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Comment by imaginenore | Hacker News Reader

And what's really crazy we force sex offenders (which includes the people who got caught peeing in a public place) to announce themselves, not allow them to live within X feet of schools, and there's a public database of them.

But we don't do the same with kidnappers or murderers.

How insane is that?

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Not that it matters, but most "kidnappers" are actually parents (or other close family members) and most kidnapping victims are actually children involved in child custody disputes.

This doesn't change your point at all, just wanted to point out that putting "kidnappers" on the list might not be very effective.

>just wanted to point out that putting "kidnappers" on the list might not be very effective.

Not unlike how putting all "sex offenders" on the list is not effective.

All crimes of the same name are not equal.

The 17 year old having (nominally) consensual sex with a 15 year old. The drunken liaison where one party was not able to consent (doesn't remember consenting, didn't, or otherwise). The breaking and entering to rape at knife point.

I do not consider these equal crimes, and whilst I've no objection to legal intervention in each I think the key on is to appropriately manage the risk of re offending. Making someone's life nigh on impossible after serving time only makes them resent the system and interferes with proper re-integration into society. That's the only meaningful goal. Or it should be in my opinion.

I suppose society gets restless if it doesn't have some class of people it can very publicly brand, so if needed it makes one up semi-arbitrarily. Modern day scarlet letter.

Quite - look at the increasingly ludicrous proposals for building walls thousands of miles long, rounding up millions of people and deporting them and so on. There are some unrealistic proposals from the left too, but they tend be more boring ones like jacking up taxes on incomes and swingeing tariffs on imports - economically foolish but logistically quite easy.

It reflects an idea of risks of re-offending and perceived danger.

It may not be perfect, and there are very real issues with making it harder for people to resume a normal life after getting out, but this is actually one of those areas where actions are more in line with actual risks than a lot of policies relating to how past offenders are treated.

Murderers are highly unlikely to carry out another murder - most murders are "one of a kind" heat of passion, not sociopaths killing for the entertainment value or similar. The nature of the victims of murders and the low risk of re-offending makes it relatively low risk to live near someone who has carried out a murder in the past.

Sex-offenders are much more likely to be an ongoing risk to society after being released, and sex-offenders who have previously targeted children are extremely likely to target based on level of access (e.g. parents and close relatives top the list, but other people with close access to a child rank high, such as e.g. a neighbour that manages to become friends with the parents of a child), which is a particular impetus for people to worry about where they live.

Public urination is unlikely to involve sex offender registration. Only three US states have the law needed (arizona, california, and georgia) and two of those (arizona and georgia) also require either repeat offences or the presence of children.

There is a total of about 5,00 people in the US on the register for exposure - and obviously not all of those are there for public urination.

Interesting...

This means I can prevent a school from being built near my house by peeing in a public place... :-)

I assume they would make you move, or have you fired, or both.

No. They will force you to move.

No they will likely announce the school and before it is even built arrest you and lock you away for many many years

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