Iowa has passed a law heavily restricting where convicted but released sex offenders may live in the state, specifically restricting proximity to schools and day care centers. Counties and cities have now started an arms race to see who can pass the most restrictive laws, making housing near parks, pools, libraries, and bus stops off limits as well. The former criminals have been forced to live concentrated in a few rural areas or move out of state entirely (and often far away from family and friends), causing the surrounding states to pass their own laws to keep the people away.
Now more and more of the sex offenders — many of whom were convicted as teenages of statuatory rape for having sex with underage girlfriends (note that it doesn’t work the other way around, girls having sex with younger boys is perfectly legal in Iowa) — have no place to go, and as a consequence are slipping off the radar, not registering with sex offender registries (thus violating another law), and, in some cases, being forced to live homeless in parks, cars, or under highway overpasses.
I’m not going to give any caveats like “of course these people are bad, but…” I think such statements are silly and counter-productive. Almost everyone is in favor of catching and punishing (and/or reforming, depending on your political bent) criminals, and people in general also acknowledge that crimes against children are in some ways more “wrong” and “evil” than crimes against adults. However, if you are going to release someone from prison with the assumption that they are reformed and can once again become a functioning member of society, only to heavily restrict their movement, and their rights, and then to alienate them from their communities by labelling them and putting up signs and tracking them with GPS bracelets and going around to local families to warn them, and on top of that legislating in such a way as to make it *almost impossible* for them to live quiet lives without once again *breaking the law*, you are giving these human beings no life at all.
The response of some lawmakers to the inevitably problems with these laws, including sex offenders disappearing from the registration databases and living concentrated in a few rural areas, is an even more extreme form of “not in my backyard” thinking that advocates more restrictive prison terms. Which I guess makes sense, when you think about it. Force the people into a situation where it is almost impossible for them to avoid breaking the law so that they can be rounded up and thrown back in prison despite not having done anything else wrong. Some people might call that entrapment, might call it evidence that we do not have faith in humanity, that we intent to punish forever people who made a mistake in their youth. In Iowa they call it protecting the children.
Great article. I’m a little surprised that girls can have sex with younger boys and it be legal and not the other way around. I feel like that would be superceeded by something else – this is where I show my true ignorance of US Constitutional Law by arguing that there is gender equality ;). More importantly, if anything, women mature faster than men (physically) and so scientifically it should be the opposite.
But this law is decidedly not based in fact or knowledge, but rather stereotypes from bygone eras that many people want back – when men were men and women were women and needed to be protected. . .
The history of rape is somewhat interesting. The first written stuff about it that I know occurs in the Torah where it basically says that rape = betrothal (much like the shotgun weddings that used to happen here). Of course, the Rabbis didn’t like that and so they decided to change it making rape a punishable offence – even within marriage (something that came to the US very recently). The laws of onah make it clear that, in Judaism, sex is the woman’s decision.
Statutory rape is caught up in the medicalization of childhood. For most of human history, children weren’t thought of as fragile beings in need of protection. That changed a couple centuries ago and with that comes the idea that, while someone might be physically mature enough for sex, they might not be mentally mature enough for sex.
I actually agree with statutory rape laws as long as they treat both genders equally and they provide for the fact that an 18 year old might have a 17 year old special someone. Like, if the person is within 1 or 2 years of age of the minor, not an offense. Assuming the age of concent is 18 and you have a pair of 17 year-olds having sex together and then one turns 18 before the other, does what wasn’t a crime become a crime? That’s just stupid.
Also, I would like to know if they have laws for other violent offenders who get released like this or is this just the thing to rile people up about. Like, there isn’t a murderer registry.
But the fact remains that Attornies General want to become governers and presidents and the way they do that is by making socially detrimental stances on crap. AGs make the WORST politicians!