How is the use of mandatory convicted sex offender rehabilitation programs in the penal system rationally compatible with keeping a sex offender registry after an individual's sentence is served?
If the registries are needed because sex offenders can't be truly rehabilitated and must always be monitored, then aren't sex offender rehab programs a waste of federal spending?
If the purpose of sex offender rehab programs is to teach these offenders not to commit sex crimes, but after they've completed the programs, they're still considered so dangerous as to require public vigilance, then what is the measurable benefit to these programs?
If we still have to register convicts after they graduate from sex offender rehabilitation programs, why are we spending so much money on something that apparently doesn't work?
If these programs do work, and do achieve the goal their proponents claim, then their graduates shouldn't need to be registered, and using registries to impose a stigma on them that will limit their employment and residential prospects is cruel and unusual punishment.
If graduation from a sex offender rehabilitation program means the graduates have been successful at adopting behavioral modification techniques that will prevent future offense, why stigmatize them as potential offenders by applying a lifetime label that is now apparently false?
Either the combination of these systems is irrational and reform is needed, or they're being used as a means of soothing public emotion related to sex crimes, rather than as functional aspects of the penal system. In other words, we're sacrificing one group's right to not be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment, in order to make another group feel safer.
The logical answer would be that successful graduates of well-designed sex-offender rehabilitation programs wouldn't need to be registered and monitored for the rest of their lives, because if we still need to keep tabs on them, that's an admission that they're not really rehabilitated; sex offender rehab programs are ineffective, and we need to stop funding them. In fact, I question the logic of parole in cases of offenders who remain a threat to the public despite efforts at rehabilitation. If an individual is so mentally and morally corrupt that they cannot help but repeat crimes so terrible as to justify the stigma of being on a sex offender list, wouldn't that also justify keeping them incarcerated to prevent future offenses?
If these programs are effective, graduates are rehabilitated, and just to cater to other public emotion, we're imposing restrictions on people no more likely than the average citizen to victimize anyone, that's a form of bigotry, and a human rights violation that needs to end.
Either way, I just cannot see maintaining a sex offender registry as a rational behavior. It seems to me that rather than focusing on crime prevention, the effort centers around responding to public emotion, a gross perversion of the intended purpose of the legal and penal systems.
If the registries are needed because sex offenders can't be truly rehabilitated and must always be monitored, then aren't sex offender rehab programs a waste of federal spending?
If the purpose of sex offender rehab programs is to teach these offenders not to commit sex crimes, but after they've completed the programs, they're still considered so dangerous as to require public vigilance, then what is the measurable benefit to these programs?
If we still have to register convicts after they graduate from sex offender rehabilitation programs, why are we spending so much money on something that apparently doesn't work?
If these programs do work, and do achieve the goal their proponents claim, then their graduates shouldn't need to be registered, and using registries to impose a stigma on them that will limit their employment and residential prospects is cruel and unusual punishment.
If graduation from a sex offender rehabilitation program means the graduates have been successful at adopting behavioral modification techniques that will prevent future offense, why stigmatize them as potential offenders by applying a lifetime label that is now apparently false?
Either the combination of these systems is irrational and reform is needed, or they're being used as a means of soothing public emotion related to sex crimes, rather than as functional aspects of the penal system. In other words, we're sacrificing one group's right to not be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment, in order to make another group feel safer.
The logical answer would be that successful graduates of well-designed sex-offender rehabilitation programs wouldn't need to be registered and monitored for the rest of their lives, because if we still need to keep tabs on them, that's an admission that they're not really rehabilitated; sex offender rehab programs are ineffective, and we need to stop funding them. In fact, I question the logic of parole in cases of offenders who remain a threat to the public despite efforts at rehabilitation. If an individual is so mentally and morally corrupt that they cannot help but repeat crimes so terrible as to justify the stigma of being on a sex offender list, wouldn't that also justify keeping them incarcerated to prevent future offenses?
If these programs are effective, graduates are rehabilitated, and just to cater to other public emotion, we're imposing restrictions on people no more likely than the average citizen to victimize anyone, that's a form of bigotry, and a human rights violation that needs to end.
Either way, I just cannot see maintaining a sex offender registry as a rational behavior. It seems to me that rather than focusing on crime prevention, the effort centers around responding to public emotion, a gross perversion of the intended purpose of the legal and penal systems.
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