aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Thursday, October 27, 2005

More stupid ineffective caving to paranoia

It’s also immoral and unjust.

Everyone agrees that this Halloween initiative does not come in response to a spike in molestations or abductions on the holiday. “We have never had an incident on Halloween night,” says one official. Still:

[T]here’s a growing concern that children could unwittingly be seeking treats from sex offenders living in the neighborhood. In communities across the country, local officials are taking steps to keep sex offenders away from kids on Halloween night.

Communities in several states are requiring offenders to report to county offices for educational or counseling programs, while others are going so far as to bar registered sex offenders on probation from answering their door to trick-or-treaters or putting so much as a pumpkin on their porch.

At the end of the report, John Berman reminds us that kids face “a greater danger of getting hit by a car.” So shall we keep all cars off the road that night?

Forgiveness and rehabilitation have been completely abandoned in our culture.

While on the topic, this guy is not particularly sympathetic. But he’s paid his debt to society for a crime committed 22 years ago.

Again, there’s is absolutely no evidence of any abuse since then and those experts in the area (remember, parole officers are not the liberal elite) say this is ineffective and unreasonable:

County officials here in Eastern Pennsylvania left notes on Melissa WolfHawk’s door, she said, warning her that they were monitoring her pregnancy. They told her they would try to take her child as soon as she gave birth.

She had the Caesarean section on Tuesday. Against her doctors’ wishes, she left the hospital two days later to appear in court, but on Friday she lost her fight when a judge gave the boy to Schuylkill County.

At issue, officials say, is not so much Ms. WolfHawk’s fitness as a mother as her choice of mates. The newborn’s father, her husband, served a decade in prison as a sex offender in New York 22 years ago, convicted in the rape and sodomy of two teenage girls. The boy is the third child Ms. WolfHawk has lost for just that reason. The baby - lawyers are not disclosing his name - will be in temporary custody pending a hearing on longer term arrangements on Oct. 31, as well as an ongoing challenge that Ms. WolfHawk has filed in federal court.