Tuesday, September 1, 2009

What Is Happening To This World?

Warning: This post is a personal rant of mine regarding some very emotional content concerning what is happening in our news.

I am wondering what is happening to this world we live in. Seriously. There are so many screwed up things happening in our society and it's all quite scary to me. Not so scary that I want to go into hiding, but almost. We had an intermediate school in our area shut down yesterday due to a student bringing a gun on campus. Thankfully, the gun was unloaded and the students who saw it reported it immediately. This could have gone wrong in so many ways and it was the grace of God that it didn't.

What has really, and I DO mean REALLY, upset me is the whole story surrounding Jaycee Dugard. She is the young lady who was kidnapped at the age of 11 back in 1991. She was just recently found, 18 years later. I cannot begin to imagine the horrors this young lady went through over the past 18 years. Hell, I can't imagine what her family has been through all this time.

Jaycee's abductor, Phillip Craig Garrido, is a convicted rapist and a registered sex offender, serving time in a Nevada prison back in 1971 for a previous kidnapping and rape conviction. It is absolutely inexcusable that Garrido went unnoticed over all this time. His parole officer's incompetence just astounds me! When you're working with a REGISTER SEX OFFENDER you do NOT allow them to have all the tents and sheltered areas that Garrido had without going over every square inch of that property on a regular basis! Jaycee, and her two children, suffered for years because a parole officer wasn't doing his job properly.

I'm ANGRY! No shock there. But really folks, we are too soft of sex offenders. Garrido's previous conviction showed his violent tendencies. His ex-wife calls him sadistic. The fact that he was allowed to live in the general population without constant observation shows how soft we are on sex offenders. I'm going to state right now, it is my belief/personal opinion, that there is no such thing as a rehabilitated sex-offender! NO SUCH THING!!! And, I'm not the only one who believes this. Countless studies have been done on this topic alone and they will back up everything I'm telling you.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice website 2.5% of released rapists were rearrested for another rape within 3 years of release , and 1.2% of those who had served time for homicide were arrested for a new homicide. Also, sex offenders were about four times more likely than non-sex offenders to be arrested for another sex crime after their discharge from prison. And in regards to the registered child molesters, here's the kicker... Approximately 4,300 child molesters were released from prisons in 15 States in 1994. An estimated 3.3% of these 4,300 were rearrested for another sex crime against a child within 3 years of release from prison. Among child molesters released from prison in 1994, 60% had been in prison for molesting a child 13 years old or younger. (You can find all this information here.) Please read that last sentence again, SIXTY Percent of the child molesters released from prison in 1994 (60%) had Already Been In Prison for molesting a child!!! Does that make you sick to your stomach? Angry? Pissed off? It should!

Our nation has to crack down on its violent offenders. What has been done in the past is obviously not working. By continuing in the same pattern regarding how our sex offenders are treated is just as bad as sticking our heads in the sand and acting like this doesn't go on in our world. Our children need protecting and we're doing a poor job of that when a convicted child sex offender is released back into the general population. I don't care what it takes but something has to change. Put them all on a remote island together and let them fend for themselves for all I care. And honestly, that is one of the most humane treatments that I can come up with. I have no sympathy for sex offenders. None at all. And, in my opinion, I think it's time they stop receiving any.

1 comment:

Kimberly said...

I haven't read anything about this (I tend not to follow the news) but I have to agree with everything you said. Sometimes I believe it's a sad, sad world we live in.