Nerve Endings Firing Away

One of the worst things that can happen to anyone these days in America is not landing up on the TSA’s No-Fly Terrorist watch list but rather on the sex offenders list. Chris Hansen even assumes the role of our children’s protector though his popular TV show ‘To Catch a Predator‘. Parties that have such ‘morally corrupt’ individuals (remember Mark Foley) in the Congress are likely to be booted out of power. Almost every city in the United States now has a sex offender list which you can easily access on the Internet. A while back, I found a postcard in my mailbox that was sent by the city of College Station. It informed me that a certain sex offender had moved into my neighborhood after serving a prison sentence. The postcard had his photo, physical description, and home address including the type of offense (‘H’) which indicated that the offense was against a 16-year-old kid. Consider what a living hell your life would be if such a postcard was mailed each time you moved to any neighborhood. In addition, the city of College Station also has an interactive map [powered by GIS] that pinpoints the locations of all registered sex offenders in the region (developed by one of my colleagues in the department).

Not that I would ever condone the seemingly heinous actions of a sex offender but the manner in which all privacy is stripped off that individual making it impossible for him to resume his life is disturbing. I don’t see rapists and murderers whose crimes are equally if not more heinous being treated that way. Some may argue that sex offenders suffer from a ‘mental illness’ which makes them impossible to recover from their depraved feelings toward minors. And probably they may be partly right as they certainly may have those inherent traits but we are a society that believes in punishing actions and/or imminent intent to harm while giving the offender a second chance. If these sex offenders are indeed beyond cure, they probably should never be allowed to live free in the first place even after serving their prison sentences. If we are already violating their privacy rights under the guise of protecting of children, why even let them out in public? Vigilante justice can often lead to dire consequences.

Am I a bit weird for even sympathizing (a little) with them? Is it because I don’t understand because I don’t have kids of my own? You probably may be right. If faced with the possibility of a sex offender living in close proximity of my home when I have kids, I will be mighty disturbed and paranoid and may even threaten physical harm if he came close to my kids. But then again do we judge them too harshly?

We recently saw the movie, Little Children that centered around the issue of a sex offender moving into a suburban neighborhood that sends ripples throughout the community and even leads to a “Protective Parents” association. However, the movie reveals secrets within the community’s residents that might lead to you believe you are living in Disturbia. The fact that everyone has a disturbed past that influences their future actions and levels of prejudice. It isn’t as obvious as the racial elements of Crash but at the same time, it doesn’t really make you sympathetic toward any character in the movie, including the protagonists. The sex offender character is clearly a demented individual judging by the experience during a blind date set up by his mother but toward the end of the movie, circumstances make him want to change himself even though he really can’t. The movie doesn’t tell you to get rid of your prejudices or even guilt you for feeling them but instead it subtly asks of you to keep them within limits so as to protect the other person’s dignity.

I know many of my readers are parents with small kids. How do you really feel about this issue and how do you protect your children? Although you might bash the sex offender in your neighborhood if he came within 100 feet of your kid, given the opportunity would you?