By Adrian Pascua
By Adrian Pascua
If you’re a sex offender, relax you’re safe…for now. Recently the voters of California approved Proposition 83, otherwise known as Jessica’s law. In one day, however, U.S. District Judge, Susan Illston, ruled it unconstitutional.
Striking the law makes sense to me, though. The law would ban all sex offenders from living within a half-mile of any park or school and to force them to wear an electronic monitor device for life. Not only are those who are or were sex offenders looked down upon in our society, now they have to wear a device that brands them for life. The “neighbors,” who learn that they have a sex offender living near them, would harass them the minute they set foot inside the neighborhood. Protestors, vandalism, violence, are some of the things they face.
Basically, everybody looks at sex offenders as psychopaths and a menace to their slice of suburbia. Parents and concerned neighbors often get so caught up in trying to protect the children that live in their neighborhoods that they don’t even consider if the way they do it is a crime. Governor Schwarzenegger said he would “vigorously defend” Proposition 83, but he’s not exactly T1000 when it comes to making logical decisions.
In California, there are about 90,000 people on parole for sex crimes. Given that sex offenders are always watched and police already know where they live, Jessica’s law will just make them caged animals, being monitored almost every minute.
You might as well leave them in prison so that they can just live “peacefully” with other convicted criminals. Better yet, just give them their own city. That way nobody will bug them about being convicted criminals trying to get their life straight.
Under Megan’s law, they are already required to register themselves within a given cities local law enforcement agency. A letter would then be mailed to the offender’s neighbors notifying them that they have a sex offender living within their neighborhood boundaries.
Anger and hate are usually the first things people reach for before they consider the consequences of their actions. What those people don’t understand is that they are not heroes and should leave that part up to the police officers. It’s not their place to judge a person for what he has done, that right and/or responsibility is reserved for the law, no matter how inadequate most people think it is.
If you feel you need to do something, then have the law on your side before you act out of your own personal vendetta. We don’t live in a movie; the good guy does die on occasion. Even if you feel what they did was wrong, learn about who they are before you judge them for anything they did in their past.
A person’s past is his own anyway, what right does the rest of the world have to know what they did anyway? None. It’s hard getting your life straight, when the rest of the world just keeps throwing your past in your face every time you try and stand up. If you want to know somebody else’s business, then talk to them before you judge them.
So basically, if you’re an ex-convict, you’re better off being a murderer than a sex offender, because at least the law doesn’t require you to live within a certain zone for the rest of your life.
