No Halloween For Sex Offenders?

[amigocabal]

Dude, everyone's ignoring your repetitive address-posting because restricting where sex offenders can live is in no way equivalent to interning someone for being of Japanese descent. People might be more inclined to take you seriously if your argument wasn't silly on its face.

Correct.

Interning people because they are sex offenders is moral. Interning people for being of Japanese descent is not.

[Hamstray]

Just keep pushing them out until they're someone else's problem.

Miami Beach wanted to keep sex offenders as far away from children as possible. So officials there came up with a plan that, on the surface, would seem to do the trick. An ordinance passed last year makes it unlawful for those convicted of a serious sex crime to live within 2,500 feet of any school, public bus stop, day care center, park, playground "or other place where children regularly congregate." The city could have saved some ink by simply writing: "No sexual predators allowed in Miami Beach." That, in essence, is the effect of the law. "The whole city is basically covered by this," says Mayor David Dermer. "As far as I'm concerned, it worked well."

These guys are forced to sell. Sounds like some cheap to get real estate.

[Gunhead]

Wait what? People actually buy into this idiotic "hur hur we is tough on zem dirty sex offenders" posturing? That's either really sad, or so sad it's comical.
Government should never ever single out people / groups of people as a general rule. Double so if it's done just to score brownie points. I don't care how despicable people think sex offenders are, the far more important issue is the precedent this kind of behavior sets, and we don't need to look far back or into current events to see this kind of tactic is used to allow harassment and outright violence against a group of people by governments.
I'm fairly sure the people who made this law were just idiots, as we should never attribute anything to malice when stupidity will suffice, but it doesn't make it better really. Not totally discounting malice completely either. Laws like this are just political stick horses, look pretty but lack real substance and I for one will call bullshit when something as serious as sexual violence is marginalized into shouting from a soap box that will do absolutely nothing to solve the underlying issue.

Politicians will never stop going for the emotional knee jerk, and this is exactly what we have here. Another "WILL SOMEONE THINK OF THE FUCKING CHILDREN!!". Pun intended. It is however important to call politicians out when they just try to ride their stick ponies and look pretty.

-Gunhead

[RogueIce]

Hello illiterate person. Did you miss where I stated that they already fucking restrict where they can and cannot live?

Yes, i did.

I stated we should restrict them further.

Oh yea, because it's working out soooo well right now.....

It doesn’t help that sex offenders are allowed to list themselves as transients, which means they can live anywhere.

“We know roughly where they hang out, but the public doesn’t know where they are,” Waltman said.

The number of sex offenders declaring themselves transients has jumped since the passing of Jessica’s Law, said Gerry Blasingame, vice chair of the California Coalition on Sexual Offending and member of the California Sex Offender Management Board. The board was set up by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to oversee the state’s sex offender policy.

Heck the article even goes further. From the same Mister Blasingame, who as noted above is considerably involved with all of this and probably knows far better than someone screeching outrage on an Internet message board:

Blasingame said he believes many current sex offender laws are ineffective in protecting the public.

“Jessica’s Law oversold what could be done to protect the public,” Blasingame said.

Most sex crimes toward children are committed by people the victim knows, not strangers, Blasingame explained. He said many laws on the books today don’t protect people as much as make them feel like something is being done.

“Anything that scares the public or gives a false sense of security is a vote getter,” Blasingame said. “What we need is improved public safety.”

[Ziggy Stardust]

Nice ad hominem motherfucker. Get the fuck out of the thread.

Psst ... moron ... look up ad hominem. When I am calling your argument a knee-jerk black-and-white fallacy, it isn't an ad hominem. An ad hominem would be me saying, instead, "Don't listen to Flagg, he gurgles goat cum while a Turkish transvestite named Burk paddles his ass."

In any case, since your argument boils down to, "ALL OF YOUR CHILDREN WILL BE RAPED ON HALLOWEEN IF YOU DON'T LISTEN TO ME!!!!!!!!!1111 OMG", I feel pretty safe in calling it a black-and-white fallacy. Now, if you actually responded to the multiple requests in this thread by other posters that you provide evidence that this measure actually will be safe and effective, instead of spitting out more ridiculous strawmen, I will withdraw this comment. Otherwise, fuck off.

[TheFeniX]

Heck the article even goes further. From the same Mister Blasingame, who as noted above is considerably involved with all of this and probably knows far better than someone screeching outrage on an Internet message board:

Yea, the article is pretty comprehensive, but I had already covered the "sex offenders prefer victims they know rather than strangers" on page 1 of the thread with a link to California's own website concerning Megan's Law.

90% of child victims know their offender, with almost half of the offenders being a family member. Of sexual assaults against people age 12 and up, approximately 80% of the victims know the offender.

There's a whole lot of misinformation going around about sex offenders (and most crime in general) that "people just know is true" which isn't.

[Vendetta]

I don't think it's been adequately demonstrated that this will protect children from harm. Sex offenders against children are overwhelmingly more likely to be people already known to the child and in a position of trust with the family.

A law like this completely misses the actual dangers to children and, in fact, probably does more harm than good since "stranger danger" paranoia blinds people to the actual likely dangers.

Yeah, these Halloween cards are really going to stop someone from going to next room. Of course

See, it looks like that was supposed to be a response to my post, but as such it doesn't make any damn sense...

My post is meant to point out how futile this whole business is because it is targeted at the "stranger danger" of sex offenders, whereas that is actually a vanishingly small part of the overall problem of child sex abuse. And in fact this approach to child abuse is actually counterproductive because it fuels an unthinking focus on something other than the actual problem, and makes actually fighting that problem more difficult because people believe that their counterproductive strategy is already "protecting" the children.

[Flagg]

Heck the article even goes further. From the same Mister Blasingame, who as noted above is considerably involved with all of this and probably knows far better than someone screeching outrage on an Internet message board:

Yea, the article is pretty comprehensive, but I had already covered the "sex offenders prefer victims they know rather than strangers" on page 1 of the thread with a link to California's own website concerning Megan's Law.

90% of child victims know their offender, with almost half of the offenders being a family member. Of sexual assaults against people age 12 and up, approximately 80% of the victims know the offender.

There's a whole lot of misinformation going around about sex offenders (and most crime in general) that "people just know is true" which isn't.

So because most kids are raped by people they know, we shouldn't do anything to try and make sure that the other 10-20% of kids don't get raped?

[Jub]

So because most kids are raped by people they know, we shouldn't do anything to try and make sure that the other 10-20% of kids don't get raped?

10 to 20% where are you getting these numbers from? How many rapes of the type this law aims to prevent happen each Halloween? How many rapes of this type happen each Halloween in the area this law is currently being enacted in?

I'm starting to get sick of this no numbers think of the children bullshit Flagg and I'm not going to let you back pedal anymore. Now show the numbers for why you support this type of law or admit that you're just knee jerking due to fear of stranger danger.

[Flagg]

So because most kids are raped by people they know, we shouldn't do anything to try and make sure that the other 10-20% of kids don't get raped?

10 to 20% where are you getting these numbers from? How many rapes of the type this law aims to prevent happen each Halloween? How many rapes of this type happen each Halloween in the area this law is currently being enacted in?

I'm starting to get sick of this no numbers think of the children bullshit Flagg and I'm not going to let you back pedal anymore. Now show the numbers for why you support this type of law or admit that you're just knee jerking due to fear of stranger danger.

1) You're retarded.
2) You're retarded.
3) Because you're so retarded I shall explain my reasoning:

It was stated by TheFeniX that 90% of child sexual assaults are by nonstrangers, and that above age 12, 80% are assaulted by nonstrangers. So why shouldn't we do something to try and prevent the 10-20% who are assaulted by strangers?

[TheFeniX]

So because most kids are raped by people they know, we shouldn't do anything to try and make sure that the other 10-20% of kids don't get raped?

Putting aside your black and white bullshit: doing nothing would actually be a better solution than what's being done right now. I've already posted 2 articles that show not only do "candy laws" and "sex offender free zones" do nothing to combat these types of crimes or are focusing on the wrong risk groups, forcing sex offender out of metropolitan areas is actually having the opposite effect that was intended.

In the article you posted, the police chief stated that Halloween sexual assaults on kids weren't an issue even before the law. There were 0. Cero. Nada. Zero.

What the fuck is any of this doing to prevent sexual assault of children? Easy: nothing. It's merely a way for parents to feel safer and for politicians to score browny points by subjecting a despised class of people to arbitrary restrictions with no evidence it will accomplish anything.

[Jub]

1) You're retarded.
2) You're retarded.
3) Because you're so retarded I shall explain my reasoning:

It was stated by TheFeniX that 90% of child sexual assaults are by nonstrangers, and that above age 12, 80% are assaulted by nonstrangers. So why shouldn't we do something to try and prevent the 10-20% who are assaulted by strangers?

Hey Flagg, answer the fucking questions. How many rapes annually, nation wide, would be prevented by this law? How many for the area that this law covers?

-----

Now, seeing as Flagg is too stupid to provide numbers for his own case, I'll show everybody why this is a useless law with simple math.

In 1999 there were an estimated 320,000 cases of sexual abuse of a minor and 29% of those cases occurred from a stranger. So that means we end up with 92,800 cases that this law might do something about. Now, because this law only effects one day of the year we divide by 365 and find out that 254 cases of sexual assault of a minor by a stranger should happen each Halloween. I'm assuming all days are equal until somebody gives numbers showing that stranger rapes of children occur more often on Halloween. Assuming that all cases involve kids getting snatched off of porches by molesters we still see that this law, if 100% effective, will only prevent an astonishingly small number of people anyway.

The facts get worse when we look at the area this law is being passed in. Simi valley has 124,237 people in it compared to the US population of 314,548,000 people. This law 'protects' 0.00039% of the US population and will stop roughly 1 case of abuse per decade if it works with 100% efficiency and we assume that all cases of stranger danger occur because of people pulling kids in off the front step. So 115 people are being effected by a law that will take 1,115 years to have a positive effect on the same number of people.

In short the law is worse than pointless and you could do more to prevent these sorts of things by making prostitutes cheap and legal than you would passing these sorts of worthless hateful laws.

[Flagg]

So because most kids are raped by people they know, we shouldn't do anything to try and make sure that the other 10-20% of kids don't get raped?

Putting aside your black and white bullshit: doing nothing would actually be a better solution than what's being done right now. I've already posted 2 articles that show not only do "candy laws" and "sex offender free zones" do nothing to combat these types of crimes or are focusing on the wrong risk groups, forcing sex offender out of metropolitan areas is actually having the opposite effect that was intended.

In the article you posted, the police chief stated that Halloween sexual assaults on kids weren't an issue even before the law. There were 0. Cero. Nada. Zero.

What the fuck is any of this doing to prevent sexual assault of children? Easy: nothing. It's merely a way for parents to feel safer and for politicians to score browny points by subjecting a despised class of people to arbitrary restrictions with no evidence it will accomplish anything.

Please provide evidence that restrictions on child molesters "do nothing" to prevent sexual assaults on children.

And I love how I'm the guy with black/white fallacies when my position is and has been "not all that thrilled by the restrictions placed on sexual predators, but maybe they shouldn't be allowed to hand out candy on Halloween".

[Flagg]

1) You're retarded.
2) You're retarded.
3) Because you're so retarded I shall explain my reasoning:

It was stated by TheFeniX that 90% of child sexual assaults are by nonstrangers, and that above age 12, 80% are assaulted by nonstrangers. So why shouldn't we do something to try and prevent the 10-20% who are assaulted by strangers?

Hey Flagg, answer the fucking questions. How many rapes annually, nation wide, would be prevented by this law? How many for the area that this law covers?

I love how you expect me to provide evidence that a local law would effect people nationally.

-----

Now, seeing as Flagg is too stupid to provide numbers for his own case, I'll show everybody why this is a useless law with simple math.

In 1999 there were an estimated 320,000 cases of sexual abuse of a minor and 29% of those cases occurred from a stranger. So that means we end up with 92,800 cases that this law might do something about. Now, because this law only effects one day of the year we divide by 365 and find out that 254 cases of sexual assault of a minor by a stranger should happen each Halloween. I'm assuming all days are equal until somebody gives numbers showing that stranger rapes of children occur more often on Halloween. Assuming that all cases involve kids getting snatched off of porches by molesters we still see that this law, if 100% effective, will only prevent an astonishingly small number of people anyway.

The facts get worse when we look at the area this law is being passed in. Simi valley has 124,237 people in it compared to the US population of 314,548,000 people. This law 'protects' 0.00039% of the US population and will stop roughly 1 case of abuse per decade if it works with 100% efficiency and we assume that all cases of stranger danger occur because of people pulling kids in off the front step. So 115 people are being effected by a law that will take 1,115 years to have a positive effect on the same number of people.

In short the law is worse than pointless and you could do more to prevent these sorts of things by making prostitutes cheap and legal than you would passing these sorts of worthless hateful laws.

We should allow child prostitution? Because you know that pedophile are attracted to children, right?

[Jub]

I love how you expect me to provide evidence that a local law would effect people nationally.

You haven't provided any evidence at all so far. All you've done is posted an article, said that you support laws that would restrict people's freedoms, and then bitch when called upon to prove that the law will do anything at all.

We should allow child prostitution? Because you know that pedophile are attracted to children, right?

I'd be willing to bet that more crimes would be prevented by giving people access to legal of age pussy than would be prevented by shunning people further. After all, I've already shown that your law would prevent 1 rape a decade if all stranger rapes were committed by people already on the offender list and happened by means of pulling a kid in from the front step. It shouldn't be hard for virtually anything else to do better.

[Flagg]

I love how you expect me to provide evidence that a local law would effect people nationally.

You haven't provided any evidence at all so far. All you've done is posted an article, said that you support laws that would restrict people's freedoms, and then bitch when called upon to prove that the law will do anything at all.

We should allow child prostitution? Because you know that pedophile are attracted to children, right?

I'd be willing to bet that more crimes would be prevented by giving people access to legal of age pussy than would be prevented by shunning people further. After all, I've already shown that your law would prevent 1 rape a decade if all stranger rapes were committed by people already on the offender list and happened by means of pulling a kid in from the front step. It shouldn't be hard for virtually anything else to do better.

Hey man, if you're willing to allow that sexual assault every 10 years, that's your damage. I'm not.

[Jub]

Hey man, if you're willing to allow that sexual assault every 10 years, that's your damage. I'm not.

Except that these numbers have a bunch of built in assumptions that simple won't happen in real life. For one, this law only works if we assume that only known sex offenders commit these types of crimes. Second it only works if we assume that in all these crimes kids get pulled in off of front porches. If we plug in numbers closer to reality we're going to be protecting a lot less children than 1 per decade.

Given the numbers it's effecting too many people to be a net positive. Even if we go with the high end numbers and assume that 52% of the people targeted reoffend that is 55 people in Simi Valley that are being targeted unjustly. Not the mention the people that are on the list for things that shouldn't be attached to such stigma.

That begs the question, how much suffering is it worth to save a single person from being sexually assaulted? That's assuming that anybody is saved at all because one tenth of a sexual assault less each year is covered by statistical noise.

[Flagg]

Hey man, if you're willing to allow that sexual assault every 10 years, that's your damage. I'm not.

Except that these numbers have a bunch of built in assumptions that simple won't happen in real life. For one, this law only works if we assume that only known sex offenders commit these types of crimes. Second it only works if we assume that in all these crimes kids get pulled in off of front porches. If we plug in numbers closer to reality we're going to be protecting a lot less children than 1 per decade.

Given the numbers it's effecting too many people to be a net positive. Even if we go with the high end numbers and assume that 52% of the people targeted reoffend that is 55 people in Simi Valley that are being targeted unjustly. Not the mention the people that are on the list for things that shouldn't be attached to such stigma.

That begs the question, how much suffering is it worth to save a single person from being sexually assaulted? That's assuming that anybody is saved at all because one tenth of a sexual assault less each year is covered by statistical noise.

Here's the thing: We cannot say how many children are protected by these laws because we cannot measure how many kids weren't attacked by pedophiles. It has to happen for it to be counted. Of course you could look at the statistics from when we didn't have the lists and compare them to now, though we have other factors to consider these days like more protective parents, greater awareness, and tougher sentencing.

All of this is ultimately pointless however when you are actually advocating for pedophiles to be allowed to invite children to their houses and hand out candy.

[Jub]

Here's the thing: We cannot say how many children are protected by these laws because we cannot measure how many kids weren't attacked by pedophiles. It has to happen for it to be counted. Of course you could look at the statistics from when we didn't have the lists and compare them to now, though we have other factors to consider these days like more protective parents, greater awareness, and tougher sentencing.

All of this is ultimately pointless however when you are actually advocating for pedophiles to be allowed to invite children to their houses and hand out candy.

You're advocating that we treat people that have done something horrible in the past as if they're incapable of change even in the face of evidence that shows that these laws don't actually protect anybody. You're presuming guilt based on past behavior and profiling and the law doesn't and shouldn't work that way. Besides, if this plan will have such a great success rate why not expand the program to cover other people that shouldn't be handing out candy to kids, like murders and drug dealers? Why not go even further with it and make these signs year round things?

You're also failing to address other people in the thread in favor of attacking me. You might want to go back and look over the rest of the thread.

[Flagg]

Here's the thing: We cannot say how many children are protected by these laws because we cannot measure how many kids weren't attacked by pedophiles. It has to happen for it to be counted. Of course you could look at the statistics from when we didn't have the lists and compare them to now, though we have other factors to consider these days like more protective parents, greater awareness, and tougher sentencing.

All of this is ultimately pointless however when you are actually advocating for pedophiles to be allowed to invite children to their houses and hand out candy.

You're advocating that we treat people that have done something horrible in the past as if they're incapable of change even in the face of evidence that shows that these laws don't actually protect anybody. You're presuming guilt based on past behavior and profiling and the law doesn't and shouldn't work that way. Besides, if this plan will have such a great success rate why not expand the program to cover other people that shouldn't be handing out candy to kids, like murders and drug dealers? Why not go even further with it and make these signs year round things?

If drug dealers start molesting kids we can restrict their lives after they are convicted of it and subsequently complete their sentances, too. Are you also in favor of letting women like Susan Smith have more kids?

You're also failing to address other people in the thread in favor of attacking me. You might want to go back and look over the rest of the thread.

I've responded to others in this thread, so you can take those lying lips and kiss my lillywhite ass.

[Jub]

Flagg, I'm done with you. You're talking in circles and trying to paint anybody that has objections about this law as the bad guy.

You've also not responded to posts by Vendetta, Irbis, Ziggy Stardust, and TheFeniX in favor of responding to my posts. So you can kindly retract that statement about my being a liar.

[TheFeniX]

Please provide evidence that restrictions on child molesters "do nothing" to prevent sexual assaults on children.

Are you serious? From all I've posted, you've taken away that I'm against any restriction against child molesters? Oh wait, I'll just repeat myself again because, why the fuck not?

I don't know of any first-world country that refuses to restrict the rights of convicted felons even after release. You'd find few people who would argue violent felons should be able to legally purchase firearms or that they should be able to take a job as a law-enforcement officer. The problem is when knee-jerk and extremely vague laws start casting wide nets to restrict rights and/or privileges with no benefits to society. "Candy Laws" do not work. They accomplish nothing. Laws designed to tell sex offenders where they can and can't live only serve to push offenders "off the grid" and make them almost impossible to track. These laws aren't just useless, they're actively dangerous.

As for the Candy law itself:

The police chief told the council that he could find no records of a sex crime against a child on Halloween in Simi Valley.

Should I post it again? You even pointed out how this restriction doesn't seem to do any good, but we should waste taxpayer money and police resources on it anyway. My whole point is that's a fucking stupid idea. Besides, what kind of fucking parent would let their young kid stray far enough away from them at night so that a child molester had the time to drag them into their home and molest them? And how exactly would a candy law prevent that? If anything, being forced to keep your lights off would make it easier to kidnap a child walking past the house.

But it's moot because shit doesn't go down like that.

And I love how I'm the guy with black/white fallacies when my position is and has been "not all that thrilled by the restrictions placed on sexual predators, but maybe they shouldn't be allowed to hand out candy on Halloween".

We're not talking about denying child molesters from working at day care or giving them unsupervised access to minors for extended periods of time. There are intelligent ways to restrict the movements and rights of pedophiles and other sex offenders. But none of those are being discussed in this thread so please refrain from misrepresenting my idea of "retarded legislation is retarded" with a "Do stupid shit or do nothing at all."

[Flagg]

Please provide evidence that restrictions on child molesters "do nothing" to prevent sexual assaults on children.

Are you serious? From all I've posted, you've taken away that I'm against any restriction against child molesters? Oh wait, I'll just repeat myself again because, why the fuck not?

I don't know of any first-world country that refuses to restrict the rights of convicted felons even after release. You'd find few people who would argue violent felons should be able to legally purchase firearms or that they should be able to take a job as a law-enforcement officer. The problem is when knee-jerk and extremely vague laws start casting wide nets to restrict rights and/or privileges with no benefits to society. "Candy Laws" do not work. They accomplish nothing. Laws designed to tell sex offenders where they can and can't live only serve to push offenders "off the grid" and make them almost impossible to track. These laws aren't just useless, they're actively dangerous.

As for the Candy law itself:

The police chief told the council that he could find no records of a sex crime against a child on Halloween in Simi Valley.

Should I post it again? You even pointed out how this restriction doesn't seem to do any good, but we should waste taxpayer money and police resources on it anyway. My whole point is that's a fucking stupid idea. Besides, what kind of fucking parent would let their young kid stray far enough away from them at night so that a child molester had the time to drag them into their home and molest them? And how exactly would a candy law prevent that? If anything, being forced to keep your lights off would make it easier to kidnap a child walking past the house.

But it's moot because shit doesn't go down like that.

And I love how I'm the guy with black/white fallacies when my position is and has been "not all that thrilled by the restrictions placed on sexual predators, but maybe they shouldn't be allowed to hand out candy on Halloween".

We're not talking about denying child molesters from working at day care or giving them unsupervised access to minors for extended periods of time. There are intelligent ways to restrict the movements and rights of pedophiles and other sex offenders. But none of those are being discussed in this thread so please refrain from misrepresenting my idea of "retarded legislation is retarded" with a "Do stupid shit or do nothing at all."

But that's Jubs position.

[Flagg]

Flagg, I'm done with you. You're talking in circles and trying to paint anybody that has objections about this law as the bad guy.

You've also not responded to posts by Vendetta, Irbis, Ziggy Stardust, and TheFeniX in favor of responding to my posts. So you can kindly retract that statement about my being a liar.

I responded to TheFeniX. I didn't respond to others because they were saying the same things. So concession accepted?

[Jub]

But that's Jubs position.

Please quote me saying that there should be no restrictions at all on sex offenders. I've stated that I support taking away things such as guns from registered felons, but restricting where people can live and what decorations they can and can't put up is stupid. You've also yet to prove that the scenario that this law aims to prevent will do anything aside from making people's lives even shittier.

Flagg, I'm done with you. You're talking in circles and trying to paint anybody that has objections about this law as the bad guy.

You've also not responded to posts by Vendetta, Irbis, Ziggy Stardust, and TheFeniX in favor of responding to my posts. So you can kindly retract that statement about my being a liar.

I responded to TheFeniX. I didn't respond to others because they were saying the same things. So concession accepted?

You didn't respond to this point by Vendetta:

I don't think it's been adequately demonstrated that this will protect children from harm. Sex offenders against children are overwhelmingly more likely to be people already known to the child and in a position of trust with the family.

A law like this completely misses the actual dangers to children and, in fact, probably does more harm than good since "stranger danger" paranoia blinds people to the actual likely dangers.

Nor this by Irbis:

You... really think being thought of as a sex offender by uninformed, especially child sex offender is harmless and easily quashed rumour? Say what?

Nor this by Ziggy Stardust:

Psst ... moron ... look up ad hominem. When I am calling your argument a knee-jerk black-and-white fallacy, it isn't an ad hominem. An ad hominem would be me saying, instead, "Don't listen to Flagg, he gurgles goat cum while a Turkish transvestite named Burk paddles his ass."

In any case, since your argument boils down to, "ALL OF YOUR CHILDREN WILL BE RAPED ON HALLOWEEN IF YOU DON'T LISTEN TO ME!!!!!!!!!1111 OMG", I feel pretty safe in calling it a black-and-white fallacy. Now, if you actually responded to the multiple requests in this thread by other posters that you provide evidence that this measure actually will be safe and effective, instead of spitting out more ridiculous strawmen, I will withdraw this comment. Otherwise, fuck off.

I guess I missed where you responded to TheFeniX, but 3 our of 4 ain't bad. Better than you've been batting so far.