LI Idol Season 6 Week 13 Pick a Topic

[puppetmaker]

I went into my daughter’s backpack to get her folder where the teacher puts her homework and any notes or papers that the teacher wants me to see. In there I found the usual graded papers, flyers for the next PTA meeting, a notice that the band will be selling flowers for Valentine’s Day, and a sheet informing me that a new sexual offender had moved into the neighborhood and I could go to the usual site and find out more if I care to.

I go to the site and look up the latest information about sex offenders in my area. We tend to have a few more than other areas because we have a couple of half-way houses for various forms of addiction in the neighborhood. This individual was a little closer than that since they were staying with a family that I have a nodding aquaintance with.

Something was tickling at the back of my mind. So I called the local gossip, I mean the head of the local watch, and asked her if she had seen J. She said that J has returned to his parents house about two weeks ago. He had picked up a job at a garage and was getting ready to marry his girlfriend with whom he had a little boy. It all made sense to me. J had gotten arrested and convicted of child molestation and a few other charges. His crime was that the week of his 18th birthday, he had unprotected sex with his 16 year-old girlfriend (almost 17) and got her pregnant. And the DA decided to make an example of him figuring, correctly, that this kid didn’t have the money to lawyer-up. So J now has to register each and every time he moves as a convicted child molester.

A 14 year old girl sends a sexy photo of herself to her 14 year old boyfriend. The kids even have a term for it, sexting. Now three teen are arrested and waiting trial for distributing Child Pornography which was the photograph that the teen took. The way the law is set up now, all three, if convicted, would have Class C felonies and have to register at sex offenders for the rest of their lives. These kids are 13, 14, and 15. This is happening all over the US and kids are being convicted because the law doesn’t allow for anything else.

I think these kids need help in understanding boundaries and why what they did was oh so wrong, but I don’t think any of these kids are child pornographers or will become such. They see it in the media that they absorb. They see it in the ads that claim to be advertising to adults but we know kids see them. The reality shows that tout sexy like Big Brother or the Bachelor (which I swear has more kissing and feeling up than any edition before) or any of the housewives shows on Bravo. They watch people vie to be the next top model while showing quite a bit of skin and this is during the 8 o’clock hour to boot.

I am not suggesting that the networks tone it down but I am suggesting that the parents get more involved in talking to their kids about what they are seeing all around them. We’ve all been teenagers and we have all felt those raging hormones coursing through our bodies causing all kinds of thoughts and feelings. Feeding them mix messages isn’t going to help them at all. I also think that the laws as they stand need to be changed to take into account the ages of the offenders and the offenses. There are people that we need to be informed that they are in our area but people like J are harmless hormone driven teens who now have to tell the world that they are something that they really aren’t. The wedding is set for June and I think that J and his girlfriend are going to be a great couple as they are both great parents to their little boy.

This has been my entry for this weeks Lj Idol contest. My partner is fourzoas

Comments

[popfiend.livejournal.com]

*nods*

[puppetmaker40.livejournal.com]

Thanks for reading. It is something that does need to be addressed but it isn't shiny enough for the media to do anything positive about it.

[davidkevin.livejournal.com]

Wendy McElroy has been documenting examples of this kind of prosecutorial misconduct at http://www.wendymcelroy.com and at http://www.ifeminism.net

[puppetmaker40.livejournal.com]

I remember that a petition went around the high school to support this young man. Believe me their families were very involved in their kids lives but kids will be kids and they will do stupid things.

The problem is that even if the law does change, it doesn't change for him.

[millysdaughter.livejournal.com]

OMG

[puppetmaker40.livejournal.com]

I know. He's lucky that he lives in a small town where everyone knows the facts so he can get a job and have a pretty normal life as long as he stays here. If they want to move say to the mid-west, then he will have a heck of a time due to what he did when he turned 18.

[millysdaughter.livejournal.com]

Yeah. When my cousin turned 18, his girlfriend's dad had him arrested and he got a year in the county jail for statutory rape, but no "sex offender" registry. That was bad enough. This is far worse.

[crimsonplum.livejournal.com]

Stories like these genuinely haunt me. I always think of a story I heard of a man and his wife, both in their early 30s, who have spent their lives having to move because they're harassed out of homes when their addresses hit the sex offender registry.

His crime? Statutory rape. As an 18-year-old. Of his 17-year-old consenting girlfriend.

Who has been his wife ever since.

Thank you for writing about this subject. I think it's the side of the law that not enough people think about.

[puppetmaker40.livejournal.com]

It is something that I think a lot of people don't think about when it comes to these tricky situations of moving from teen to legal adult.

[sushimustwrite.livejournal.com]

Thank you for writing this. Sadly the adults who make these decisions don't remember what it's like to be a teenager and neglect to see that situations like J's are very real and more common than one expects.

[puppetmaker40.livejournal.com]

Yep and when you get a DA that decides to make an example of someone, then you get people like J who just did what a lot of kids that age do. Her parents even went to bat for him and the DA wouldn't budge.

[kittenboo.livejournal.com]

what state are you in btw? That seems odd that a 16 year old cannot consent to have sex with an 18 year old. I know it's different in every state though.

[puppetmaker40.livejournal.com]

New York.

[adpaz.livejournal.com]

Sadly, I see this kind of thing at work all the time. I'll run a US Crim search and an SOR comes up with a match for our person. When I take a look at the details, it ends up being an 18 or 19 year old accused of statutory rape/sex with a minor/whatever and the victim is 16. There are no other charges that I can find that seem sexually related, but I have to report it to the client. And, unfortunately, the information that we give to the client doesn't usually have victim information, so the client isn't getting all the info.

And while I whole-heartedly want to make life difficult for actual rapists/child pornographers/anyone that uses physical or emotional power to force sex, I think that the zero tolerance of the country on any of these charges is going too far in cases like these. "Making an example" of someone who wasn't doing more than any teen through out the ages has done is just ruining the life of someone and won't change the libidos of 16 and 18 year olds.

Excellent writing, my friend.

[rattsu.livejournal.com]

And the sad thing is, that things like this also makes the registered sex-offender law nearly useless for its purpose. I seem to remember a week or so back that there was a law now that would make the hookers of New Orleans register as sex-offenders... if I don't misremember.

[shadowwolf13]

I think the biggest problem is that too many parents are allowing others, be it school or tv, to raise their children. :(

[baxaphobia.livejournal.com]

I agree that some sort of change needs to take place. For example, my sister, who was 16 at the time became involved, and eventually married her then 19 year old boyfriend. They have been married for over 30 years and have 2 kids. If things were then as they are today and my brother in law was convicted of being a sex offender his career as a police officer would never have happened.

[comedychick.livejournal.com]

Your final paragraph pretty much sums up my feelings on these issues, too.

[onda-bianca.livejournal.com]

It is both bothersome and bogglesome that sexting would make a 14 year old a sex offender. :(

[joeymichaels.livejournal.com]

100% agreed. This is actually something that really gets my Irish up. It would be easy enough to write laws that made exceptions for certain things - or, better still, that allowed judges some amount of discretion - but we'd rather punish a bunch of kids than make the law more sensible. And politicians are apparently too chickenshit to make any changes for fear of coming across as "weak" on sex offenders. Bah.

Anyhow, as I said at the top, 100% agreed.

[mstrobel.livejournal.com]

That's horrible stuff :(

[imafarmgirl.livejournal.com]

Sad, definotly laws need to be changed, and definotly more parent involvement would be good.

[fourzoas.livejournal.com]

Just wanted to drop in after voting to say thanks for being my partner and for writing such a great piece! It's really sad that we punish young people in this way, a punishment that seems to take resources away from dealing with the really troublesome sex offenders.