A new law has been proposed in the state of Indiana. It’s being proposed by Indiana’s Attorney General Steve Carter and it’s designed to keep sexual offenders off of such social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook. Attorney General Carter says…
“It’s not against the law in Indiana’s for registered sex offenders to be on the same social sites that are children are.”
Those aims are very admirable however the proposed law is flawed at best.
According to the proposed law registered sex offenders would be required to give their usernames and e-mail addresses to authorities. Other states like New York, New Jersey and Connecticut have proposed similar legislation.
The problems with laws like this is that they’re incredibly easy to circumvent. A registered sex offender could easily just sign up for any social site using a different e-mail address than the ones they supplied to police. It would be incredibly easy to do with the multitude of free e-mail services out there like G-Mail and Hotmail. Also the law does nothing to protect minors from sex offenders who have yet to be caught.
Legislation like this is nothing more than feel good legislation that in my opinion is jumping on a hot button issue that the general public for the most part really does not understand. In my opinion it’s grandstanding that looks to secure re-election for state attorneys general.
What these laws do not address are clueless parent6s who leave their underage children traipse through the internet unabated. That’s because those are the people who vote.
(Trench Reynolds blogs about crimes related to social networks at MyCrimeSpace.)
Loading ...
4 users commented in " New legislation designed to keep sex offenders off of MySpace "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackSimilar laws have been passed in 10 other states and are just beginning to be implemented. Yes, it is easy to “circumvent” this law, but all laws are easy to circumvent (speed limits, theft, murder, etc.) But laws are meant to be a deterent with penalties once caught. This law is no different. There are over 600,000 registered sex offenders in the U.S. Even if only 20% of convicted sex offenders comply (it will most likely be much higher), that is 120,000 convicted sex offenders that can be blocked from joining social networking sites. If each of the 120,000 blocked sex offenders are kept from contacting just 10 kids, that is 1.2 million kids that will not be contacted by these individuals. It is true that this law would not address the “sex offenders who have yet to be caught,” but what law does. “Minority Report” was just a movie. No technology or law can prevent a crime from occuring by those determined to do so which is why we have prisons. Is this law a cure all? No. Is it another tool for social networking sites and law enforcement to use to protect younger users? Yes.
Except that these laws do not deter registered sex offenders from using MySpace. There is a story that I’ve been following at MyCrimeSpace about a Connecticut man by the name of Scott Shefelbine. Even after being arrested for his first offense while out on bail he committed several more offenses.
The best defense to keep children safe on social network sites is to educate parents on how to keep tabs on their children’s internet usage.
I agree 100% for the need to educate parents and kids on how to be safe online and for parents to know what their kids are doing online. However, as I stated above, no law will be able to deter someone who is determined to break that law. But now in CT if Scott Shefelbine is a registered sex offender and is on MySpace using a fake e-mail address, there is a penalty of I believe 10 yrs. If you know that he is still on MySpace, please contact local law enforcement so they can arrest him. However, if he were living in Indiana, there would be nothing law enforcement or MySpace could do to keep him off the site which is why the legislation is necessary.
Completely missing from all this coverage of registered sex offenders on My Space is the amount of victimizing of children by offenders. Merely saying registered sex offenders are on My Space does not mean they are contacting children. My Space is used for many things. No 2: being a registered sex offender can mean anything nowadays from a stereotypical child molester who DOES contact children or teens through the internet all the way to the older teen who has sex with a younger teen and is forced to register. Do they post the same risk? No. Should society be banning low risk offenders? No. An anology to this is saying that a woman who kills her abusing violent husband because he has been beating on her is the same as a serial killer. Again, hardly. These politicians - and I include attorneys general, as they are elected - as politicians out of the demonizing and hysterical lawmaking and allow the experts to propose sensible policy.
Leave A Reply