Child Services: Going too far?

[Kasreyn]

And I don't care who that pisses off. Putting people on lists of what they've done criminally is pointless and wrong, and I'll explain why.

Why do we put people in jail? To punish them? No, it'd be easier to flog them, so it's clearly not punishment. It's to rehabilitate them. So, we assign a sentence to a person, and the sentence is designed to be long enough that when he is freed, he will be rehabilitated, which means ready for reintegration as a functional, law-abiding member of society, right?

But then we short-circuit this lovely notion, by stigmatizing him, putting him on a public list to be pointed at as a "monster" for the rest of his days. We're trying to have our cake and eat it too, and it's unfair. If a person has paid his debt to society, then he has paid his debt to society. If he can't get a job or be part of society because of a stigmatizing reminder of his wrongdoings - which, remember, he did the time for! - then what will he do? I'll tell you what he'll do. He'll return to a life of crime, because it's clear we're not going to LET him reintegrate into society.

Laws like "Megan's Law", which permanently stigmatize criminals even after they've done their time, are travesties which turn the entire penal concept of rehabilitation into an elaborate farce at taxpayer expense.

Of course, it doesn't help that in this country, males seem to be considered sexual deviants and bums by default. Go check on some statistics, sorted by gender, of divorce, child custody, and rape settlements if you don't believe me. It's as if people have gotten this weird idea that women are naturally more truthful or good than men. Odd.

-Kasreyn