Kill Em All

Over the wekend I noticed quite a few news stories regarding men on trial or being released after having served time for sex crimes. One of the women I work with recently received a letter from her 8-year-old daughter's school, informing them that a registered sex offender is moving into a place that's less than 1000ft from the school. In the news not too long ago, there was a report of a registered sex offender being killed. And the list goes on and on...

I have a couple of real problems with this issue. On the one hand, I put myself in the shoes of the parents and families of children who live such proximity to these people. I know that if I had kids, I'd be ape-shit if I got a letter saying that a registered sex-offender was being allowed to live within 1000ft of the school my kids went to because everyone else had run him (or her--I'll be using the male pronoun because, well, statistically that tends to be the case) off and his family owned land within that radius. It seems totally irresponsible to put children in proximity to that kind of risk. But then, isn't 1000ft kind of an arbitrary number? And what about 1000ft from a playground? Or from the toy section of a department store? Or, god forbid, from the home and yard of a family that has children? The truth is, the restriction on sex offenders to live outside a 1000ft area from a school is a token gesture. Yes, it will reduce the frequency said offender will come into contact with a child, but does it take away oppurtunity? Definitely not.

And should, as parents, we be expected to keep our children inside, locked away from the world to keep them safe from predators? Certainly not. How else do we expect our children to learn and become part of the world?

However, registered and convicted sex offenders, according to the courts, the verdict and punishment doled out by a 12-member jury of their peers (if such a person can really said to have peers within the normal scope of human existence) and the entirety of our society's justice system, have paid their debt to society once their sentence has been carried out and they are freed. Obviously, we do not believe this as a society or we would not continue to devise ways to keep these people on the outside. Nor she believe this to be the case. Statistically, sex offenders are more likely to commit their crimes again.

If this is the case, why do we insist on perpetuating the myth that our justice system is geared towards rehabilitation when this is obviously not the case?

This question came up during the course of a discussion on the subject with my wife and my answer was "kill 'em all." She was horrified. Understand, I am completely against the death penalty. I do not believe there is no justification for it. However, the statement I made was to illustrate the point: we, as a society are not mature enough to take responsibility for the gross realities and short-comings of our justice system, not willing to adjust that system to legitimately attempt to rehabilitate the criminals (not just sex offenders) and not prepared to accept those criminals back into society once their sentence has been carried out. The whole thing smacks of massive hypocrisy and leaves us with only two remaining options: ship them all off to a secluded island to be locked away from society for the rest of their lives (and we all know that the tourism trade will never sacrifice an island for that cause) or, as the title reads, kill 'em all. At least until we are prepared to grow up as a society and take responsibility for all of its members...