Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Oprah On Child Sex Offenders

As I was surfing the internet a few minutes ago looking for things I felt strongly about to write a blog post on, over my shoulder my teen daughter was watching Oprah.

And my attention was grabbed as Oprah called for a mandatory life sentence with no parole for every convicted child sex abuser so that they can never be a threat to our children again.

I'm right with Oprah on this one.

Almost every study shows that child sex offenders are almost entirely unremediable by prison time or therapy. There are 500,000 child sex offenders on the streets right now and 100,000 don't have to register under current rules, things like Joseph Edward Duncan are able to carry out their crimes over a 25 year period, another molester managed to run up 36,000 suspected sex acts with boys, here in San Antonio (possibly the child sex crime capital of the USA)200 time offender Larry Don McQuay was released in May and is back on the streets.

The current administration seems to have no trouble locking up foreigners forever and denying them even a trial - releasing most as innocent a year and more later -yet George Bush can still see fit to cover for those complicit in child sex abuse, giving the Pope immunity from liability in a civil case associated with clerical assaults on kids.

This kind of crap has to stop and I'm afraid I don't much care about hurting offenders civil liberties. They are safer in secure detention and our children are safer with them there too. I'm a working class leftie living in a working class part of a Texan city and I know the people who live around me agree with me on this. Yet its not exactly a major issue for the talking heads and the political leaders of the country. It damn well should be!

Let's change the law. Let's put child sex offenders beyond the opportunity to re-offend and harm our children.

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