A convicted VIOLENT sex offender is moving in up the street!

[Sundae]

What I meant, Lamp, was the feeding and housing of criminals - in this country it's considered by right wing newspapers to be a shocking waste of taxpayers' money, when they would be better off having a millstone tied around their necks and walked into the nearest stretch of water.

In fact they veritably froth at the mouth that "these people" get three square meals a day, heating and electricity. My Dad especially, says that he'd have been better off in prison for many years. I wonder if this is about escaping me and my Mum though, as I really can't see a prison indulging his favourite activity - going to Tesco (supermarket) at least once a day).

[Lamplighter]

[SamIam]

OK, I looked up what constitutes a violent sexual offender under Colorado law and the statutes say its someone who commits a sexual assault defined as a class 3 or 2 felony:

(4) Sexual assault is a class 3 felony if it is attended by any one or more of the following circumstances:

(a) The actor causes submission of the victim through the actual application of physical force or physical violence; or

(b) The actor causes submission of the victim by threat of imminent death, serious bodily injury, extreme pain, or kidnapping, to be inflicted on anyone, and the victim believes that the actor has the present ability to execute these threats; or

(c) The actor causes submission of the victim by threatening to retaliate in the future against the victim, or any other person, and the victim reasonably believes that the actor will execute this threat. As used in this paragraph (c), "to retaliate" includes threats of kidnapping, death, serious bodily injury, or extreme pain; or

(d) The actor has substantially impaired the victim's power to appraise or control the victim's conduct by employing, without the victim's consent, any drug, intoxicant, or other means for the purpose of causing submission.

(5) (a) Sexual assault is a class 2 felony if any one or more of the following circumstances exist:

(I) In the commission of the sexual assault, the actor is physically aided or abetted by one or more other persons; or

(II) The victim suffers serious bodily injury; or

(III) The actor is armed with a deadly weapon or an article used or fashioned in a manner to cause a person to reasonably believe that the article is a deadly weapon or represents verbally or otherwise that the actor is armed with a deadly weapon and uses the deadly weapon, article, or representation to cause submission of the victim.

So this is not some 18 year old kid who slept with his 15 year old girl friend. This is not even a poor, misunderstood child molester who will never again touch Jimmy's thingy or look up Susie's skirt - swear to God.

This is about the sociopath who uses physical violence, threats of death, etc and/or causes serious bodily harm to the victim and/or uses a deadly weapon to ensure submission on the part of the victim.

I am NOT happy about having a person such as this live only 3 blocks away. And if a person is predisposed to violence, I don't know that chemical castration would effectively address that issue. And I admit I have no sympathy should a VIOLENT sexual offender have to spend some time in jail. Hell, the longer, the better.

Originally Posted by Smoothmoniker

That's just not true. Sorry, I know that everyone believes this, but the research just doesn't back it up. In fact, sex offenders as a group have just about the LOWEST recidivism rate of any criminal group.

Please forgive me for maligning tranquil LA where women walk alone at night with no fear, people love their neighbor whether black, white or brown, and the police occupy themselves with doing crosswords and eating donuts all day because their job is so boring.

However, I am rather surprised that you reject the idea of a sex offender being sent to sleepy LA, since you feel the offender will never do anything naughty again.

I like Bruce's solution except that I don't know any bad asses who could implement it.

[smoothmoniker]

Originally Posted by SamIam

Please forgive me for maligning tranquil LA where women walk alone at night with no fear, people love their neighbor whether black, white or brown, and the police occupy themselves with doing crosswords and eating donuts all day because their job is so boring.

Your worldview is positively dripping with ignorance.

I've lived here my whole life, my wife and sister ride the metro alone, walk the streets of our neighborhood all the time, yes at night, yes alone. We've never even witnessed a violent crime.

There are 6 languages spoken within a 3 block radius of our house, and they all show up to hang out together for the Friday night street fair down on main street. There are no fist-fights, no race riots, and no police barricades.

And guess what - we love our kids just as damn much as you corn-fed white-bread bigots from the sticks.

[SamIam]

Originally Posted by smoothmoniker

Your worldview is positively dripping with ignorance.

I've lived here my whole life, my wife and sister ride the metro alone, walk the streets of our neighborhood all the time, yes at night, yes alone. We've never even witnessed a violent crime.

There are 6 languages spoken within a 3 block radius of our house, and they all show up to hang out together for the Friday night street fair down on main street. There are no fist-fights, no race riots, and no police barricades.

And guess what - we love our kids just as damn much as you corn-fed white-bread bigots from the sticks.

I admire your loyalty to your home town and I'm sure LA has some wonderful areas to live, etc., etc. Its just so easy to get a rise out of you, that I figured I'd pull your tail a little.

I am quite aware that people from everywhere value both their own and their children's safety - even in LA and even in the sticks.

Sociopaths, including violent sex offenders, present a major problem to modern society. In the bad old days members of a predator's town or tribe would simply have killed him or driven him out of the fold. These days we just put them in jail and eventually they go back to a community that wants no part of them - big surprise.

I am amused to be labeled a "corn fed white bread bigot from the sticks." Shucks darn. I'll concede that the last thing LA - or anywhere else for that matter - needs is more criminals. But if stating that LA and other major cities have some bad neighborhoods and a higher crime rate than sleepy little Cortez makes me a bigot, so be it. And I'll save you a slice of Wonder Bread if you ever come to visit.