Maybe they can have "Poor Impulse Control" tatooed on their foreheads.

Until anyone accused of a sex crime is sumarily executed in the street w/o trial. Which is really fine by me, as long as we call it that and admit it. We could have vigilante soccermoms and NASCAR dads driving around in minivans looking for pervs to kill. Why not. No one's come up with anything better or more sane. So let's just kill them all. Or, let's build little camps out in Montana or Alaska and fill them with morality criminals. We could have them dig coal or build dams or something. The race must be kept pure.

Forty years ago I was raped by two men. After the Grand Jury (40 MEN) dismissed the case for lack of evidence (there were no witnesses)I really tried to get some friends to find and brand these guys on the forehead with a big red R. It never happened. Life went on..I'm still mad.

Yeah. This sort of punishment will likely be counterproductive. You're already dealing with someone with mental/emotional troubles obviously. This will compound it and who knows what form that will take. Something for people who think this is just dandy to keep in mind.

I'm sure I've seen a shirt like that for sale at Urban Outfitters.

Sex offenders are people who abuse children and rape women. Yes, certainly it's about detering future crimes, but it's also about consequences (punishment) for the crimes themselves. Studies have shown that sex offenders really can't change their impulses, they can get better at not acting on them, but the impulses never go away.

How far would I go to keep sex offenders from abusing children? As far as I need to. Why won't you? Don't make excuses for them.

I'm not interested in deciding just how bad it is to commit a sex offense. It's really bad, and that's beside the point. Some say that these types of punishments, such as being sentenced to stand outside a store that you tried to rob with a sign advertising as such, are a violation of the 8th amendment. Moreover, if there is research saying that such shaming consequences do nothing to deter sex offenders, then what is the point? If it doesn't make children safer, and it doesn't change the behavior of the criminal, why would you do it? I am skeptical that the reason has more to do with politics than with proven results.

What I *am* interested in is research on what specifically can be done to make communities the safest. Sure, wearing a t-shirt is one way to alert the community. But what happens after the 2 months, when he can take it off? Will he be at all more inclined to commit an illegal sex act at that point than if he had never had such a superficial warning label on his chest? Will the community have a false sense of security, thinking that he has somehow been "cured"?

Innovative punishment and judicial flexibility can do wonders for crimes that have no existing appropriate response. However, if it is widely known that a type of judicial mandate won't work for the better, then at the very least some inquiry should be done as to whether or not it could make it worse.

Remember how in history class you learned about how people went with picic baskets to watch public hangings? Well, this isn't the same... at least not yet.

We used to have stocks and pillories. Why don't we use them anymore? Because we realized that it's unpleasant and irrational to desire to see someone publicly humilitated. It's unfortunate that our government feels the need to teach its citizens to value the dehumanization of other people, even if they may be criminals.

Not to mention the fact that there are people who would, if they saw someone wearing such a tee-shirt, be likely to commit violent crimes against them. I thought we'd tried to get past vigilante justice - but I guess we're willing to condone it now.

Stupid.

In XXL, please.

If shame isn't a deterrent, would its detractors prefer that this repeat offender be encarcerated for a long period of time for this non-violent sex crime? These crimes, while non-violent, can be threatening and scary and disturbing. They affect the quality of life as much as any property crime does. Yet some are more worried about whether it is "effective". I suspect that perhaps it will be for this particular person, who hasn't found any other punishment a good enough reason to stop terrorizing little girls. But I would like to point out that deterrence is only one factor to be taken into account when fashioning a sentence. Justice is another. A little humiliation for the awful experience his young victims won't forget.

Are judges so hamstrung by "mandatory sentencing requirements" that they can't just give offenders appropriate sentences? That seems to be the impulse behind a lot of these sex offender oddities - "we can't keep them in jail, so let's do X."

I don't want to overreact to relatively minor sex offences (my local paper referred to a 16 year old as "scarred for life" after a guy exposed himself to her for 2 seconds - that's a bit over the top), but if someone has exposed himself to small children TEN times, shouldn't he get more than a sixty day sentence? Shouldn't a tenth offence get a more serious jail term than a first offence?

by a guy who flashes. It's not my idea of recommended behavior, but there are countless worse crimes. Women get paid, sometimes rather well, to do it.

Oh and SR, your idea about camps in Montana isn't new. Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, wrote an article containing exactly that suggestion back in the early 30s (late 20s?). She referred to those to be incarcerated as mental defectives and favored sterilization, but the concepts are similar.

I'm guessing you've never been a 12 yr old girl walking home from school when all of a sudden some guy jumps out from behind the bushes and starts waving his penis at you.

It is indeed frightening and almost 15 yrs later I have not forgotten it and how scared I was and ran all the way home and refused to go to school and home by myself for the next month. It gives you a level of fear that you can't easily shake off.

Yes there are worse crimes but you cannot compare it to women who are paid by men to look at them.

As for the t-shirt, well I don't think it will solve anything. This guy is disturbed and will probably always do these things and I really think it would incite vigilante justice, especially if one day some dad finds out someone flashed his little girl, he might just take it out on the perv wearing the shirt because he doesn't have anyone else to blame.