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Originally Posted by The_Jazz
The lists exist. That's an indisputable fact. Whether or not they should exist is a semantic arguement at this point. Whether or not sex crimes should result in life imprisonment is a semantic arguement as well since we all know that no state is ready to move in that direction at this point.
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Actually Florida has already moved in that direction. We now have tough mandatory sentencing laws (25 years to life) for people convicted of certain sex crimes on children under the age of eleven. As well as GPS tracking of these felons once they are out. Personally, I don't think this kind of umbrella legislation is particulary effective. Especially when taking into account that MOST sex offenders plea bargain and can easily avoid the crimes that carry mandatory sentencing. Pieces of legislation like this are essentially salves for the public to make us feel like they are doing something real to remove dangerous people from the streets. Once the attorneys start bargaining though, tough laws suddenly become very flexible.
And just in case anyone is wondering about my bias in this situation because of my "personal" experience: for the record, I don't feel like justice was meted out too leniently in our case. The charges were reduced in a plea bargain but the sentence was still very tough.