As much as we, as a society, would like to see the end of all sex crimes in this nation, it will never happen. To believe or suggest otherwise is simply naivete and foolishness.If you disagree, let's look at the facts of our society. Don't most people in our society abhor the taking of another human life? Don't we want murder to stop? Haven't we had laws to deter murder for hundreds of years in this country? Of course, we have tried futiley since the inception of our nation to eradicate murder.
Have we ever, over the course of humanity, been able to end all murders? The answer is, obviously: no.
Our laws become deterrents for most people to commit such horrific crimes, but not for all. This truth holds true for all crimes: drunk driving, abuse, theft, fraud, speeding, racism, etc.. None of these can ever be erased from our society regardless of the punishments associated with them. No matter what laws these legislators can dream up, there will always be some who commit sex offenses.
Once we understand this simple truth, we can come to rational approaches to drafting logical sex offender laws. Sex offenses are no worse, nor no better, than any other type of crime. Crime is crime. Right is right, Wrong is wrong.
But as long as we have "sky-is-falling" irrational maniacs driving our legislators to continue this broad-brush, punching-bag style legislative fight against sex offenders, we will never come to effective, constitutional and balanced sex offender legislation in this country.
The Ohio vs. Bodyke Supreme Court ruling is just one step in the right direction. We still have a huge battle before us to step away from all of these emotion-driven sex offender laws across the nation. We, as the people, are to blame. Legislators only act when they see it in their own political self-interest to do so.
If we can ever educate the panic-driven people who want to throw sex offenders off bridges, or castrate them, or worse....we can finally see some rational and logical legislation dealing with this crime. Just as we do with all other crimes. Until then, the hysterical sex offender laws will continue to cause devastation to the families of nearly one million Americans and to threaten the stability of our society.
