seemingly intractable part of interaction--parent to (unwanted) child,relative to child, sibling to sibling, partner to partner, neighbor to neighbor?

thank you, EG! you articulated what i was (very unsucessfully) trying to say!

But is this really valid for the media/law to only conseive of children as the only victims/survivors of sexual assault? What does everyone else think about this? Am I way off the mark to think this?

Marissa - I think that's a very valid thought and something I sort of missed completely. The only sense of it I can make is that children are, unfortunately, so much more vulnerable (by nature) than adult men and women and teenage boys and girls. That's not to say, as far as I'm concerned, that adults/teens are necessarily in "control" of an assault situation, but I think you are right in pointing out that is a definite subtle undertone of men, women, and teens, perhaps being "victims" of assault, but not, as you say, "innocent victims," such as children.

Re: Marissa; the MSM misses the boat alot, but the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and Americas Most Wanted (I know, I know, a tabloid show, but I actually admire John Walsh) DO care about teenagers meeting people online and getting in danger/posting personal info on there...

There's a limited amount of attention the media can (will) pay to this issue. Child sex crimes are even less reported than those against victims over the age of 13, so theres a little bit of bias in our favor.

I will say though its always pissed me off (and I'd like to work for the NCMEC or a similar organization someday) that somehow the fact that the victim is a kid--as opposed to a teen or an adult over the age of 18--THAT'S what gets people rip-roaring, storm the gates of the Capitol angry. On some level I can understand....this might sound simplistic, but however screwed adults when it comes to the problems of this world (and access to resolutions), children have it even worse. We see it as a double failure when an attacker gets to a kid

"It IS about humiliation through sex in some cases, in others, it's other sexual attraction. Remember...some 'sex offenders' actually have twisted 'intimacy' with their victims"

Then there are the ones who marry unwilling brides and rape them because their favorite traditions tell them that's how you're supposed to start a family and make heirs to support you in your old age...

Someone I know made the comparison between architects and prison psychiatrists. He pointed out that if an architect designs a structure which falls apart due to design flaws, that architect is held liable for damages and may never work again. However, if a psychiatrist pronounces a criminal to be suitably rehabilitated for re-insertion into society and that criminal re-offends, nothing happens to the psychiatrist (at least, nothing that's ever reached the media). Perhaps if there were consequences for a misdiagnosis, there would be fewer dangerous criminals released back into the public sphere. What do you all think? Is this workable? If so, what should the penalty be for the psychiatrist?

"we should all know by now that sexual assault, including child sexual abuse, is about power and control. im sure that some sex offenders do suffer from mental illnesses but they do not CAUSE sexual assaults to occur. again, sexual assault is a result of someone wanting to control someone else."

Okay, maybe this is a Feminism 101 question, but it seems to me that the "rape is about power not about sex" idea be manifested in several ways.

1) POWER ENABLES ACTING ON SEXUAL DESIRES.

Imagine that there are 50 men who are attracted to children. Half of them don't act on their impulse. The other half do. What enables them to act on their attraction? The fact that they feel they have the right to violate another person's body to satisfy their own sexual urges.

In this framing of the rape = power idea, sexual attraction fuels the desire to molest, and beliefs about power relations enable the person to act on those attractions.

2) POWER STIMULATES SEXUAL ATTRACTION

In the second way of framing the rape = power idea, you could imagine that some people become sexually aroused at the idea of sexually overpowering someone else. In this framing, feeling power over someone stimulates sexual arousal, which enables the individual to molest.

3) POWER IS AN END UNTO ITSELF

In this framing, molestors are motivated primarily because they like feeling power over other people. They get the same sort of thrill from beating a child, having sex with a child, etc. Sexual arousal is quite tangential to what motivates their behavior.

4) FEMINISM 101

So, I don't know how feminists usually frame this issue. From the way people use the phrase, I suspect it is number 3? But in any case, I think all 3 are possible ways that sex and power might interwine with sexual attraction.

ShifterCat @ 10:45,

From what I understand, social workers in the family court system and in the criminal justice system are spread very thinly, compensated inadequately, and their safety is often jeopardized. I have no reason to believe that a psychiatrist in the criminal justice system is much different in those regards. Am I wrong? If not, I do not see how/why they should be penalized for doing a job that probably not a lot of professionals would want or could afford to do even if they wanted to.

However, if a psychiatrist pronounces a criminal to be suitably rehabilitated for re-insertion into society and that criminal re-offends, nothing happens to the psychiatrist (at least, nothing that's ever reached the media). Perhaps if there were consequences for a misdiagnosis, there would be fewer dangerous criminals released back into the public sphere.

The problem is that we're much better at structural engineering than at psychology. It's much easier to say to a reasonable degree of certainty that a building is structurally sound than it is to say that a person will or will not re-offend. To penalise a psychologist for making an inaccurate prediction (as opposed to performing her job incompetently in a more general sense, for example) would be to hold forensic psychologists to a standard the discipline can't yet meet.

To penalise a psychologist for making an inaccurate prediction (as opposed to performing her job incompetently in a more general sense, for example) would be to hold forensic psychologists to a standard the discipline can't yet meet."-Elise

Yep. And what little we do know about this topic in particular is not exactly anything to celebrate about. I'm on the fence about it--I think you can use psychiatry to make a violent, anti-social person change a little...but is it the total resolution? If psychiatry can't genuinely change a gay man's attraction to other men, can it change the gratification a rapist finds in sexually assaulting women?

Those seem satisfactory answers to the question. Thanks. :)

If psychiatry can't genuinely change a gay man's attraction to other men, can it change the gratification a rapist finds in sexually assaulting women?

There's an important distinction here, I think. Being gay directly implicates one's sexuality, in that it is defined generally by same-sex attraction. Rapists, on the other hand, use sex as a means to an end, i.e., that of asserting power over others.

I think it's reasonable to say that the former isn't going to be (and shouldn't be) changed by psychology, and that the latter could be. The rapist is seeking to satisfy a need extrinsic to sex itself by means of sex; theoretically, it would be possible to address this in the same way that other forms of compulsive behaviour are addressed, i.e., by helping the patient understand the need being fulfilled and to examine the causes, and to address the need in a less destructive way.

The other problem here, that's getting largely ignored, is that in cases of child sex abuse the majority of cases involve people the child was familiar with-- a family member, family friend, parent of a friend, etc. It's not that common to have a random stranger come up and molest a child. So measures like this, though well intended, give a false sense of security b/c they don't do anything about the more present danger-- the people your child sees on a regular basis, that everyone has deemed "safe."

The other problem here, that's getting largely ignored, is that in cases of child sex abuse the majority of cases involve people the child was familiar with-- a family member, family friend, parent of a friend, etc. It's not that common to have a random stranger come up and molest a child.

Good point. In the segment of society generally most afraid of crime (white, middle- to upper-middle class), the children are much more likely to be harmed by someone in the family than a random stranger. Measures like this actually act as a sort of misdirection, leading parents to defend against the relatively improbable harm rather than the much more likely one.

"The problem is that we're much better at structural engineering than at psychology. It's much easier to say to a reasonable degree of certainty that a building is structurally sound than it is to say that a person will or will not re-offend."

...especially since people (including psychiatric patients) have minds of their own and buildings don't.

...especially since people (including psychiatric patients) have minds of their own and buildings don't.

My point exactly.

Great point Marcy and Elise. It's not just the guy lurking in the bushes but also nice uncle so-and-so.

I think the other relevant thing to bring up here is that in our technological age, predators don't have to lurk outside schools to find prey. They seem to do just fine on the internet. All the housing restrictions in the world don't address this.

It's all moot anyway. As far as I've heard (i can't recall where) the majority of sexual offenders are not registered.

speaking of california, wheres the post about arnolds new bill allowing trans kids to use their indentified gender's bathroom and locker room, and the the inclusion of "alternative families" in school books and activities? id like to talk about that.

http://americansfortruth.com/news/theyre-baacckk-california-gay-brainwashing-bills-sb-777.html

(i tried to contact feministing the right way, via outlook express, but it never works on my computer. dont know why. im sorry!)

Damn you kissdadrunkgrlx. That site was deeply creepy!

then we should all talk about it! i want to know more about this bill and exactly how it works. my dad thinks it will eliminate single-sex locker rooms completely. he says boys will just say, "Oh, you know, i think i might be a girl!" so they can get into the girls locker room. i want to know if there are any restrictions to this bill, like the student in question has to be on hormones or something to "qualify" to use their gender-identified locker room.