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I'm assuming that by saying that sex offenders should never get out of jail, you mean the actual predators, not the 18 year old who slept with a girlfriend. Correct??
This is a pretty tricky situation, and while I feel that if you rape a child, you need serious help, I'm not so quick to jump on a bandwagon of life in prison. There has to be some validity to the rehabilitation process. If a person, let's say, goes to the club and some girl is there who looks 18 (we all see 'em every day) but in actuallity is only 15, goes home with the guy and say, only has oral sex. Does that person really deserve to be on the sex offender list? Regardless of the man's age (while he should have asked for I.D. first naturally) did he committ the crime or did he just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time with a girl who's hormones were raging?
These type of scenarios are why the Sex Offender Registries/laws are so muddled. That person if found guilty or via plea bargin, would then be on the same list as the boogey man who seeks out and coerces children and sodomizes them. This makes no sense. A person can plead or be found guilty (and yes there are plenty of people who plead guilty to things even if they didn't do it in fear of wrongfull conviction) of indecent liberties and share the same fate, if not worse, than the boogey man.
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Here in Florida, they do have a mundane system to help try to separate the sick from the "oops" types of people. However, the general public never looks at it that way. If yo uare on a list, most people tend to jump the guy and assume you are a sick person who preys on little kids.
The BASICS, and this is in general, not the exact rules, is that if yo uare charged with a sexually based crime, meaning that the origination was simple,i.e. the 19 year old on a date with his 16 year old gf, or the underage with the fake ID in the bar, the older guy having concentual sex with the 14 year old...you get the idea, and this has been your ONLY offense to record, then you are placed on the "sex offenders" list. this ONLY means that the crime you were charged with had SOME basis of sexual action, but not neccesarily violent.
Now the NEXT list, if you were charged wit ha VIOLENT crime, meaning that force was used, OR it was a minor under the age of 13, or you have MULTIPLE charges of the same violent/non-violent crime, yoo are then placed on the "Sexual PREDATOR" list.
These are the worst of the worst. The really SICK ones. the ones where we should hide them in the DEEPEST cave and let mommy and daddy spend some time with them...
It's by FAR a perfect system, but it does allow those who know the difference between the two to make a much quicker assessment of the POTENTIAL risk involved.