You know, I'm getting mighty sick of this.
Nancy Grace tonight covered the disappearance of seven-year-old Somer Thompson. She was walking home from school with her twin brother and older sister. According to ABC News, she stomped off ahead after getting into an argument with her siblings, and was out of sight for all of fifteen minutes. When the other two kids reached home, she was not there.
Fifteen minutes, people!
Apparently, there was an attempted abduction in the same area a couple of weeks before, but neither the ABC article nor Nancy Grace made clear whether the neighbourhood was notified of that attempt.
Fifteen minutes!
It seems to me that, as parents, we have two choices. We can make prisoners of our children (which we are well on our way to doing), or we can rise up and let lawmakers and law enforcers know that we are mad as hell, and we're not going to take it any more!
Predators seem to be everywhere! Go to any one of the find-a-sex-offender sites and put in your zip code, and see what you find! Please remember that those are just the ones who comply with the legal requirement to register. Not the ones who are flying under the radar, or have not yet been caught.
I have an idea. First, we have to separate sex offenders that prey on children from those who have been caught peeing on a tree, or messing with their fifteen-year-old girlfriend after their seventeenth birthday. We have to admit that there are degrees of sexual offensiveness. Then, child molesters, rapists and others whose offenses are violent and life-changing need to be confined forever on the first offense. No parole, no second chance, no three-strikes...nothing. The recidivism rate for these cretins is high enough to justify this, in my considered opinion. Counseling doesn't help. Probation doesn't help. voluntary sterilization doesn't help (think, "voluntary").
We are quietly, like sheep, shutting our children up in order to keep them safe, when what we need to be doing is convincing these animals that some things need to remain in the realm of fantasy, and, the minute they step over into putting that fantasy into reality, they are going to regret it for the rest of their lives.
Fifteen minutes!
I had half a mile to walk, at eight, nine and ten, over the ridge, up a logging road, and through the woods. Usually, it was a pleasant walk. Sometimes it was cold and rainy, but I never once saw another human being on my walk to or from school. How many of you would allow your children to do that, nowadays? If you did, and something did happen, you would take a lot of flak for allowing it.
I liked my walk (unless it was cold and rainy), and it gave me time to reflect on my day, and process what I was learning, and spin fantasies of fairies dancing in the moonlight. Personally, I think kids need time like that...away from parents and siblings and teachers, oh my.
We are allowing these predators to rob our children of a very valuable part of their youth.
Judges need to be made aware that we expect the laws we have to be enforced to their strictest limits. Legislators need to be told that we want our children safe, and we don't give a good God damn about the civil rights of cretins. First try, say goodbye! First offense, get thee hence!
I recently saw a news story about a bunch of registered sex offenders who were all camped out somewhere because the poor little darlings couldn't find a place to live that met the requirements of their sentences. ( ) Hear that? That was the sound of the sympathy these guys get from me. Can't find a place to live? THEN GET THE HELL OUT! Get out of my neighbourhood, my city, my county, my state, my country and my world.
Fifteen minutes!
Mia walks to the end of our row of townhouses to get on the bus. There are about ten or twelve other kids at the stop. They are about even divided between younger ones, kindergarten, first, second grades, and the fifth and sixth graders.
ReplyDeleteOut of all those kids, there are two parents at the bus stop every day without fail; myself, and my neighbor John, who also walks his daughter faithfully.
Every time I think, oh, I'll just let her run out of the door and catch up in a minute, I think of Jaycee Duggard. Her stepdad watched, helpless, as she was abducted.
Never would have happened if that POS Garrido would have STILL BEEN IN PRISON WHERE HIS PERVERTED PREDATORY ASS BELONGED!
Forever. Lock them up forever. there is no "curing" them.
ReplyDeleteWe also need to figure out HOW they get like that, and STOP DOING whatever it is.
Is it child p*rn? If so, we need to be more aggressive about reducing it, with a view to elimination.
ZERO TOLERANCE!
While I have some discomfort with some of your "solutions," I applaud your writing about how we isolate children more and more from their world.
ReplyDeleteNot sure the source of the sex offender increase though it may be increased identifying and reporting incidents. As a feminist, I've long been disturbed by porn--and other ways women are viewed as objects.
I understand your wish to make the problem simply go away by disappearing the sick men who are offenders. This country suffers from a lack of significant mental health programs that begin with very young children and families.
A focus on the abuse of women is an area that I'd begin.
Everyone should learn self defense, and teach it to their kids.
ReplyDeleteDangerous people get away with way too much. I researched sex offenders when buying my house, I saw one guy who got probation for aggravated sexual assult of a two year old.
I say kill 'em all (slowly and painfully, I'll show Torquemada some new moves).The first time they expose their slimy little heads. At least they won't do it again. And I don't want to pay for a bunch of rapists life sentences in prison , it costs something like 30,000 dollars a year to keep a prisioner.
Please, please remember that not all the people on the list are pedophiles. Some made simple, stupid mistakes like having sex with their 17 year old girlfriend or taking a whiz on a tree in public. The title 'sex offender' has been woefully misused in some cases.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand...the pedophiles? The ones who -really- belong on the list? I agree wholeheartedly. Get a rope.
Oh, well, heck. Did I mention I can't read? I just reread and realized I missed the one paragraph where you addressed separating the categories of offenders. Sorry for mis-reading. :)
ReplyDeleteGlad to see you all weighing in in this issue.
ReplyDeleteNaomi, I'm in Texas, and maybe I've become accustomed to taking the low road.
Many of these pedos abuse women as well. I am not against a many-pronged approach to the problem, but my immediate concern is that we can't let our kids out of our sight for 15 minutes, without them winding up DEAD.
I'm about to update the story. A body has been found, but not yet identified. according to the story I read, some jerk called Somer's father (who lives in NC) and told him the body had been identified as Somer, my a birth mark. I hope they catch that asshat, too!
I think there are more pedos than there used to be, but whether or not that is true, we still need to get them off the streets and out of our lives. I don't really have a solution, but I also have no sympathy with their abused childhoods, their mental issues or anything else about them.
I do believe each peron alive is born with a spark of God, or whatever you want to call it, within. I also believe that pedos and other predators and anyone else who gets their jollies off the suffering of others have polluted their spark. Frankly, I see merit in sending them back to start over, but, failing that, I still say lock 'em up forever. Keep them away from my kids and grandkids and my friends' kids and everyone's kids!
i grew up in a time of "don't tell" and reeled at priests being punished 20+ years after the fact.. what recourse did i have? i used to walk 1+ mile to work and to school in detroit, and there were so many close calls... but my friends and those that surrounded me gave me the clues to "decline politely" when offered a "ride" and if that didn't work YELL, i even stopped a guy walking his dog and asked him to walk with me in the opposite direction to deter a man who had passed me for the 3rd time and told me to "get in the car"... like you, i believe they do (can) not change... maybe these things just seem more rampant because they are finally getting reported, had more in my time spoken up instead of being ashamed, maybe the list would be more than anyone could have imagined, and maybe, just maybe it would have been enough to make someone think twice about attempting such things... for fear of being on such a list.. so many times i thought of revealing the names... i have to those around me.. even after 43 years, when i ran into him he still had that look in his eyes... we should know where they are... and yes, the lists should be edited
ReplyDeletesandi
A lot of the same reasons apply today for silence, Sandi...especially as many abusers are family members.
ReplyDeleteIn this case, however, it looks like a stranger abduction, as family abusers usually don't kill their victims.
Thank you so much for sharing your story.
I don't think pedos are anything new, I just thing the stigma of being a victim is eroding, like what child "asks" to be molested?
ReplyDeleteNONE of them stop, they escalate the abuse and figure out if the victim is dead, they can't tell on them.
I don't really give a shit about their childhood. Many, many people come from less than ideal family situations and don't grow up to be pedophiles. Trotting out the bad childhood card doesn't cut it.
If public lynching isn't a good option, lock them up, throw away the key, and that's at least one more child who is safe from these monsters.
You look very "Veronica Lake" this morning, Lisa! Lovely!
ReplyDeleteI think we have to lock them up. While it would be nice to just kill them out of hand, I thing the margin of error is too great for that. It's a slippery slope.
We occasionally execute the wrong guy, here in TX, where we execute a lot, and I think there's enough of that. And I would not like to return to vigilante "justice."