This is especially troubling when you consider the point that sex offender databases do not clearly distinguish between, say, forcible rape and consensual statutory rape. If an 18-year-old has consensual sex with a 17-year-old and gets caught, BOOM, he or she is a sex offender (depending on the state they live in). Posting an offender’s name, photo, and address is a somewhat different matter if they committed violent rape.

Posted by Tim McCormack on 17 April 02006 @ 11am

Funny, I did not read anything in that article suggesting that these two were targets because of their prior offenses, only a headline and a brief mention that the two had committed such crimes and also happened to be killed. Very circumstantial evidence.

Posted by CR UVa on 17 April 02006 @ 1pm

I couldn’t have done a lot lot more to phrase my blog entry in the hypothetical, what with the “?” and the “if so.”

Also, that article has changed radically since I linked to it.

Posted by Waldo Jaquith on 17 April 02006 @ 1pm

Tim McCormack wrote:

If an 18-year-old has consensual sex with a 17-year-old and gets caught, BOOM, he or she is a sex offender (depending on the state they live in).

FWIW: The double standard of this arena/subject – A woman is never a sex offender unless she’s a)really ugly and/or b)it was female on female. And in all areas of this subject if it’s a guy- it’s “Guilty until Proven innocent.”

Posted by TrvlnMn on 24 April 02006 @ 11pm