By Lenore Skenazy . . .
This fantastic editorial says what we have been saying: Enough with the post-incarceration demonizing of all those convicted of sex crimes, as if merely being within 2500 feet of “one of them” means our kids are likely to be kidnapped and raped.
As they stand now, the laws regarding where a “sex offender” can live are as cruel as they are worthless. Banning folks who’ve served their time from living anywhere near a park or school assumes that they are driven to pounce on random victims. But we know that the vast majority of crimes against kids, including rape, are at the hands of someone the child knows. Not a stranger in the bushes.
We also know, I hope, that the vast majority of people on the sex offender registry do not pose a threat to kids. My favorite illustrative stat is from Georgia, where the Sex Offender Registry Review Board did a study and concluded of the 17,000 people on its registry, “just over 100” represented dangerous “predators.”
100 out of 17,000.
And yet 17,000 human beings are treated as scum.