People do not like complex issues. This is why “Deal Or No Deal” captivates millions while “Twin Peaks” faded away in two short seasons. If we can’t look at an issue and make a snap decision on where we stand, then it’s either stupid, unnecessary or secretly Muslim. Terrorism is bad, guns are good and that Fat Sandwich at 1:45 am is probably unnecessary. Racism is bad, but so is letting people from other countries in, so let’s call that stupid. And sex offenders are bad. Like “Urban Legends 2” bad. The only reason we don’t shoot them on sight is because of the bullet scarcity since Obama’s election. Yet despite this cut and dry, widely acknowledged opinion, people couldn’t be more wrong. Excuse the pun, but sex offenders are getting screwed.
A recent article in the Appleton Post Crescent worked hard to shed light on the injustices in our treatment of sex offenders, albeit unknowingly. While their focus was to highlight Appleton’s success at tracking offenders — and shame California for the Jaycee Lee Dugard situation, because we all know a bustling metropolis like Appleton needs to find their own angle on that story — it’s hard to take too much pride in a town’s ability to keep close surveillance on part of their population.
At the most elementary level, as long as sex offenders, once released back into society, don’t go out and begin sex-offending again, then I guess the system works. Of course, it’s hardly that simple, and a 0 percent reoffend rate would be more indicative of the coming apocalypse than the effectiveness of our judicial system, but it’s hardly their fault they can’t predict the future. In fact, using reoffend rates as the alpha-and-omega figure when looking at effective treatment of sex offenders is misguided at best. The ends might make us feel safe, but the means give us much less to cheer about.
This is not a bleeding-heart defense of child molesters. But most sex offenders aren’t child molesters, and that’s the problem. When most people think of sex offenders, they think of early-90s Michael Jackson or Jesus — the one from “The Big Lebowski.” More often, they should be thinking about that kid who lived three dorms down freshman year and had a tendency to overconsume and hit on girls. We all have to live with our actions, and the ones that land us in front of a judge are typically inexcusable, but he’s not the type of person who probably needs to be monitored at the micro level. He should stop drinking, but he deserves a little more privacy than your stereotypical pederast.
This isn’t solely the fault of the post-prison sex offender system. Wisconsin gets 90 percent of their offenders to participate in the sex offender registry, which is 15 percent better than the national average. This is partially a product of the strict layers of supervision they impose, but these are somewhat tailored to the severity of the crime. Not that the public knows or cares. It’s not that there’s a negative stigma associated with being a sex offender — some of these people did terrible things — but there doesn’t need to be a constant witch hunt. Once they’ve been released from prison, they are members of society, just like you and I. They might have to see a parole officer more often, but most of them deserve some amount of basic human dignity.
There isn’t enough space on this page to truly flesh out the issues behind society’s perception of criminals, especially sex offenders. I have no desire to defend them or their actions. After all, we must cultivate our own gardens. But the fear that surrounds their mere existence, when we take no time to actually understand their situations, is sad. At any moment, you can go into a computer, plug in your address, and see how many registered sex offenders live near you. Maybe this is helpful. But if you’re a worried parent, it’s not much better than actively engaging in your kids’ lives. That computer won’t tell you where the drug dealers live — although that’d be an instant success on college campuses.
Life is not black and white. We aren’t that good, and most of them aren’t Himmler in a suburban split-level home. And those online registry maps are bullshit.
Sean Kittridge ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in journalism.
