I can see your point, and maybe I was misunderstanding the entire purpose of the discussion, I definitely think the law is playing on peoples fears and catering to them. Also that it's setup to typecast people as a group when as you did say, it's not that black and white and more refining is needing instead of more blacklisting.

Maybe I subscribe to some of that fear honestly, I kept going back to in my head: "What if the list went away completely?" instead of realizing it's not an all or nothing thing, and really needs work to be able to function as it should instead of just adding more to it, thus increasing confusion and destroying innocent peoples lives.

I would delete or retract my posts, but I feel the discussion was educational so I might as well leave them alone, thanks for the insight, definitely gave me food for thought on my own behavior.

I'm sorry to beat a dead horse, but I had a couple of arguments against your initial post that I still find valid, and that haven't been made yet. So please, pardon my late and probably obsolete commentary. My points are two:

1) While you were arguing for the 'safety of your children,' you don't see that the only threat against your children is being abused by the neighbours. They could just as easily be abused by the state. Given your (hypothetical) 15-year old daughter posts nude pictures of herself on the Net (as it is pretty common, I hear) your (hypothetical) 18-year old son decides to have sex with a 16-year old class or school mate or any other relatively innocent action. You would consider the first a 'parenting problem' I guess, but not the police officer/judge. They would put your children on this list, and that's were their names will always be. Googleable, on the list. Is this protecting your children? Maybe they won't be raped, but they will carry a mark of shame — their entire life long.

2) As a European, I am so totally shocked at how Americans can villify people on the sole basis on their past. Say, a person has some sort of mental disorder, or any other kind of illness or social circumstance that played a large part of their decision in, say, raping a woman. They've been to jail now, they're on meds now, they're trying to immerse into society. Trying to be normal people. The sex-offender list is the best way to prohibit just that. They won't get a flat in a decent neighbourhood, they will have a hard time finding a job. But without these two premises, how they ever going to change? Living in a shoddy neighbourhood, working on a shoddy job, how are you going to not believe that you are a social outcast, that this society has done nothing for you, and you owe it nothing in return? In essence: this will make rehabilitation for them so much harder. Thus, instead of becoming functional members of society, they stay sick; maybe their mental disorder will grow worse, and then they're not a time bomb in your neighbourhood. They're off the leash in your entire town.

The key to safety is rehabilitation of ex-criminals, and making them feel like a member of society again. Not demonizing them and putting them on a social landfill.

> * They won't get a flat in a decent neighbourhood, they will have a hard time finding a job.*

Not to derail this, but just "I was convicted of a crime and did jail time" is enough to get this sort of treatment. Regardless of the crime.