Posted by
flagwaver on Wednesday, July 25, 2007 10:16:42 AM
As I was logging on this morning, I saw a story on my AOL home page that caught my attention. As I read it, i began to get angry and think that this was a case of unintended consequences. But as I went through, I realized that while my initial impressions were correct, this also the logical conclusion that the knee jerk passing of laws brings us to.
The case involves two young men, kids really, that are facing time in prison and having to register as sex offenders for the rest of their lives for slapping some girls on the behind one Friday at school. The kids, Cory Mashburn and Ryan Corneilson were facing felony charges---which were later dropped---and still face multiple misdemeanor charges of sexual battery in an Oregon court for allegedly slapping girls on the behind in the hallway in what many students describe as a type of greeting they give one another. But as happens so often someone was offended, then turned into a victim, and now these two kids are facing a lifetime as registered sex offenders.
When I was a kid, we did the same type of things; maybe it was dumb, but it sure as heck wasn't criminal. If the girl didn't like it there were other options: she could humiliate you in public, tell her boyfriend, or at the worst have you dragged to the assistant principal's office for a stern talking to. If the behavior continued, you may find yourself in ISS or in extreme cases suspended for a day or two, but the cops were never involved; no one ever had to worry about going to jail over something so juvenile actually being criminalized. Sadly, that is no longer the case.
I understand that you can't let this type of behavior go unchecked, but I also realize that running to the cops isn't the way to handle it. We have choked ourselves with so many laws that nearly everything that we do runs afoul of some law. Most of these laws were passed with the best of intentions, but there are just so damned many that you can't avoid breaking some along the way. We need laws to protect society from sexual predators, but in the hands of skittish school officials and overzealous cops and prosecutors, we are
creating criminals. By trying to be so hard on criminal behavior, we are making more and more behavior criminal. So you can have a couple of 13 year old boys in the dock as sex offenders for doing exactly what 13 year old boys do at that age. All in the name of "protecting the children".
To read the original story click
this link.God save us from ourselves, the laws we pass, and their unintended consequences!