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Georgia Is Safe From Hospice Residents... For Now
Georgia's latest sex offender residency requirements will force thousands of people to pick up and find new homes. The Washington Post surveys the state's most dangerous geriatric sex criminals:
One is 100 years old. Another can barely walk and is in the late stages of Alzheimer's disease. Another is dying of heart disease in a nursing home.
"He doesn't really know anything about it," said Ruby Anderson, 77, whose husband was convicted of having sex with a minor in 1997 and, at 81, no longer recognizes members of his family because of Alzheimer's disease. "The trouble is, I just don't know where we can go."
Other men and women are being punished, decades after the fact, for having had consensual sex in high school. At least one woman is being forced to move for having had consensual oral sex in high school. (I reported on her case and others here.)
The bill is the handiwork of Georgia's House Majority leader, who is just worried, after all, about the children. He says the law will convince offenders "to move to another state." Opponents of the law say many of the people affected are just going to end up on the street--a great place to put any potential re-offenders.
ed|11.22.06 @ 10:18AM|#
Where I live the municipal TV station rotates the names, addresses and head shots of all the city's registered sex offenders. There they are, for all to see, every 15 minutes, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I look at their faces and consider the horrors of being publicly shamed in this manner and can't help but wonder how many of them are there because of consensual sex or a botched investigation or outright malice. And I think of how easily a determined sicko with an axe to grind could put me or my friends in that rogues' gallery. It's a truly sickening abuse of power.
|11.22.06 @ 10:48AM|#
There seems to be an endless number of victims to the Georgia law. The local alternative rag here in Atlanta had a story about a woman who got convicted in high school in the late 1970s for giving a blowjob by some redneck DA. She is now on a "sex offender" list and can't live most places in the state. Society's sick obsession with sex offenders has gone on far enough.
|11.22.06 @ 10:52AM|#
ed,
Those horrors are exacerbated by the unbelievably broad definition
of "sex crime". Some old dirtfucker who raped a nine-year-old girl
gets lumped into the same group of outcasts with the 17-year old
teenager who had oral sex with his 15-year old girlfriend. Along
with the thievery of civil rights from DUI suspects, it's one of
the great underreported injustices of our time.
|11.22.06 @ 10:58AM|#
Yeah, it's "for the children", even if said sex offender is not
a pedophile. Even if he/she just broke some arbitrary law which
says that a 16 year old can have sex with another 16 year old, but
not with a 15 year old.
This legal bullying of "sex offenders" would be a little easier to
stomach if they saved the "sex offender" label for actual sex
offenders, and not for measly bullshit like many of the "offenders"
are convicted of. The fact that there is no differentiation between
violent pedophiles and a teenager who broke some arbitrary law, it
makes me want to crack some fucking beaurocratic skulls.
|11.22.06 @ 11:35AM|#
Wait till the released sex offenders start getting killed, if it hasn't happened already with notification laws. Of course, it will be justified as "unfortunate, but unavoidable" by the lawmakers.
|11.22.06 @ 11:51AM|#
Of course, it will be justified as "unfortunate, but
unavoidable" by the lawmakers.
You're being too kind to the lawmakers--they'd probably say it was
deserved. They're only playing to the mob...
|11.22.06 @ 12:01PM|#
You're being too kind to the lawmakers--they'd probably say
it was deserved. They're only playing to the mob...
You're right. When we state AGs lauding prison rape this would
naturally follow.
|11.22.06 @ 12:27PM|#
J sub D "Wait till the released sex offenders start getting
killed..."
Your wait is over:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/04/18/sex_crime_disclosure_questioned/
|11.22.06 @ 12:40PM|#
Ron,
Thanks.
State Senator Scott P. Brown, a Wrentham Republican, introduced
legislation late last year to expand the Massachusetts registry to
include all defendants convicted of sex offenses involving a child.
The bill is still in committee, but Brown said the killings in
Maine have not changed his mind about its importance. ''The
public's need for information outweighs any potential risks," he
said yesterday.
It's for the children.
I weep.
ed|11.22.06 @ 12:53PM|#
What makes my aforementioned rogues' gallery more chilling and otherworldly is the fact that in rotation with the sex offenders is news about area roadwork, PTA meetings, municipal job openings...all accompanied by soothing, non-threatening muzak. I don't know whether to laugh or vomit.
|11.22.06 @ 1:06PM|#
whose husband was convicted of having sex with a minor in
1997
Do what now? Can someone clarify? Did he really have sex with a
minor at the age of 72, or should this read, "whose husband was
convicted in 1997 of having sex with a minor"? Was this sentence
poorly constructed, or are there really people like that who exist?
FWIW, I really hope the sentence was just misworded.
|11.22.06 @ 2:43PM|#
72 and having sex with a teenager? Hah. I once shared a motel
room with an 87 year old man as he shagged a 19 year old woman
(albeit one with the worst case of meth mouth I'd ever seen). That
was impressive.
And it scarred me for life.
EL|11.22.06 @ 2:50PM|#
Do what now? Can someone clarify? Did he really have sex
with a minor at the age of 72, or should this read, "whose husband
was convicted in 1997 of having sex with a minor"?
In the article it says he got probation for having sex with an
under-14 girl (12 or 13?). What's the odds of someone getting off
with probation for having sex with such a young girl? It must have
(supposedly) happened a few years before and there was no real
evidence. This guy probably took a plea bargain rather than risk a
trial. Less perpetrators are going to accept plea bargains now that
they face banishment if convicted.
|11.22.06 @ 3:04PM|#
Want this to go away? Get anyone who backs this messed up law convicted of a sex crime. Or get their kid convicted, or hell just charged. It doesn't seem to take much and bingo!...no more messed up law.
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