Sex Offenders: Let's Talk About It

-- By JenniferLi - 17 Apr 2010

Penalties for sex offenders in the United States are a big jumble of prison terms, probation periods, registries, civil commitments, and systemic discrimination. Yet when in Lawyerland, Wylie comments that people like talking about crime, he certainly doesn’t mean sexual offense because rape and molestation don’t make for fun cocktail stories. Talking about sex offenses and their penalties make us uncomfortable partially because they are such intimate issues, but also because there is only one right answer—harsher punishment—and no room for debate. However, I argue that the current penal scheme in many states for sex offenses is not morally or legally justifiable and that its undue harshness is a form of socio-political conspicuous consumption.

Registration Laws

In 1996, the Federal government passed a law requiring every state to establish a sex offender registry that was publicly accessible or lose federal funding. As a result, all fifty states have sex offender registries that are online and searchable, which can contain detailed information on a sex offender’s name, address, offenses, sentences, jobs, and license plate and vehicle information. This measure was widely supported, particularly by parents who claimed a right to know whether they were living on the same block as a child molester. It also allowed different jurisdictions to track offenders easily in case an offense takes place in their vicinity.

The flip side is that these registries severely limit the ability of all offenders to live a normal, productive and fulfilling life. An extreme illustration of this is "Bill," who was convicted of statutory rape twenty years ago and due to laws prohibiting him from living near places frequented by children, is unable to take his kids to school or to the park. (1) His family has had to move several times due to severe harassment when other parents find out that he is listed in the sex offenders registry. Other offenders encounter sharp resistence when attempting to move into a community because the residents fear for their children, because they bring property prices down, and because people simply don’t like sex offenders. They are often unable to find gainful employment because laws prohibit them from working near children, and because employers are highly reluctant to hire sex offenders. In 2005 and 2006, four sex offenders were shot and killed in Maine and Washington by private vigilantes going by the addresses listed in the registries. (2) Having served their sentence, they are entitled to try to rebuild their life, but registration laws make it nearly impossible for them to settle down and find a job.

Civil Commitment Laws

In Persons and Punishment, Herbert Morris argued that there are two categories of penal categories, punishment and therapy. The sane go to prison for their crime while those adjudged insane are institutionalized. Whereas most criminals elect one or the other, sex offenders fall into both because committing a sexual offense automatically presumes the offender can’t be ‘sane’ though few judges will pass up an opportunity to punish them with prison terms first. Civil commitment laws, which are effective in nineteen states, allow judges to institutionalize released sex offenders until they are declared “well,” so some offenders end up serving a prison sentence and being institutionalized for the same offense.

This judicial discretion rests on no legal ground but is supported by an argument of protecting community welfare. However, those who are repeat offenders or who have committed particularly heinous crimes ought to have been screened during trial and committed then, instead of doubling up commitment with a prison sentence. There should be greater procedural safeguards from commitment than simple judicial whim because once committed, offenders often stay for periods that extend far beyond prison terms due to the difficulty of determining when a person is “well.” Laws authorizing civil commitment give judges enormous, unwarranted discretion. They have no penal value and are simply an expensive way for a state to display how upstanding and ‘tough on sex crimes’ their citizens are.

What Would Veblen Say?

Political campaigns against crime are always popular, but anti-sex offender measures are almost invariably foolproof. Sex crimes, unlike theft or murder which can be motivated by necessity or sympathetic motive, are universally abhorrent with no acceptable justifications. And for the most part, they are just that--horrible, needless crimes that do unimaginable harm to their victims. However, instead of real public debate over what punitive strategies are proportionate, effective, and fair, laws against sex crimes continue to become harsher and harsher. Politicians want to appear tough on the most indefensible of crimes and communities want to appear more moral and intolerant of it than the next town, as if to exclaim "we are so morally rich and decent that we can afford extravagant, over-the-top laws against sex crimes without a thought to the consequences." No consideration is given to how extraordinarily expensive it is to commit an offender to an institution for possibly the rest of his life or how wasteful it is for a penitent individual, otherwise willing and able to live and work peacefully, to be driven from community to community with no hope of finding a decent job. The current penal system for sex offenders looks great, much like a peacock's tail, but is not good for anything except attracting the peahen (votes) and probably slows him down when he's foraging for food or running from a predator. (3)

Plucking the System

The purpose of a punitive system is not to put on a show but to punish and protect as effectively as possible while leaving the smallest footprint in lives. Sex offenses do irreparable damage to their victims so harsh measures are sometimes needed. However, their application can be tailored so that they are not overly broad. For example, a seventeen year-old convicted of statutory rape need not be listed publicly in the registry when there is no indication that he is predisposed to commit another sex offense. On the other hand, parents may very well have a right to know if their child's piano teacher is a repeat child molester, and rules prohibiting them from living or working near children may not be overshooting the goal. While the registry as a whole may be maintained to facilitate law enforcement, it should not be public save for the high risk serial offenders. Civil commitment laws, which I believe are legally baseless, should be abolished in favor of longer sentences for those offenders that judges believe are especially deserving of punishment or they should be found unfit to stand trial and immediately committed. Voluntary chemical castration programs, which involve taking an androgen-inhibitor orally or being administered the Depo Provera shot every three months, are currently in place in nine states and should be more widely adopted. It should be offered as an alternative to full institutionalization, to shorten prison sentences for repeat offenders, and in exchange for a shorter duration of listing on the registry.

Punitive measures against sex offenders are currently very costly and wasteful, though they are socially and politically attractive. Veblen argues, and rightly so, that a system of conspicuous waste dominates the course of most human action, but to the extent that we can resist decorating the penal system with peacock feathers, we should.

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(1) "Unjust and ineffective: Sex Laws" The Economist, August 8, 2009.
(2) Same as above.
(3) A better zoological mascot might be a sleek, well-tuned jungle cat, or perhaps a German shepherd.

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