(Calif.) Bill would require registered sex offenders to notify employers

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/14668308.htm

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Registered sex offenders who want to work in close contact with children would be required to notify prospective employers of their convictions under a bill approved Thursday by the Assembly.

Lawmakers passed the bill by a unanimous vote despite criticism from some criminal justice attorneys that registrants could be banished from service and retail jobs where minors work.

Assemblyman Todd Spitzer, R-Orange, said he introduced the bill after reports last year that some shopping mall Santa Clauses were registered sex offenders.

... Critics say such restrictions would effectively prevent registrants from getting a job anywhere minors work.

... Attorney Jeffrey Stein, who sits on the board of the Attorneys for Criminal Justice, said the bill unfairly assumes all registered sex offenders are a threat to children.

that might involve minors

the bill is probably overkill but the idea behind it is correct

One size fits all wouldn't work. An 18 year old who had consensual sex with a 16-17 year old could be convicted as a sex offender in some states. Personally, I do not see the 18 year old as a sex offender.

Pedophiles need to be kept away from minors so in that case, it would be a good law. The definition of "sex offender" is too broad.

Pedophiles? Rapists? Molesters? Okay. That's fine, but what about the majority of the people on the sex offender list? They can't all be pedophiles, and I think the majority of them are as you said, people around the same age. (Or perhaps someone who slept with someone underage but didn't know their true age - such as an underage prostitute.)

who has shown such bad judgement in terms of committing sexual violence would draw the line at an adult-looking 16 year old? Where is this sudden blast of good judgement going to be coming from?

Clarification: I am referring to the minors the sex offender would be working with (by "15-17 year olds").

I never once made any references to appearance or looking like adults. Looks don't count, age does.

I would hardly call a 18 year old who has consensual sex with a 17 year old someone who has committed "sexual violence", yet under the law they are considered sexual offenders. This is my main objection, that the law does not seem to distinguish between those who are actually a risk to society and those who pose no risk at all.

Obviously, a law like this pretty much guarantees that person will not find a job. If they are not guilty of a serious crime (such as an 18 year old having consensual sex with a 17 year old) then why should their lives be ruined? And what about minors who lie about their age to 20-somethings? My sister was 16 and a half when she met her (then) 22 year old boyfriend, and she lied and said she was 18 years old. I fail to see how he should be held accountable for her lies if he was convicted of a crime.

so an 18 year old could have sex with a 15 year old, etc.

Did you come forward in the case of your sister and inform the court that your sister had lied about her age? That should have protected him, unless there were other reasons which should have told a reasonable person that she was lying.

I know guys in their mid-to-late 20's who have dated 18-19 year olds, and they were very careful to be sure she was that age (one guy even insisted on meeting her family), for the very reason that they were well aware of what the law said. I suppose if someone has a fake ID, they could be fooled, but this would probably be a pretty good defense unless there were other factors (such as her still being in 10th grade and the guy knowing that).

...he ended up getting engaged to my sister about a half a year after that. They've been happily married since, and my parents approved of him.

However, that wasn't the point. The point is there are many people out there, especially young women, who lie about their age in order to ensnare older men. My sister was notorious for this, as she did the same thing to a 35 year old man (who my parents promptly threatened to call the police on if he attempted to contact her again). My sister wasn't the only one, as many of her female friends did the same thing.

Sure, you could always blame the older person for their bad judgment, but in the end who is really the victim? The idiot who didn't think to do an ID check before sleeping with someone or the person who told the lie?

I am all for protecting children from sexual predators, obviously. However, my interests lie in what is best for society as a whole. I do not believe it is best for society to have people unemployed. My focus would be on those who committed serious crimes, those who raped or molested a child under the age of 16 as being required do what this law proposes. Or those with minor, but repeating offensives (such as indecent exposure).

I would also limit it to crimes AGAINST minors under the age of 16 (which is the goal of the law - to protect minors) and not to other sexual offenders, which you can find on the list.

My feeling is that if someone has completed their debt to society, then why should they continue paying unless there is a very good reason? If they are likely to repeat their crime, or could be endangering to others, then I could certainly support the law. Yet, if they are not a danger to others, they have completed their time, then why are they going to continue to be treated like a criminal if they are willing to live their life within the law?

By continually holding them down and punishing them you only encourage them to commit other crimes, perhaps even more serious crimes.

a protective defense in many states. In many states, it doesn't matter what she said her age was, there's a "presumptive assumption" that the guy knew or should have known that she was lying and was actually younger than she was. Pretty old-fashioned and stupid nowadays, I think, but unfortunately laws often lag behind reality and intelligence.

the definition does need to be changed-an 18 year old who has consensual sex with a 16 or 17 year old should not be considered a sex offender of any sort

but until the law is changed, I rather err on the side of caution

mabye it will make some of these 18 and 19 year olds wait until their partners are of legal age

agree totally! I don't want pedophiles working anywhere near children and teens, but there's a huge difference between them and many other "sex offenders". Society is far too broad as far as defining and labeling a "sex offender", and that is really causing harm to a lot of good people. But if it was limited to just genuine pedophiles and rapists, then hell yes, I wouldn't have any problem with that. Chances are, the conviction would be discovered anyway in a routine employment background check.

Typically speaking, on the face of things, it seems like this and measures like this would be great to support. However, doesn't it seem odd to anyone that there seems to be *SO* many sex offenders out there? I mean, it seems like they are all over the place and it makes me wonder how many of these people are really guilty of some type of crime.

I am just reminded of the whole crazy thing about two decades back in the late 80's or early 90's where kids were basically brainwashed and encouraged to come up with stories against their parents, and they came up with all sorts of crazy shit. (Like accusing their parents of devil worship and stuff.) Pretty soon, everybody and their grandma seemed to be a sexual predator after children. There was a movie based around it, but I forget the name.

Anyway, it is somewhat hard to believe that there are so many sexual predators out there, how many of them are actually serious predators? (As in rape/molesting children under the age of 16?)

Of course, this has a whole range of implications on their civil rights, and I seriously doubt anyone registered as a sex offender is going to find a job after they reveal their history. It won't matter if they will be working with minors or not.

…there are going to be a lot more "sex offenders".

I wonder how long it will take until almost everyone ends up on the list? Pretty soon the following will get your name on the sex offender list:

* Non-married people having sex
* Having sex with someone of the same sex
* Having sex in any position other than missionary
* Having sex more than once a day
* Having sex for any other reason than procreation
* Masturbation
* Using sex toys
* Wearing revealing clothing

I'm sure the list can go on and on.

Looks like I'm in trouble.

I made the entire list


:D

in many states, believe it or not. That includes women purchasing vibrators, which, in some states, is often prosecuted if it's discovered. Hard to believe sometimes that this is really the 21st-century, isn't it? It's bad enough that society is turning into the "pregnancy police", now we're in danger of returning to the "sex police", which is what this country had to deal with before us eeeeeevil immoral liberals came along and got a lot of those ridiculous laws overturned or stricken.

making it so difficult for them to get a job is one thing I thought of. But ultimately, we as a society have more of a duty to protect our children. There's a high recidivism rate.

Will a rapist stop and not rape a child if the opportunity presents itself? I'm not sure I agree with the previous message (#3) which suggests that working with kids over 16 is not as bad as under 16. Under 18 is considered a "child" (or at least, not an adult).

As for "Attorney Jeffrey Stein, who sits on the board of the Attorneys for Criminal Justice, said the bill unfairly assumes all registered sex offenders are a threat to children.": These people have already shown extremely bad judgement when it comes to using sexual violence - how do we somehow expect "good judgment" to kick in when a child is around them. A lot of 15-17 year olds look pretty adult-like.

The "high recidivism rate" is a common misconception promoted by those who use the prosecution of sexual crimes and the persecution of sex offenders for political and economic gain. From a purely objective viewpoint, an actual recidivism rate cannot be generalized to all "sex offenders" without differentiating the "type" of offenders/offenses.

Google it yourself.

Here's a page from the Texas Dept of State Health Services at http://www.dshs.state.tx.us/csot/csot_trecidivism.shtm

Note that the recidivism rate for general crimes is much higher than for sex offenses

"There is an inherent societal assumption that the sex offender recidivism rates are a fixed rate that will not change. This supposition is just not accurate. The rate of re-offense is likely to change over time due to social factors and the effectiveness of treatment strategies for managing this population (Hanson 2004). The recidivism rates fluctuate among different types of sex offenders and are related to specific characteristics of the sex offender and the offenses. After 15 years, 73% of sex offenders had not been charged with, or convicted of another sexual offense (Hanson 2004). Hanson observed the following factors associated with differentiating increased risk from those offenders whose five-year recidivism rate was 5% and from those whose recidivism was 25%. Higher recidivism rates were associated with these factors male victims, prior sexual offenses, and young age.

The public would be remiss in relying on recidivism rates in determining the “dangerousness” of a sex offender. Some sex offenders will inevitably commit new sexual offenses despite our best proactive efforts. Likewise, not all sex offenders who have high probability of re-offense will recidivate. Hanson and Bourgon (2004) in a study of 31,216 sex offenders found that, on average, the observed sexual recidivism rate was 13%, the violent non-sexual recidivism was 14%, and general recidivism was 36.9%. Research has shown that the recidivism rates for sex offenders are much lower than for the general criminal population. In a 1983 study by the Bureau of Justice Statistics of 108,580 non-sex offender criminals released from eleven (11) states, observed that 63% were rearrested for a non-sexual felony or serious misdemeanor within three (3) years of their release from prison and 41% were returned to prison.

Recidivism research outcomes are based on the definition of recidivism used. Caution should be used in placing sex offenders in exclusive categories. Sex offender typologies have been traditionally used to assess risk and assign levels of treatment and supervision (Heil, 2003). These typologies assume that rapists only sexually assault adults and child molesters only molest children. Heil, Ahlmeyer, and Simons in a 2003 study found that 52% of inmates who were known to sexually assault only adults admitted to sexually molesting children, and 78% of inmates who were known to molest children also admitted to sexually victimizing adults. Additionally, this study found that 64% of inmates known to victimize relative children admitted to victimizing non-relative children.

It should be noted that recidivism rates are based upon information gathered from an arrest, a conviction, or incarceration on a sexual offense. In other words, a sex offender can repeatedly re-offend before he or she is arrested and recidivates. Marshall and Barabaree (1990) compared official records with “unofficial” sources. They found that the number of subsequent offenses revealed through the unofficial sources were 2.4 times higher than the official records.

In general, the factors most strongly related to violent and sexual recidivism include having the characteristics of psychopathy as defined by a high PCL-R score (Hare, 1991, 1996, Rice 1997), a history of criminal behavior, and being young. Rice and Harris (1997) reported that the combination of psychopathy, measured by the PCL-R, and sexual deviancy, based on phallometric test results, resulted in the highest recidivism in their sample of sex offenders (Wakefield, 1998)."

commit the crime, the victim has to come forward (most don't), the crime has to be prosecuted, and the person found guilty. It also depends on the time period examined. This site contains some discussion of the relevant issues:
http://www.csom.org/pubs/recidsexof.html

I agree: these people are mentally ill. But we have a greater obligation to protect the children of our society - if protecting kids takes away some of their rights, well, that's the price they pay for the first (or earlier) crime(s).

If someone had a likelihood of 25% to molest your child, would you want your child working with them?

but to the constitution. Without it, our children become subjects, serfs, or slaves.

If some moron in power decides that "protecting" {fill in the blank} is a "greater obligation" and calls for taking away some of your rights in order to accomplish that "protection," then that's the price YOU'LL pay...Remember that no one's rights are protected if any segment of society, even its lowest forms, has its rights abused.

For better or worse, there's NO accurate way for anyone to predict that any single human being is 25% likely to molest my child or anyone else's, so your question is dramatic, emotional, political, reactionary, and most importantly, irrelevant.

because they can check the list and all the bad people are there. This is the one subject that brings out the inner freeper in a lot of people.

Sometimes I wonder how people lived before they were able to know every small detail about their neighbors. It's a good thing that we've taken away our children's non-supervised play time and regulated their every move. it's also nice to know that an 18 year old boy who slept with a 16 year old girl and got caught will never have a chance to make something of himself as he'll now be a social pariah until he finally does the right thing and kills himself.

You ever think that maybe someone is trying to implant fear into our heads to keep us from channeling our energies into more productive venues? Nah!

:sarcasm:

What could possibly go wrong with this idea?

Peace.

Why not just shoot them ?

They have no place to live.

They will be unemployable.

We will now find the ranks of the homeless to include "sex criminals"

previously raped someone, especially if on the job, they often had to be alone together? (Part of the benefit of the employer knowing is to keep such contact with minors from occurring). Some 15-17 year olds look and dress very much like adults.

I'm not oblivious to how this will make more difficult a sex-offender's life. But I think the responsibility of society to protect children from sexual violence is more important. The offender could look for jobs which didn't have minors employed and wouldn't have to tell the employer.

'cause what alternative is there if they can't get jobs?

it does make it more difficult to find a job. Still, I think kids need to be protected.

Everyone who has served their sentence deserves the right to start their life over.

This will create an unemployable pariah class of former sex offenders who will be forced to live on the street.

What is more of a threat - the sex offender with a job and a mortgage, or the one who is not allowed to have either and is forced to lvie on society's margins?

And why stop with sex offenders - would you want your 17 year old working with a former armed robber? A former meth addict?

I wouldn't want to subject any child to that type of evil.

with minors and where minors don't work.

I agree - it makes the sex offender's life more difficult. I think that's a small price to pay for children's safety.

A former armed robber or a former meth addict are not as objectionable to me: being violated sexually can mess up anyone, let alone a child, for a long long time. It destroys your whole sense of self. It doesn't just have the potential to get you in trouble - it really can destroy you. (As far as drug use: I would have educated my child to be aware of how dangerous certain drugs are (meth and cocaine in particular) because they are highly addictive (and cocaine can cause heart damage which can kill you decades later), how people can slip dangerous things into a drug, to never share needles, etc. I would have informed my kids about the legal ramifications, but also told them the truth: that marijuana really is no worse than alcohol or nicotine when used in a controlled situation - but that I wouldn't condone its use by a minor. Kids have access to drugs in high school - they need to know this information. And I'd allow my kids to drink alchohol at family events, to take away the "taboo" thrill that alcohol provides to so many Americans (but not European kids)).

The cost I see is paid in fear. We are systematically stunting the emotional and psychological growth of our children with this insane fear of being molested. We make sure they're within our sight 24 hours a day. We set up routines for them worthy of a boot camp to "keep them out of mischief". We attack teachers who give them time outs and referee's who call them out. We set them up on pedestals and worship their every movement while making sure they are safely tucked away from the harsh realities of life.

I'm not saying that molestation is a small thing and not serious, it is, but the percentage of children being molested goes down just about every year as misinformation and fear mongering is spread by the media. We hear more about each young woman lost in Aruba or teenage girl kidnapped from a mini-mall than we'll ever hear about the thousands of children murdered by this criminal administration. Ask yourself, would you rather have your child molested or murdered? It's not a nice thought, but I know my answer.

And to cut off the inevitable "you must not have children" line, I raised two girls to adulthood and both are now healthy, happy, young women. One was molested by her uncle and I dealt with it in the most appropriate manner. I also sat her down and discussed it with her in a calm, non-hysterical manner that allowed her to understand that it wasn't the end of her world and that she didn't need to hate or fear men for the rest of her life. By the way, the most molesters either come from your own family or close friends - the people you least suspect. In fact, most of the friends I know who were molested say their own father did it. How are you going to protect your child from every family member? Are you watching your child's father for every suggestive movement? Exactly how far are you willing to go to make sure you child is never touched? It's horrible but there it is. You can either frighten the Hell out of your children about it or you can give them the information to make rational decisions. I'm very grateful that mine made the right ones.

It's simply not supported by scientifically sound studies, and looks to me to be more a relic of Freudian-influenced nonscientific psychotherapy's obsession with sexuality mixed with good ol' American prudery's belief that sex is worse than death.

That's not to say that sexual molestation is good -- it's not. But it doesn't have anywhere near the destructive power of violence, or even poverty. A close friend of mine was physically and emotionally abused by her parents and was repeatedly molested by her older brother. When this was discovered, the obsession was with what her brother did to her (which she considers unpleasant, but hardly devastating) while what her parents did, and continued to do, was virtually ignored. Yet that -- that the people who should have nurtured her made every moment of her childhood unsafe-- she really did find devastating. Of course she was delivered into the hands of psychiatry, which went on to scar her even worse.

It's time to use common sense. An unwanted sexual encounter is bad, but nowhere near devastating, especially when compared to the day-in, day-out impact of child abuse, or even poverty, which damages every minute of child development.

Our rental property maintenance crew enters our tenants' homes to do repairs and maintenance. We simply cannot have anyone convicted of violent or sexual crimes, or theft or larceny, in such a position.

We also check the court history of tenant applicants, civil and criminal, since our court records are available to anyone with a web browser.

one on the list. What are you going to do about that? Make a law anyone under 18 can't work? Or how about a law that no one over 18 can work with someone under 18? Then you can try no single childless men can live on the same block as families with kids under 18. Oh wait better yet, anyone driving alone can't drive through neighborhoods with kids under 18. After all its about protecting the kids and these all would work to protect kids. Except I forgot, New law, no one over 18 can go into malls or movie theaters on fridays saturdays and sundays or during the week after school hours. Better yet all single people over 18 most be in their homes at 6:30am until 8am then again at lunch time and then they have to be back home locked down at 3pm until 11 pm monday thru friday, and on weekends they must stay in homes from 6am saturday untill 11 pm sunday. Maybe then no child will be in danger, but I doubt it.

it's unlikely they've sexually molested/raped anyone and are unlike to do so in the future. The same is not true of someone who has already molested/raped and been convicted: the likelihood of them doing it again is much higher than someone who is pulled randomly from the population.

Without a doubt, the likelihood is not "zero" amongst those randomly sampled from the population. But it would be quite a bit lower than if you sampled only from the population of those who have molested/raped and been convicted.

A person can and does reoffend time after time after time before they are caught. Look at how many years priests got away with it before being found out. For one thing, you can't get a truthful answer at radom from the population, do you really think someones going to say oh yes I molest kids? :crazy:

offenders (who are now out of jail), and the population of everyone else, including unconvicted sex offenders). The rate across each population for sexual violence to be committed in the future will be different: the population of convicted sex offenders will have a higher rate of future sexual violence than will the "everyone else" population.

the situation and figuring out that the ratio of convicted sex offenders to non convicted is something like 5 to 1. Which means for every 1 caught 4 go un charged. Thats just a rough guess by experts btw, the ratio's could be even higher.

Also another thing thats left out is the fact that the only ones that bother to register are the ones who are trying to live a law abiding life. The dangerous ones does one of 3 things, 1) never registers 2) uses a false address 3) goes off the list.

Your trying to use statistics to justify your fear of sex offenders. Another thing statistics don't cover is false convictions or the break down of sex offenders according to the crime.

The facts are 73% of sex offenders manage to stay out of reoffending after 15 years. Another fact left out is how many robbers, addicts and other criminals have been known to rape when the opportunity is there. The list doesn't include other crimes said person might have done before the sex crime.

Statistics have been very unreliable in figuring out who will reoffend or who wouldn't. Not to mention statistics are not a reliable number because of what factors are used to get the numbers. Thats why its said don't trust statistics.

you analyze the data, what data you use, how long the data covers, how good the data is, what assumptions you build into your analysis, and so on. The calculated recidivism rate is also affected by the fact that the majority of victims don't report sexual violence; if they do, the case must be prosecuted (not all are) and then, the person must be convicted (not all are). Given this, the calculated recidivism rates are an underestimate (by how much depends in part on the factors I mentioned above) of the actual recidivism rate of sexual offenders.

You're not well informed about the basic idea of population sampling as used in statistics.

I fear (from your use of "BS") that there is no further point to this discussion as it seems you only want to offend.

BTW, I'm not trying to offend, I'm trying to figure out how your numbers are done by one simple fact, all CSC cases are registered under the criminal code section that applies to their case. In other words, CSC 2nd degree charge could be someone who pissed in public or there fly was open and something was seen that shouldn't have been seen, indecent exposer. They do not break it down into what crime the person did to get the CSC charge. Add to that in some states street walkers are charged with 2nd degree CSC. That throws everything off balance. Add to that the statement made that according to some experts all men between 8 to 80 are child molesters just some won't act out on it.

I think employers have right to know who they are hiring, plus it helps keep sex offenders away from jobs where they might have contact with children.

In many states, if you were caught taking a piss in the middle of the woods, you end up on the sex offender list. Why not like, I don't know, keep to LEGAL definitions, like pedophiles, or rapists?

In fact if you are one

He may have a JOB for you.