RSOL Conference 2016 “The Child Scarlet Letter” by Prof. Carpenter
At RSOL’s 2016 national conference in Atlanta, GA, Ms. Carpenter focused on children who are involved in sexual misconduct being forced to register as sex offenders, often for the remainder of their lives. This is contradictory to what research shows about best practice with juveniles. Additionally, she showed that not only is their registration an injustice that deserves greater national attention but also that proving the flaws in juvenile registration helps inform our fight against adult registration.
RSOL Conf 2016 The Child Scarlet Letter Carpenter
It is an abomination putting people who committed crimes as juveniles on the registry for life. Most of the “crimes” are normal human behavior. Plain and simple.What a judgemental, vindictive, cruel and stupid system!
“Sex Offender” are words that have become like a brand in the public’s mind. Your average citizen, getting their info from the mainstream news, thinks “sex offenders” are monsters. It would be like applying the label “serial killer” to a person who accidentally bumped into you at the grocery store. I prefer not to use the term.
More people need to know how f***d up our system is criminalizing normal human behavior. Like the 10 year old girl who pulled down a boys pants on the playground and now has to register as a “sex offender”. Show me one person in their right mind who agrees with this.
Adults being put on the registry can be a little harder to parse, especially for those unfamiliar with how the system works. Still, when you look at the data you realize: 1) The registry doesn’t work, and 2) The crimes aren’t at all what you expected.
Why isn’t the mainstream media in a feeding frenzy over this? Lifetime registration for engaging in normal childhood behavior? It’s a no-brainer. Considering all the politically correct non-sense that gets the limelight why isn’t this tragedy getting more press?
I would like to see parents charged when their children are charged with these crimes. Lack of parenting is child endangerment.
Surely, this would get the ACLU, etc involved where governmental concern regarding parenting is involved, e.g. see Iowa girl taking on county prosecutor case.