After the White House (including the Texas warlord with no conscience) applauded the approval of the Act last Thursday, [ http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/07/20060721-1.html], many Europeans strongly doubted the impact of putting the names of 560,000 US convicted sex-offenders online.
“A cheap smokescreen”, a local child-protection worker labeled this US law: “Put a list of all sex-offenders online so your children are now assumingly 100% safe from the 560,000 convicted but released US criminals who committed these disgusting crimes”.
As if the next not-yet-convicted offender is already on that list - this US law only creates an unjustified sense of fake security.
It may be just as useless listing your neighbour, who’s son is playing with one of the millions of unsecured US handguns that kill more American minors yearly than all sex-offenders in US history.
Or to put this item back on track, fact: “The majority of all abused US children are being abused within their own family, by someone they know or who is a relative. That ’someone’ will seldom show up early in the ‘convicted’ listings”.
First point: 1 out of 500 US citizens is a convicted sex-offender? (….) This data is way too vague to be useful.
In case they’re correct: what on earth went this awfully wrong in the US? European figures are way lower.
Second point: will you sell your house and just move knowing that a convicted sex offender lives nearby? Will it mater? How will the neighbours react: beat up all 560,000 sex-offenders when nobody’s watching? If sex-offenders are released, they should not pose any danger - if they do, releasing them is almost as criminal as their acts.
Belgium has had its fair share of psychopaths who molested and even killed minors - would putting their names online have made any real difference? Should’t the money be better spent on psychiatric treatment of these sick people, instead of turning them over to the local lynch gang?
Most serious sex-offenders have a deeply rooted personality disorder and some should be on medication or receive psychiatric counselling.
Releasing them while putting their names online is the response of a US government that pretends to care, but prefers to go for a real cheap and basically fake “solution” to an over-hyped issue that simply wins them votes. Votes from a US population faced with staggering local crime figures. The US are at war, but the battleground is called “America” and non of the perpetrators or victims are “terrorists”.
Reference: The European Center for Missing and Sexually Exploited Children, “Childfocus”, http://www.childfocus.be/en/index.php?language=en , a Belgian foundation.
This blog is not affiliated with or endorsed by the city of Antwerp, Belgium.
Right on. This is a major threat to civil liberties as well. What’s next — all convicted felons? Then it’ll be misdemeanors. This is a huge waste of resources.
Comment by Andrew S. — July 27, 2006 @ 8:39 pm