Sex Offenders and Public Policy

It seems as if I see a new article about sex offenders or pedophiles in the newspaper almost every day, as well as lawmakers’ efforts to create new policies protect individuals from them.  While I certainly understand that value of protecting people, especially children, from sexual exploitation, it also seems to me like our society has gone a bit overboard its policy crusade against sex offenders.  My thoughts were sparked by a recent Burlington Free Press Article regarding Vermont lawmakers’ intentions to bring forth a bill prohibiting convicted sex offenders from making social media web pages (such as facebook or MySpace) under fake names.  A link to this article can be found here: http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20110212/NEWS03/102120301/Vermont-mulls-ban-on-social-media-aliases-for-sex-offenders.  This law was prompted after a teacher at a school for male sex offenders noticed that a former student had made a Facebook page under an alias, and had befriended teenagers using it. 

Reading this news article made me thinking back to a book that I read by Judith Levine, Harmful to Minors.  Ms. Levine believed that the idea of the pedophile is just another example of society’s need to create a “monster” to blame its problems on, and provided statistics to show that an average child is far less likely to be targeted by a random sex offender than they are to be hit by lightning.  She compared our society’s obsession with sex offenders to other “sex panics” in history, such as the idea of the black male rapist during reconstruction and the unpatriotic homosexual of the Cold War era.  She further states that it is so unpopular to be opposed to increased legislation against these “monsters,” which therefore causes many lawmakers may feel pressured to vote for policies that they do not necessarily support.

I also am hesitant to support increased laws against sex offenders because, many of the people listed on the sex offender registry were convicted of relatively minor crimes, such as statutory rape or indecent exposure.  I find the fact that these people continue to be haunted by their crimes years after their jail time has been served to be very contradictory to the rest of the American justice system.  If a murder can leave jail unbenounced to the general public, the same should be true for all other criminals.  Personally, I would rather live next door to a person convicted of statutory rape with his high school girlfriend than a person just released from jail for murder.

Therefore, I believe that public policies need to be fair to all criminal felons, and not target those who commit specific crimes.  I could understand the need to create policies to make the public aware of the living situations of dangerous criminals, however I believe that it must not discriminate based on what type of crime was committed.

            Continuing to focus on the protection of children from random sex offenders also detracts attention from a much more serious problem-the sexual abuse of children by close family members.  While a child has a very low chance of being molested by a stranger, many children face continued sexual abuse at the hands of their family members.  According to statistics I obtained from Child Help, a non-profit dedicated to eradicating child abuse, 68% of child sexual abuse is committed by family members.  Therefore, media coverage that excessively highlights the dangers of random sex offenders can take attention away from creating policies to prevent child abuse where it happens the most.

            I would also like to note that I do not want to in any way minimize the pain that the victims of these crime feel, I just wanted to make other people think about the overall fairness of our justice system and American society in general.  Thanks for reading!

Public Education Funding Policies

Public education policy is an interesting issue to study because it is something that deeply affects virtually all voters, taxpayers, and citizens.  While the implications of a spending cut in other government programs, such as food stamps or fuel assistance, are felt only by a specific segment of the population, cuts in public education spending is felt by most middle class families. 

However, there is also a great diversity in opinions on the best way to spend education funds in order to best benefit the greatest amount of students.  After reading this Sunday’s Burlington Free Press, I began to think a little bit more about the issue.  On the front page of the paper was the story, “Are Burlington Schools on the Right Track?” This article detailed reader reactions to last week’s criticism of the Burlington school system by Burlington school board candidate, and former BHS guidance counselor, Ed Scott (link provided below).  One of Scott’s main criticisms is that BHS does too much to separate students into different academic tracks starting in middle school, and that student’s would benefit to being in classes with others of varying abilities.  He also believes that some of the AP classes with low enrolment should be eliminated in order to save money. 

While I can certainly see the benefits of learning with student’s of varying abilities, I believe that this sounds much better in theory than in practice.  At the high school level, there is a great degree of diversity between the abilities of students.   I believe that it would be unfair to students on both ends of the spectrum for them to either be struggling in classes that are far too difficult for them, or to be bored in classes that are much too easy.  Also, as an AP student in high school, I credit the program with helping me ease the transition into college level work.  It makes me very uncomfortable to think that high achieving students will have opportunities taken away from them because there are so few of them in a specific area.  However, with the current state of the economy, and the fact that budget cuts are hitting virtually every area of government, these types of ideas should hardly come as a surprise.  My only hope is that school officials take into consideration the needs of all students, and that high performing students are not excessively affected by budget cuts.

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20110123/NEWS02/110122015/Are-Burlington-schools-on-the-right-track