Possible Soulutions to Sex Crimes

Today Sex Crimes are a big dilemma. One big problem in America's sex crime registry are the flaws and holes that are entrenched in the law. Holding offenders after they have completed their prison sentences for so called “treatments” is costly and unjust.  Many times these offenders are waiting for cures that don't exist.  In other cases, sex offenders are required to mail in a yearly postcard updating their information on the registry. This creates problems because authorities are unable to keep accurate track of these offenders. 

There is also too many offenders for officials to keep track of. An example of how parole agents are not actively monitoring offenders is the case of Philip Garrido.  In Garrido's case, his requirements under the sex offender registry were met.  According to the New York Times, Garrido was on the registry because a rape conviction that happened in 1976.  In the span of 18 years, Garrido met all of his obligations as a registered sex offender.  During this time he was still convicted of kidnapping Jaycee Dugard.  This happened in 1991 as she walked to a bus stop in South Lake Tahoe, California.  Dugard was held captive for 18 years in Garrido's back yard and had 2 children with Garrido.  

A good solution for the registry issue is to have more officers actively and accurately checking up on offenders.  For example, creating a more thorough check listing when screen and profiling offenders. To make it easier for officers, they should create a tier level profiling. This consists of ranking offenders by likelihood of repeating the same offense. This way officer could easily check up on offenders that are higher risk.  Also as the number of offender is growing, more officers are needed to sustain the growing number of individual on the registry. 

Interview with Phillip Garrido's first victim

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/phillip_garrido/index.html?scp=1-spot&sq=Philip%20Garrido&st=cse

Sex Offenders and Social Networking Sites

As technology is evolving, the internet has become a source for sex offenders to find their next victim. As a result, new laws are being implemented throughout the United States toward social networking sites to help reduce online sex crimes. 

In Baton Rouge, Louisiana a new law was implemented that would not allow any sex offenders from accessing any social networking sites. These include popular social networking sites Myspace and Facebook. This law was created to ban sex offenders who target children using these sites.

Many are questioning whether this new law is constitutional, because it may violates the First Amendment. While others question if the law is to broad, because it would apply to any site that visitors could leave comments.  This could be news sites which have nothing to do with personal communications.  It says “social networking websites” are off limits, and defines those as “an Internet website containing profile pages of the members of the website that include the names or nicknames of such members,” or photographs, or any other personal information. Offenders must “refrain from accessing or using” such Web sites.  Some sites that fall into that category are sites such as Google, Amazon, Yahoo and Cnet.