New Trends in Justice System: Monitored for Life

[Ivan Seeking]

I just saw two interesting approaches intended to be used for repeat offenders.

Sex offenders could be sentenced to an ankle bracelet for life.

Drunk drivers could be required to install an ignition system breathalyzer test in their cars, for life.

Both ideas seem reasonable, but it does seem that a notable new trend in behavior control is emerging in the justice system.

 

[Smurf]

Wait, all this is after they've done jail time? So it's to prevent re-offenders right?

Funny, I thought that was a country where people had to commit a crime before they were arrested for it.

This will fix a lot.

 

[Smurf]

I don't mind the breathalizer, since I think every car should have one.

 

[Moonbear]

Well, one problem with the breathalyzer thing is you can get a reading on those for things other than consuming alcohol. Gargling with some mouthwashes or a recent spritz of breath mint spray can give you a positive reading. I wouldn't mind seeing that in lieu of jail time. Pay a fine and have the thing installed in the car. However, keeping it on for life seems a little excessive. I'm sure someone could go through court records of repeat offenders and get an idea of what the typical time frame is from when they commit the first offense to when they are picked up on a second offense, tack on a year or so as a safety margin, and then if you get past that amount of time with no repeat offenses and have learned your lesson (part of that breathalyzer in the car is that it forces someone to stop and think twice before getting behind the wheel, so they develop that habit), then your time is done and the device can be removed.

As for sex offenders, I really don't know what to do about them. It somewhat depends on the nature of the offense. A huge range of offenses are included under the umbrella term "sexual offender." I don't think the same penalty should apply to some young guy who was drunk and got carried away with an equally drunk young woman and wound up convicted of rape as to someone who is molesting children or raping strangers at gunpoint in parking lots. I'm also not sure how monitoring them on an ankle bracelet is going to prevent them from repeating the offense. For some offenses, I do think lifelong psychiatric treatment/monitoring may be necessary because they are a consequence of some underlying psychiatric problem that is not "curable," while others really are stupid mistakes where someone can learn their lesson and never do it again.

 

[russ_watters]

As for sex offenders, I really don't know what to do about them. It somewhat depends on the nature of the offense.

Like you said, there is a wide range, but for the real sickos I'm OK with a tattoo on the forehead.

 

[Moonbear]

Like you said, there is a wide range, but for the real sickos I'm OK with a tattoo on the forehead.

Those are the ones, that if they really are that bad, then they shouldn't be back on the streets at all. Afterall, is it going to help me stay safe to see that tatoo on some guy's forehead when he jumps from between a row of parked cars in an empty parking lot at night and attacks me? The real sickos belong in a psychiatric institution for life, or until a real cure is discovered to treat the illness.

Likewise, should someone assume their children are safe in their neighborhood because nobody is wandering around with "child molester" tattooed on their forehead? Every repeat offender had a first offense. I think much of the emphasis put on sex offender registries and branding them for life (literally or figuratively) does nothing more than give people a false sense of security that because nobody is registered in their neighborhood, they are safe and their children are safe.

 

[SOS2008]

Now don't freak out at my liberal stance. I feel repeat sex offenders should have surgery, not ankle bracelets. As for the breathalyzer, I don't feel someone should be punished for life. Often a ticket alone would make a person think twice in the future. Once again, it seems more appropriate to distinguish whether they are repeat offenders, as this would take into account the guy who ate too many liqueur-filled chocolates (a recent case) similar to Moonbear's comments.

 

[Moonbear]

Now don't freak out at my liberal stance. I feel repeat sex offenders should have surgery, not ankle bracelets.

Surgery (I assume you mean castration) doesn't necessarily work (the desire is still there, although somewhat diminished, even if the physical response isn't; I don't know if it's published yet, but I saw a presentation at a conference a couple years ago reporting on this in pedophiles who were chemically castrated). This also presumes all sexual offenders are men.

 

[loseyourname]

Like you said, there is a wide range, but for the real sickos I'm OK with a tattoo on the forehead.

Come on Russ, they'd be getting jumped everywhere they went. Wouldn't last more than a couple weeks. I wouldn't mind a removal of their testicles. No children, no testoterone. Maybe some shock therapy could remove the aggression. I don't know. There has to be some way to do it. But don't subject them to the constant threat of getting their asses kicked.

 

[Evo]

I keep thinking about that 18 year old kid that posted here last year that was arrested for having concensual sex with his 17 year old girlfriend right after he turned 18. Her parents had him arrested.

He will now be labeled a sex offender for rape of a minor for the rest of his life. Is that fair?

I guess we need to know the facts behind the arrest before we start getting scared and passing judgement.

 

[hitssquad]

The SeekDestroy 'innocent' sex-offender thread

I keep thinking about that 18 year old kid that posted here last year that was arrested for having concensual sex with his 17 year old girlfriend right after he turned 18. Her parents had him arrested.

No, they did not. Here is the thread:
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?p=346783&highlight=girlfriend+sex+rape#post346783

I'm no lawyer, but my understanding is that the parents of the younger person have to press charges to have an incident like this go all the way to court. Did your girlfriend's parents press charges?

No they did not. There are many statutory rape cases against the minor and the parent's wishes. A simply google search should provide you with many such cases.

If so, why? I suspect a bit more went on than you are telling us here.

Not really. If you're wondering how the cops found out without either the girl or the parents reporting, it was cause my girlfriend ran away from home and left her diary behind.

 

[wasteofo2]

Surgery (I assume you mean castration) doesn't necessarily work (the desire is still there, although somewhat diminished, even if the physical response isn't; I don't know if it's published yet, but I saw a presentation at a conference a couple years ago reporting on this in pedophiles who were chemically castrated). This also presumes all sexual offenders are men.

In extreme cases, you could just simply remove the genetalia totally, no testes or penis. The great thing is, there's already a legal precedent for it set up in the Supreme Court case Buck v. Bell, in which the Supreme Court ruled that because a woman was feeble-minded, from a feeble-minded mother, and would likely give rise to feeble-minded offspring, that her complaint about having been made sterile was not valid, since it was for the greater good of the populace as a whole that she be removed from the gene pool.

There's a great example of this in the new movie Sin City, if any of you are interested...

 

[Moonbear]

In extreme cases, you could just simply remove the genetalia totally, no testes or penis.

Do you think penile penetration is the only form of sexual molestation? I don't want to be graphic for the younger audiences here, but there are sexual offenses that violate others without penile penetration (indeed, when I think of the "worst" of offenders, it's these other forms of violation that come to my mind). Removing the penis also would present problems in terms of voiding urine, so it's not just removing a sexual organ. And this still presumes that sexual offenders are always male. Women can also be sexual offenders; what organ would you remove from them to prevent repeat offenses?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

It seems to me that forced surgery comes under the heading of cruel and unusual punishment. Now if, like in A Clockwork Orange, the offender agrees to this as an alternative to life in prison, maybe... Still, that is getting into some scary stuff. Not to mention that we need to think about the innocent that get convicted, not just the guilty. Innocent people will be convicted.

Note also that this only applies, thus far at least, to third time offenders, or greater. This would not apply to some examples cited.

 

[Smurf]

If society is threatened by these people, they shouldn't be out in the first place, this has no usefull purpose.

 

[BobG]

I don't have much faith in behavior controls like that. For the offenders that you can safely say represent a risk to the public, keep them confined and off the street.

That especially applies to sex offenders and doubly so for child molesters. The issue goes beyond "Better to set a hundred guilty men free than to convict one innocent man" - in reality, setting them free winds up being "Better to molest a hundred children than to convict one innocent man". (What are the odds that you're confining an innocent person or one that's 'cured'?)

I wouldn't have serious objections to keeping chronic drunk drivers in prison until we're sure they've overcome their drinking problems, even if that winds up being a life imprisonment. Alcoholism is a disease - until they've overcome it, they will drink and they will drive regardless of the fine or a suspended license - they're just not in full control of their faculties.

 

[russ_watters]

Come on Russ, they'd be getting jumped everywhere they went.

Though I'm not all that sympathetic, I recognize that practically, it wouldn't work (I was only half serious anyway).

I'm in favor of forced confinement for the real nuts (if not in jail, involuntary institutionalization).

 

[SOS2008]

The key word is repeat offenders - where the chances of innocence are not likely. Also, the punishment would need to be different depending on the crime, e.g., rapist versus child molester, etc.

I would need to research this, but I believe the cost per prisoner was around $40,000/year (in the 90's?) which is more than many American's annual income (not to mention prisoners receive health care including organ transplants? It should be the other way around - Death row prisoners should be organ donors.). The reason for finding alternative punishment is to keep law-abiding citizens from being victimized financially as well. Aside from this reason, I would not want to add drunks to our overwhelming prison population, but quite frankly, being a drunk is not a criminal matter. It is a disease that needs to be treated -- so prison would be the wrong place for these people.

 

[hitssquad]

Alcoholism is a disease

p://google.com/search?q=%22Alcoholism+is+not+a+disease%22[/URL]

 

[hypatia]

but quite frankly, being a drunk is not a criminal matter.

I've had one son murdered by a drunk driver, who was given 3 previous chances to become a murderer. So monitoring them for life has my vote.

 

[vanesch]

All right,

To the humorless crowd out there, I appologise for the message that has been removed (concerning the jam jar). OF COURSE IT WAS A CYNICAL JOKE AND I WAS NOT SERIOUS ! The little devils should have been a hint.
But for those feeling offended, I'm sorry.
Socrates was convicted to death for telling bad jokes, so I consider myself lucky that the only punishment was the removal of the message :-)

But, but...

Even in a joke of bad taste there can be a message (after all, humor is a way of argumenting), and there was.
Indeed, a poster mentionned that he'd prefer an innocent man have his genitalia cut off rather than have 100 molestors free (and 100 children molested). I only pushed that kind of "efficiency logic" to an ultimate absurdity: if we have to optimize a kind of cost-efficiency balance without any ethical reasoning behind it, you could arrive at proposals such as I made, illustrating its absurdness. Apparently it was so absurd that it became offensive and had to be removed :-)

 

[BobG]

Even in a joke of bad taste there can be a message (after all, humor is a way of argumenting), and there was.
Indeed, a poster mentionned that he'd prefer an innocent man have his genitalia cut off rather than have 100 molestors free (and 100 children molested). I only pushed that kind of "efficiency logic" to an ultimate absurdity: if we have to optimize a kind of cost-efficiency balance without any ethical reasoning behind it, you could arrive at proposals such as I made, illustrating its absurdness. Apparently it was so absurd that it became offensive and had to be removed :-)

One poster suggested cutting genitalia off. A different poster used the innocent man analogy. I probably didn't use it that well, either.

The point is that I'm not nearly as concerned with "rehabbing" those types of individuals. Missing their contribution to society would be less of a loss than the damage they do if they're not cured. In other words, the balance of doubt shifts to where they have to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that they are cured before they are released - not some arbitrary number of years or some situation where it has to be proved he's still a threat to society to keep him imprisoned.

 

[SOS2008]

Drinking is not a criminal matter; even being a drunk (alcoholic) is not a criminal matter. Drinking and driving is when it becomes a matter of obeying/breaking the law. A friend’s daughter, who is a college student and on her own for the first time got a DUI. She was required to use the ignition system breathalyzer--I don’t know for what amount of time. I know she is not a drunk, and I’m quite certain she will think twice about drinking and driving again. One of the girls at work drives her husband when he wants to go drinking with his friends, so it has worked for him. The use of breathalyzers, suspension of drivers licenses, etc. are good alternatives to just throwing people in jail.

Once again, repeat offender is the key word. Unfortunately even drinking and driving isn’t murder until someone’s life is loss, so treating drunks like murderers seems questionable to me, but certainly the punishment should become more harsh/permanent for repeat offenders.

 

[Huckleberry]

I have no sympathy at all for the worst of sex offenders. If some guy wants to streak at his high school football game or has concensual sex with his younger girlfriend then I don't care. If it is a sexual predator who has been previously convicted then I would recommend the death penalty. (Watch out frat boys!)

People take automobiles for granted. Behind that wheel a person suddenly becomes a 3000 pound machine with an id. It amazes me that people will go get blasted and then try to drive. My question is, what were they thinking when they were sober and drove to the bar? Nope, no sympathy for them either. I have a brother in law who is in his thirties and walks with a cane because of 4 drunk high school students. He's one of the lucky ones. One of his friends was killed and all of the students died. That's very unfortunate. I think that a drunk driver should take responsibility for their actions as though they were sober. You can force people to take responsibility but you can't force them to act responsibly.

Huck

 

[hypatia]

Each year 1,500,000 people are arrested for drunk driving in the United States. Of those, approximately 500,000 are officially convicted for repeat offense. Because of inefficiencies in reporting between jurisdictions and states, the "real repeat offense rate is closer to 50%." As a rule of thumb, 50% of 1st offenders become 2nd offenders and 80% of the 2nd offenders become multiple offenders.

http://www.superiorinterlockservices.com/drunkdriving.htm


I drive my friends when they drink, and when I do{drink}, I make sure to have cab money. Its really not that hard to make these kinds of plans. Most bars in Michigan will even make sure you get home safe, because our law says they are liable for your safty and the safty of the community.

 

[SOS2008]

http://www.superiorinterlockservices.com/drunkdriving.htm

Good link. Our judicial system is not perfect, to be sure. It is designed to prove guilt/innocence beyond the shadow of doubt. How to find a balance has been an ongoing quandary. I understand there are improvements in linking databases, and hopefully this will help reduce crime overall.

 

[Pengwuino]

I don't like it, once you do your time you shouldn't be screwed for life like that. I mean come on, get drunk when your 21 and drive and get caught and your screwed for hte next 60 years? I suppose there's a decent argument for it... but this is a free country, this aint Canada. The sex offender thing ... well, its very dumb when you think about it. I think the tag thing is just a horrible excuse for sex offenders to get out of jail early. If we actually sent these guys away from the 15-30 years there crime requires instead of slapping their wrist and putting them back on the street, you wouldn't need any stinken tags. :)

 

[Huckleberry]

I'm not crazy about the idea of the bars taking responsibility for the drinkers. I suppose that if it is actually effective in reducing drunk driving then it is atleast an viable answer to a serious problem. It doesn't seem satisfactory to me because I believe the individual should take responsibility for their own actions.

What's the point of locking up a sex offender for 30 years? That is a waste of resources. From what I've heard sex offenders are uncurable. Regardless, even after 30 years I will still have no sympathy for sex offenders. Might as well do away with them and make the world a better place.

Is there such a thing as a responsible anarchist?

Huck

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I've had one son murdered by a drunk driver, who was given 3 previous chances to become a murderer.

I'm very sorry to hear that.

There is no doubt that this problem was and is still not taken nearly seriously enough. I have done it, and almost everyone I have ever known has done it; at least once. I consider this one of the riskiest things, for ourselves and others, that most of us will ever do. It's like playing Russian Roulette, but everyone around you has your gun pointed at their heads.

 

[TRCSF]

I'm all for monitoring sex offenders for life, assuming that they're actual, dangerous sex offenders, and not somebody who committed what they used to call "statuatory rape" when they were 19. Pee Wee Herman is a registered sex offender, I see no reason why he should have to suffer any more than he already has.

As for drinking and driving, I think it's actually treated far more harshly than it should be. If somebody has actually killed people doing it, and has a history, then I can see the worth of monitoring. If somebody has a DUI from getting pulled over on the way home from the game for a broken taillight and has a 0.9 BAC, that would be way out of line.