TheDarkMan
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this site. This site does not give financial, investment or medical advice.
On Friday, the tabloid press in the UK had a field day reporting that most convicted sex offenders who had applied to be removed from the official register had been successful. The headline in the on-line “Sun” was “Fury as three quarters of pervs who apply to be taken off the Sex Offenders Register are allowed by police”.
One is entitled to ask fury by whom? The UK register was brought in with the “Sexual Offences Act 2003”. It came about as a result of Megan’s Law in the United States and more specifically the domestic murder of Sarah Payne.
The seven year old Megan Kanka was murdered July 29, 1994; the act named after her was signed into law by then President Bill Clinton on May 17, 1996. The eight year old Sarah Payne (pictured above) was kidnapped July 1, 2000; her body was found later that month. It has often been said that hard cases make bad law, and the registration of sex offenders is an extreme example of that. Is it fair to treat a man whose crime may be a drunken fumble in a bar after misreading the signals as no better than a child murderer and rapist? Some seem to think so. In the United States, people have been registered as sex offenders for urinating in public.
In the UK, the “socially awkward” teenager Jamie Griffiths found himself registered as a sex offender for touching a girl’s hip. At one time a girl would have slapped his face for this, but in the #MeToo era, she burst into tears, and Griffiths ended up in court where instead of opting for a Crown Court trial he foolishly or ill-advisedly faced a bench of magistrates. This has as good as trashed his career before he leaves college.
Of course, it is only right that some people are monitored, and kept away from the young, but when a man has paid his debt to society, that should be the end of the matter. Former heavyweight champion of the world Mike Tyson is a convicted rapist, yet he is still in demand as an occasional TV pundit. Is there one rule for celebrities and another for the great unwashed, or do we need to reconsider the entire business of stigmatising people for perhaps one bad, or even a trivial act?
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this site. This site does not give financial, investment or medical advice.
An interesting text! I think the register is both: protection for the children and stigmatization of the culprits, and necessary, too. Rapists of children should not be allowed to stay anonymous, they must be exposed and publicly punished.
They need to be locked up, some of them for good, but you miss the point. A lot of people on this register are there for very minor crimes. In the United States even women are forced to register for such victimless crimes as prostitution. And branding someone a sex offender because he urinates in an alley when he can’t find a toilet is inhuman. On top of that, a lot of these people end up homeless. The purported solution to one problem creates a lot more worse problems.
I hesitate to respond to this thread, because while your point is entirely valid and correct, ANY thread that says ANYTHING about sex or gender is click-bait for the far-right Christian fundamentalists, so threads like these serve to damage the “intellectual integrity” of the Duran. FWIW, a friend of mine is a “registered sex offender” in Washington state. His “crime”? He stopped on the side of the I-5, walked about 150 yards, to the edge of the tree line, and took a piss. A WA state Highway Patrolman spotted a car with Canadian plates parked on the side of the… Read more »
Agree with you fully.
What you say has merit, but I wonder if you have a bigger agenda behind all this? Campaigns for small “concerned” changes in the laws are a trick of pressure groups to open a wedge in public perception of certain offences and drive in a wedge in which there will then be agitation for more and more changes. This is how the “Progressive” lobby works.
Yeah, I’m a real progressive, that’s why main website is banned in Germany. Check out the views of Marc Klass whose daughter was raped and murdered. He goes further.
I said I wonder if you have a deeper agenda: it seems you have.
And even the name is very strange: “Dark Man”! Which serious author would hide behind such a pseudonym? Every serious author has a FIRST NAME and a LAST NAME, both of which correspond with what his passport says. I must say, strange entities worm themselves into the DURAN, lately, planting texts here.
If you are not a troll you are incredibly stupid. TheDarkMan – thedarkman – is my screen name. Who exactly is planting what text?
I am an author of the Duran, have published 14 texts on this site, and all under my own name. Trustworthy authors are proud of their real names, they do not hide behind kinky pseudonyms. That is childish. I have noticed that all the other authors of the Duran also sign with their real names. You are the only one that does not. What is your agenda here? Who are you? Some strange, dark and uncouth entity.
Alex Christoforou, Alexander Mercouris: all of these are real names. “Dark Man” is the odd name out. He does not really fit it. Who places his texts here? I wonder …
If you are a journalist you are a very stupid one; perhaps you should apply to the “Guardian”, whose lies I have exposed many times. Try running the name through Google and you will soon find out who I am. If that is too much trouble for your brain cell, here are a couple of clues: Blogger, Internet Archive. As I pointed out before, a screen name is different from anonymity. On many websites a screen name is required, gaming sites for example. On YouTube many people use screen names. TheDarkMan comes from a piece of music I wrote in… Read more »
Not worth googling you. Your nonsense disqualifies you immediately. “Dark Man” right out of kindergarden.
I accept your admission of defeat with good grace. Now go and find someone else to troll.
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety”
Benjamin Franklin
Joe, this is ultimately correct in what you are saying. It is very important to read what “thedarkman””is NOT saying . After a plea for not knowing sex offenders after doing time and showing the almost ridiculous example of the young man touching a girls hip, the question arises:Why this? What about moslims raping women and preferably young girls after there example mohammed? Known cases are bountiful Why not treat those according to the laws of Mozes they are abiding to , i.e. an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth? It touches my heart to notice someone… Read more »
Technically the registry is blatantly un-Constitutional. Once time is served, that is all anybody should have to do. That said, if someone is such a threat to require being registered (or not be allowed own the tools of self-defense, vote or serve on a jury, among other un-Constitutional restrictions on those who served out a sentence), that person should never be released.