Pubdate: Wed, 03 Feb 2016
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 2016 Los Angeles Times
Contact:  http://www.latimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248

SCARLET LETTERS ON PASSPORTS?

A Proposed Bill That Would Make It Harder for Registered Sex 
Offenders to Travel Is Vindictive and Unfair.

After rousing themselves from the 30- plus-year bad trip that was the 
war on drugs - or rather, the war on drug users - many Americans in 
and out of elected office looked around for someone else to 
persecute. Someone, somewhere, must be so depraved and hateful that 
liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans could join in 
common cause to vilify them.

They appear to have found their target: sex offenders. The current 
case in point is a congressional proposal to alert the nations of the 
world that particular U. S. citizens who have committed sex offenses 
against minors are planning to visit. Passports would be specially 
marked so that other countries could turn travelers away at the 
border because of old crimes for which they have already served their 
time in the U. S.

This vindictive bill has been wisely rejected numerous times in the 
past, but now it's heading to President Obama's desk. He should veto it.

Sex offenses against minors are particularly horrendous crimes. But 
when offenders have completed their sentences and periods of 
supervision, there is no more reason to continue hounding and 
harassing them than convicted murderers or drug traffickers, who 
don't bear scarlet letters on their passports.

But wait, some supporters argue, people who commit sex crimes against 
children are a special case. As soon as they've done it once, they'll 
want more, posing imminent danger to any underage person anywhere. 
Their front doors should be marked to warn trick-or-treaters. They 
should be banned from park benches.

This blatantly false argument thrives on ignorance. There are indeed 
mentally disordered sex offenders whose conditions make them 
extremely high risks to commit more crimes of the same variety. Some 
may target minors. But that is far different from saying that anyone 
convicted of a sex offense against a minor falls into that very 
narrow category. Corrections officials in California report that most 
sexual crimes committed by adults against minors occur among family 
members, and that the rate of recidivism is fairly low.

Sex offenders, sex traffickers, sexual predators - these terms are 
now routinely conflated by some of the same people who now apologize 
for waging the war on drugs and who favor efforts to "ban the box," 
which would eliminate questions about convictions on employment 
applications. They would be wise to put down their torches and 
pitchforks, put on their thinking caps, and remember the value of 
punishment that fits the crime and allows perpetrators who no longer 
pose a threat to move on when their debt to society has been paid.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom