It doesn't register

Apple didn't show up today. She was supposed to stay on for another week and train a new person. I hired a new person last week, Susie, but Susie let me know on Friday that she was going to move to another city because her boyfriend just got a job. It was a busy day, we were shorthanded, and it is going to suck until I have someone firmly in place. I am hoping to hire a former Marine for the position. I figure she will be able to keep everyone and everything in line. I am still waiting to hear back from her to see if she wants the job.

Joseph Dobbs is a 22 year old sex offender that I represent. He was convicted of a sex offense when he was 18. Now, for the rest of his life he has to keep the state informed as to where he lives. He has to register as a sex offender wherever he goes. This strikes me as being so flagrantly unconstitutional that I can barely talk about it. Go kill a person, and you will get your fifteen or twenty years in prison. At that point, society says you have paid your debt and you don't owe anything else. You don't have to register as a murderer before you go live somewhere.

But, of course, having sex with a fourteen year old when you are nineteen is much more serious than murder. Now you are marked for life. Life. There is no amount of time you can spend in prison that will make society say, "Okay. You have paid a large enough punishment." It is crazy the way our society deals with these sex offenders.

The argument, of course, is that sex offenses have such a high recidivism rate that we must keep track of sex offenders at all costs because they are going to strike again. Okay, let us suppose that is true. Are there studies that show us that making them register as sex offenders everywhere they live for the rest of their life is going to decrease the chances that they will offend again? I am not quite aware of that study.

I see two things accomplished by making sex offenders register: 1- People like Joseph Dobbs wind up serving another couple of years for not telling the state where they live. You want a victimless crime? How about not telling someone where you live? Two years. And 2- Regular citizens get to freak out and become frightened over things that are not real dangers. Go look up a site that shows you where sex offenders in your state live. Pull up a map of your neighborhood and see just how many live near you. Hint: it is a lot. You have a better chance of being struck by lightening twice than you do of having a stranger grab your child and molesting him/her. Want to avoid having your kid molested? Be watchful with family, friends, teachers, and sitters. Don't worry about Joseph Dobbs around the corner who shows up as a red dot on one of those websites.

Well, you might want to worry about him, actually. He has an armed robbery conviction and has a new gun-related crime that is pending in federal court. Of course, there won't be any red dots on your monitor for any of that.