Margretta Dwyer understands well the moral, legal and practical implications of dealing with sex offenders. But she hopes that Minnesota legislators working to revamp the civil commitment program also consider something else:
Empathy.
“I’m not saying sex offending is OK. I’m not saying be easy on them,” Dwyer said this week. “I’m saying there are ways we can help that are better than what we’re doing. Education, support, compassion.” Full Article
“Once we shame them, they’re likely to reoffend.” I don’t agree with this, exactly. It paints us as simple beings at the mercy of people’s opinions of us. Call me a person don’t label me as victim or offender, using general terms to typecast. If shaming leads to reoffense, then we, who have been shamed mercilessly in all possible ways would have the highest rate of reoffense of any class. But this is not the case. We choose to not reoffend for as many reasons as so called “normal” people choose to change bad behavior. I am tired of people in power putting us into special categories and doing things to us they would not do to another citizen, putting us into broad characterizations based on past offense. The problem with shaming is that it is an attempt to destroy our humanity in the sight of others. It creates disharmony and segregation where there should be reintegration.
Hopefully minnesota will listen and really reform their sex-o laws ….pretty much using up alot of the taxpayers budget
for that state to where they are in reform mode….Ms. dryer
is very telling in that these initial commit laws were going on the fly…flaky…no foundation …..Ill say it again, the registry to public is a whitewash and waste of taxpayers funds .