I agree that "sex offender" encompasses a tassle of different crimes at different levels of "heinousity" (look at me I just invented a word!). I also agree that it is unfair for society, law enforcement and judicial/oversight agencies to have a "one size fits all" policy regarding punishment and public notification. I agree that the twenty year old man that has consensual sex with and then marries the sixteen year old girl shouldn't be branded a sex offender just like the molester that violated the five year old next door but you'll be hard pressed to find a politician that's going to do anything that makes them look soft on sex crime. Do I think the location of convicted child molesters of children under say, fifteen (hypothetical number), be published? Yes but probably only to those in the local area. I don't know that I need to know where criminals live in upstate New York while I live in Texas. Also, how do we decide what our cut-off criteria for public notification are? Age? Violence of the act? Perversion beyond societal norms? As for adult rapes or aggravated sexual assaults maybe the law would require two convictions or one conviction and an additional allegation before making that information public. All in all a thorny issue.
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