We all think we know what a sex offender looks like: a serial pedophile, likely male and middle-aged, who lurks in Internet chat rooms or hides behind church authority or children’s programs to prey on little kids.
But an estimated 200,000 registered sex offenders in the United States are children, many as young as eight years old. Most never come off the registry and many end up committing suicide. The few who don’t have trouble finding jobs as adults and face violent attacks wherever they go, even though they haven’t touched a child since and don’t want to.
None of them should be on the list, experts say. Full Article
My god…200,000? That number is far larger than I expected.
How about a study on the effects of being on the registry, regardless of age?
How is this even a topic of discussion? How low have we sunk as a species when the merits of putting children on a public shaming board is a topic of debate? How is this allowed to continue? How have we arrived at a place where we elect officials that pass these types of laws and employ prosecutors who so easily set aside their own humanity in order to further their win list regardless of the cost? How are so many judges repeatedly upholding these cases brought before them? I don’t like this world anymore.
And we needed studies to raise such questions? Wow.
Here’s some food for thought; what are two seemingly insignificant things that could be provided to people (around the world) beginning in childhood that would significantly reduce future crime rates globally?
I will give everyone a hint, neither has anything to do with law enforcement or directly fighting crime. Also one of the things isn’t a weapon or self defense training. Finally while both are typically thought of as being individually given they do each have larger community aspects which in an umbrella way cover things that might be considered different matters all together.
The stress involved in children being put on the public shaming list messes up the development of their brains. This is a form of corporal punishment.