The 'sex offender' list needs to be overhauled.

[Are_grits_groceries]

Young Pittsfield Township man struggles with sex offender label
Matthew Freeman is struggling to move on with his life, six years after being convicted of having sex with a high school girlfriend who was one year below the legal age of consent.

Freeman, who is required to register as a sex offender, is facing a new criminal charge that accuses him of illegally living within 1,000 feet of a school.

His latest trouble started as Freeman was shooting hoops in his Pittsfield Township driveway Aug. 3.

According to a police report, a state trooper pulled up to Freeman's house across the street from Ann Arbor's Carpenter Elementary School, where children were on the playground at 7:30 p.m.

Freeman told the trooper Pittsfield Township police told him “it shouldn’t be a problem” to live near the school. He had registered with Pittsfield police 27 days earlier using his family's Dalton Avenue address.

Freeman told the trooper he was on the Michigan Sex Offender Registry because he had “sex with his 15-year-old girlfriend when he was 17.” He also said his girlfriend’s mother got “upset with him and pressed charges.”

The trooper aimed a laser gun at the school building and determined Freeman was living 326 feet away, the report said, breaking the law.
A lot more to the story: http://www.annarbor.com/news/a-young-man-struggles-with-the-sex-offender-label/

I taught a student in the same situation. The parents of the girl who was just under the age of consent got mad at him. They weren't thrilled with them having sex and they had addressed that issue. They allowed them to still see each other, but a curfew incident came up. They then reported the kid to the police for the act of having sex with their daughter.

He should have known better, but he wasn't a wild-eyed criminal. He went through pure hell, and I don't know if he will ever be okay. His father was a Colonel in the Army, and he put him through unrelenting punishment. I liked him, and I felt for him. The whole community knew about it, and his peers didn't give him any respite. That kid did everything under the sun to try to compensate by joining every orgaization and spending every waking hour working on some project.

He got in trouble for having a run in with a teacher one day. The run in happened when the teacher made one too many remarks to him. He gave the teacher a verbal smackdown because the teacher was having an affair with a student which wasn't reported to anybody. I found out that backstory later.

He used to come to my class when he could to relax or hide I think. I didn't give him shit or radiate disapproval vibes. He was getting enough of those. I also treated him the same way as my other students which wasn't the case in other places.
I found out a lot about this mess because a good friend of mine was a vice-principal.
The 'sex offender' list shouldn't be used for this. I'm not sure how to sort it all out, but it needs to be reworked.

[Hawkeye-X]

1. IMHO, the sex offender list is draconian and police admittedly are having problems with it

There are three categories of sex offenders

1) Non-violent sex offense
2) Violent sex offense
3) Sexual predator

Those who are categorized (1) should NOT be on the sex offender list.

Category (2) should remain on the list for up to 15 years after sentencing

Category (3) for life.

What do you think?

[Are_grits_groceries]

2. The sentences for those in the 3rd category need to

be reconsidered. They are the people who belong in prison for a long, long time. They cannot be cured, and will reoffend over and over. The offenses they commit are truly heinous, and can ruin lives completely. Their victims can become the walking wounded with a form of PTSD. In the case of pedophilia, their acts can live on because those that are molested are more likely to become molesters.

Another group of criminals that needs to have a good long look are stalkers. That crime is considered one of the worst crimes there is. Those who are truly in that category need to be given long sentences also. They may not get over their infatuation even then, but they won't be on the streets.

We spend too much time on locking up drug offenders and others who need a different approach.

[LoZoccolo]

3. What would you consider a "non-violent" offense? n/t

[Fleshdancer]

5. I would guess statutory rape and things like flashing

assuming the sex was consensual in the statutory rape case like the example used in the OP.

[aikoaiko]

4. GA changed its laws so that a person in that situation wouldn't be on the sex offenders list at all.

Sex with an underaged person (13, 14, 15) but within 3 years age difference is a misdemeanor and misdemeanors are not on the sex offender registry.

[GreenPartyVoter]

6. That seems much more reasonable.

[Meldread]

7. My problem with these lists is one of privacy.

At which point do you consider such criminals 'rehabilitated' or 'sufficiently punished'?

If you don't believe sex offenders can be rehabilitated why allow them back into society at all? If you do believe they can be rehabilitated at which point do you cease punishing them for crimes that they've already served their time for?

The list does not answer either of those questions, nor offer a solution to them. What are you going to do when you discover your neighbor is on the list? Are you going to shun him / her? What if your neighbor turns out to be a guy like in this story? There are just so many issues... Ultimately, I think the list harms more than it helps. It does no one any good to know Marry down the street was convicted of statutory rape because she had sex with her 17 year old boyfriend after she had just turned 18 years of age. If a parent is doing a good job, then they'll be aware of who their child interacts with and will teach them what is and is not appropriate. If a parent does a shitty job, then they aren't looking at this list anyway.

[Vidar]

8. The sex offender list targets far too many teenage lovers along &

strippers as viciously as rapists & pepophiles.