Home » Society Crime » Sex Offenses Crime » Society News and Media » The Unciviliberties The Unciviliberties in Crimes Prevention & Resource Directory

These sites appear to be little more than pandering by government representatives, to what they believe the public wants—at a potentially high cost to named individuals.For those arrested or convicted of a crime, any listing is the equivalent of a worldwide life sentence—for the life of that Web page. For those who have served their time, moved to another area, and not reoffended, such public displays make a mockery of the concept of having paid ones debt to society. Public agencies might as well bring back the pillory.More chilling is the fact that no database is perfect. The St. Paul Pioneer Press says it used to print vice arrests, but stopped because there were so many errors. A bad street address on a sex offender list can subject an innocent citizen to harassment or worse. Its laughably naive to believe that providing this level of detail doesnt make it easier for vigilantism. Ive never received so much as a traffic ticket, yet I shudder to think of the effect on my life of having my name or address accidentally appear on one of these lists through a onedigit street number transposition, a transcription error, or the efforts of a pissedoff hacker. As any telemarketing victim knows, once you get on a list, its damned hard to get it off.Some sites do try to strike a balance between protecting society and the individual. The private sexoffenders posts the names, ages, ZIP codes, and crimes of sex offenders in California. But it only does so for high risk offenders who have been convicted of three or more crimes in two or more separate proceedings, and it does not list home addresses. The city of Bellevue ci.bellevue.wa.usbellevue, apparently trying to warn families without running the risk of destroying lives, only lists the name, age, photo, and city block as opposed to exact street address of the highestrisk sex offenders.Taken as a whole, the governmental filtering and publishing trends seem to reveal a perverse double standard: concern about societal harm to the near exclusion of individual damage. The filter is being put on the wrong end of the Web pipeline. Perhaps its time for a few vocal public servants to start relying on a different kind of filter, one apparently out of vogue in their technologydependent thinking—their conscience.

 

Website: http://www.seattleweekly.com/1998-03-11/news/uncivil-liberties/