Do Sex Offender Laws Go Too Far In SOME Cases?

target

A young man of 20 has sex with his willing 17 year old girl friend. Her parents find out and press charges. Now he is a sex offender. Five years later he marries and they buy a home and have a baby girl. He is a good husband and father. Someone in the neighborhood does a search for sex offenders and his name comes up. This person starts watching and sees this toddler and reports him. Now the baby has to live with the grandparents and the wife has to divide her time between her parents home with the baby and her own home with her husband. This will go on until the child is 18.They dare not have more children. Oh, and he is not allowed to visit his child.

Is this sort of thing really what they had in mind when they wrote sex offender laws? This family lives across the street from my son and his family. It is sad to think his entire life is ruined. I would not be surprised if the marriage does not last because of this kind of stress.

I knew a man who molested friends of his 12 year old daughter.When he got out of jail, he was not allowed to move back home because of the 12 year old. That made sense.He had a sexual interest in 12 year old girls. But this man had no interest in young girls or small children.

Target

looking_glass

That is the problem w/ blanket laws and how they are prosecuted. It was how he was charged and later how he was release and paroled as to his "crime". There was an 18 YO African American guy who had plans to go to college and he got his 16 YO white GF preggers. Her family appeared to be ok w/ the pregnancy until they found out who got her pregnant and THEY pressed charges. He was sentenced to 5 years and will have to be registered as a sex offender for the rest of his life because of what he was charged with. It has absolutely destroyed his life and has crushed his parents.

jwcol

I worked with a girl that was going to get married to her boyfriend of a year. Before her, he had hooked up with a girl that apparently had a fake ID and was 17. They met at a bar, so she shouldn't even have been in there. He was in his mid 20s. The mom found out something had happened and called police and had him arrested. He went to jail for 2 years. The girl I worked with had to visit him in jail and wait until he got out to marry him. They did get married though and it's all behind him now...except for being a sex offender.

MinisterAmos

I happen to know a sex offender. He picture and home address are on the web-site and will be for the next three years because he urinated in a dark alley when he thought no-one was around.

There was a policeman in a parked car at the end of the alley (doing who knows what) with night vision. The cop testified that he was able to see the sausage and that was all she wrote.

Forscher

Yep.
In some cases they do! That is why folks need to know what those and other laws do and insist that their representatives change what needs to be changed!
Forscher

Confession

Wow. Judging from these stories, something's clearly jacked up. I thought in order for it to be considered statutory rape, there had to be an age difference of more than four years or something like that. No?

roybatty

This person starts watching and sees this toddler and reports him. Now the baby has to live with the grandparents and the wife has to divide her time between her parents home with the baby and her own home with her husband.

I don't get this part. They take away his OWN kid?

On the other hand, I have heard of cases where an 18 or 19 year old male is dating a 16 or 17 year old and her parents get pissed and call the cops. As a matter of fact, a friend of mine did an online search and a neighbor's name popped up. She laer found the details (spoke with him) and it was just that. Now he has it on his record as a sex offender. On the other hard, these are a very small percentage and some type of change to the law show be made to take into consideration such rare cases.

target

Roy

Yes, they took away his OWN kid because he is not allowed contact with ANY children, not even his own, even though his "victim" was 17.

They seemed to have forgotten about common sense when they wrote these laws. Also, it matters what the judge feels on these things.

And yet many "real" criminals only get a slap on the wrist. Go figure....

Target

Big Tex

Yeah I'm sure they do go too far sometimes. It's the byproduct of blindly applying law without using common sense (which often isn't very common). But I do think the laws in some states need refining.

However in Texas the guy in your scenario would not have been considered a sex offender. The age of consent is 17. Additionally there must be at least 3 years age difference separating the couple. So to be a convicted sex offender a boy of 18 having sex with a 14 year old girl would do it, but an 18 and 16 year old wouldn't. If that makes sense.

Mary

A young man of 20 has sex with his willing 17 year old girl friend. Her parents find out and press charges. Now he is a sex offender. Five years later he marries and they buy a home and have a baby girl. He is a good husband and father. Someone in the neighborhood does a search for sex offenders and his name comes up. This person starts watching and sees this toddler and reports him. Now the baby has to live with the grandparents and the wife has to divide her time between her parents home with the baby and her own home with her husband. This will go on until the child is 18.They dare not have more children. Oh, and he is not allowed to visit his child.

There was a segment on Dateline about this a while ago. It gave the example of one guy who was 30 years old who started dating a woman in his neighbourhood who he thought was about 22 or 23. After a few months, she finally told him she was only 16. He knew he should break it off at that point, but he was already in love with her and they continued on. That is, until her father found out, pressed charges and the poor bugger went to prison for 3 years and is now a registered sex offender. Even the girl went to court on his behalf to emphasize that she had led him to believe she was older, that he did not coerce her in any way, that she was in love with him and she slept with him willingly.

All this made no difference to the prosecutor and he freely admitted that it's a blanket policy. To law enforcement, they don't differenciate between a 20 year old boyfriend making love to his 17 year old girlfriend, and some 50 year old pervert who rapes a 6 year old child. Clearly there's something wrong with the laws and they need to be changed. Life and love is not black and white. Love and sexual desire does not just start the day someone turns 18 and it's ridiculous to prosecute these people for a "crime". Of course parents are going to flip out, because no one wants to think that their "little girl" of 17 years would willingly have sex outside of marriage right?

If you look at some famous love stories, they didn't start the day the girl turned 18, but long before. Loretta Lynn married her husband at the age of 13 and had her first baby by the age of 14. Elvis started dating Priscilla when she was only 14. By today's standards, both of these men would be charged with being a pedophile and have their asses flung in prison with a criminal record following them around the rest of their lives.

Even fictional romances usually start before the "legal age". Scarlett O'Hara was only 16 when Rhett Butler got the hots for her. He was 33 so by today's laws, he'd be considered a dirty old man. Even in the movie Titanic, Rose's character was supposed to be 17 years old and Jack 20.

Unfortunately, it seems to be human nature never to be balanced on anything. The laws went from where there was no protection for children from pedophiles, to where teenagers who are in love risk being prosecuted as a criminal if they're caught with their pants down. Pretty stupid when you think about it.

Do Sex Offender Laws Go Too Far In SOME Cases?

Share this