Talk:Jessica's Law

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Contents 1 Controversy Section 2 Arguments for and against 3 Title Controversy 4 Comments 5 State level Counterparts 6 Controversy and criticism 7 NPOV Issues 8 Recent court rulings 9 The election was on November 7 10 POV section tag 11 Current Status 12 CA's prop 83

[edit] Controversy Section

Lots of information there, poorly written. The paragraph is too large. I don't have the time tonight to re-write so if anyone else can before I can get to it, please do.-RomeW 09:17, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Maralia, thank your for your feedback regarding my addition of the statement re: murders of registered sex offenders due to their personal information being made puplic in sex offender registries, in the article """http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_Lunsford_Act""". I had included an External Link as follows: """http://www.rutherford.org/Oldspeak/Articles/Law/oldspeak-sexregistries.asp Sex-Offender Registries: Public Safety or Public Hazard?"""" thinking that the link would be sufficient. Was this incorrect? Also, do you have a Talk Page? I cannot find it. Thank you for your attention 81.184.59.20 06:27, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Arguments for and against

Despite Leno's fighting to allow possesion of up to 100 CD-Roms filled with child pornographic images, public outrage prompted the legislature to include an outright ban.

This does not strike me as a sterling example of NPOV. Was Leno really fighting to allow this, or was he arguing that no sufficient reason had been given to depart from the status quo?

Oregon Bear 22:04, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Title Controversy

The Florida Law is called "The Jessica Lunsford Act" as well, not just the Federal Statute. Maybe the Jessica Linford Act title should be changed or it should include all incarnations of Jessica's law and merged with this entry. Hoshbaron 17:47, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Since there is no Jessica Linford Act article, you should propose a move, not a merge. -Selket ^Talk 23:21, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I misspelled the name. The correct name is "The Jessica Lunsford Act." There is an article. Hoshbaron 15:03, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Comments

Does anyone know what is going on with this law? Did it pass? Can I help somehow?

Thank you

Joanne Los Angeles

I don't think it's passed yet, so perhaps it's not too late for you to help stop it. Do you have any high-profile access for leverage? Haakon 17:46, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

I think she is asking if she can help pass it, not stop it. Why would anyone short of a sexual predator want to stop this?

Cowboydan76 03:18, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Cowboydan... Don't be naive, you must be listening to too much Bill O'reilly. There are planty of reasons to oppose this attack on civil liberty grounds. It is gross attempt by "conservatives" to pass more legislation in their favor, while promoting it on moral grounds and using children as pawns in their game. Educate yopurself before spouting off about things you don't understand. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.245.57.106 (talk • contribs)

I take great offense to that attempt to belittle my knowledge and opinion on the subject. I think you're probably aware that your edit was a baseless personal attack based on the fact that you didn't sign it. Your reasoning, if not your opinion, is clearly based on ignorance and partisanship. In terms of civil liberties, I assume you refer to the monitoring aspect of this. If you feel the rights of criminals who, in my opinion, should be in jail indefinitely outweigh those of their victims or of children at large, you are entitled to that opinion, misguided as I believe it to be. However, that doesn't make your opinion the only valid one, or give you the right to ridicule anyone who holds a differing one. Furthermore, your wording is quite awkward. A gross attempt to pass legislation in their favor? I thought that's what all political entities are supposed to do. I wasn't aware such an attempt could be "gross".

Also, children as the pawns??? I would be interested to know your reasoning for this seemingly baseless statement. The act is very explicitly and obviously aimed at protecting children, whereas pawns, to the contrary, are expendable tools exposed to harm as a means to an end. I think you are drastically stretching the facts if you attempt to read substantive motivations into the act aside from a) protecting children and b) punishing criminals.

Finally, I want to make it clear that you do NOT know me, and you do not know what I do or do not know. You should be ashamed of yourself for accusing me of "spouting off", when all I did was clarify and present a question. Rather than advancing any discussion by simply answering that question (which you scarcely did, only vaguely citing "civil liberties"), you chose to launch a misguided personal attack. Your vague assertions and uncalled-for invective shows you to be the most likely perpetrator of "spouting off about things you don't understand." I respectfully request that you conduct yourself with more maturity and greater attention to fact in the future when editing these pages. Cowboydan76 20:20, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

The fact that it is hard to voice any concern over this Act without being attacked as someone who thinks the rights of criminals "infinitely outweigh those of children", and that only sexual predators would want the Act stopped, makes the Act scary in itself. Haakon 20:48, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, the fact that it's difficult to criticize doesn't make it automatically bad or even flawed. What are your particular concerns? I would really like to know what the other side of the debate is thinking, apart from partisan concerns. So far, the only opposition I've heard or read to it have had no substance (like above), which leaves the impression for me and I would think, any neutral observer, that it's hyperpartisan liberal obstructionism driving it. I'm not saying I think that's what is driving you, but I sure am looking for evidence to the contrary at this point.

PS- Currently, searching for "Jessica's Law" links to this page. I think this is unfortunate, since Jessica's Law is really more of a concept that goes well beyond the federal bill. In fact, out of the dozens of "jessica's law" incarnations, only one is covered to any extent by this article. The state-level counterpart is much more inclusive in this sense, and so I think there should either be a disambiguation page, or that this search should link to "jessica's law". Unfortunately, I'm too ignorant of the workings of Wikipedia to get this done. Help? Cowboydan76 22:07, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

The idea of being a "hyperpartisan liberal" is very alien to me as a European. I think this legislation is one in a series which is designed for the systematic breakdown of civil rights. Child sexual offenders are the McCarthy communists of today: a handy tool to scare the public into submission. First you create a national hysteria: "children everywhere are being sexually assaulted by strangers, your helpless child may be next!" Having created your mythical enemy and made everyone hate him, you can now easily pass legislation to control every part of his existance. Everybody will applaud this, and your reelection is secured. Now you gradually fuel the hysteria and expand your enemy myth. The population mass you control grows forever, as more and more become "enemies". What's more, as the number of enemies grows, the non-enemy population becomes more and more afraid and hysterical, and therefore also more controllable. They no longer care about facts such as the fact that recidivism rates for child sexual offenders are extremely low [1]; they see enemies walking among them everywhere, and they now understand that they must thread extremely carefully to stay a non-enemy [2]. And this is why I oppose the Jessica Lunsford Act and any other legislation based on hysteria and not on fact (and by extension, any Act named after a child). Haakon 23:56, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

While I agree with your suspicions regarding the ulterior motives of authoritarian "treat the symptoms" crime bills, Wikipedia isn't the appropriate place for championing a point of view. One of the most important policies here is that articles must hold to a Neutral Point of View. Kasreyn 12:07, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Interesting source for recidivism rates. I believe you have been the victim of cherry-picked and mischaracterized information, though. I'm led to initial skepticism simply based on the fact that your source is an "advocacy" organization, which is always going to try to tailor the available information to their purposes. By contrast, I refer you to a very detailed study by the US Department of Justice which shows quite different facts [3]. Just a guess, but from the similarity in figures between the two sources, I'm suspicous of the possibility your source may have only taken the data on recidivism within one year of release and presented it as overall recidivism. According to the study I cited, child molesters who are incarcerated for molesting victims of the opposite sex have a 43% rate of previous offenses and a 25% rate of reoffense. Same-sex offenders have numbers that are 13% and 5% higher, respectively. When you consider how under-reported sex offenses are in general, and factor in wrongful acquittals, it is pretty clear that the majority of child molesters committ sexual offenses at least twice, and that at least half are convicted more than once. So if inconvenience and embarrassment for a convicted sex offender is what it takes to keep at least half of them from victimizing another child or other human being, then so be it, with my blessing.

Also, interesting point about the potential parallels with communism, but the flaw in McCarthyism wasn't that it was too harsh toward criminals, it was that it falsely accused innocent people, and, chiefly, that it persecuted people that were suspected of things that were protected by the Constitution (with the exception of the Rosenbergs and other actual traitors). I consider rape and especially child rape as heinous, or nearly as heinous, as murder. Because of this, I would support life sentences (or potentially death, for multiple counts) for those committed of especially child rape. Not saying my opinion should be law, but just telling you where I'm coming from. To me, a 25 year minimum for doing THAT to a child under 13 is common sense as a punishment, and monitoring afterward is equally so as insurance against it reoccurring. Keep in mind that this only applies to violent child sex offenders, too. You're not subject to Jessica's Law if you committ, say, child porn or even statutory rape. If McCarthy was going after real criminals with such fervor, he would not have been such a bad guy.

Finally, I would just like to say that if you can, in earnest, call child molesters anything close to a "mythical enemy", maybe that's just a credit to the quality of people in your home country. That simply cannot be said here. Cowboydan76 00:24, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

I think it would be absurd to say that this issue hasn't been prodded at to the point of hysteria. BTW, McCarthy thought he was different than the Salem witch trials also. You all think you're different. Insulting his home country was also completely unnecessary. I think that it is good that they have such a strong common resistance to hysteria that my compatriots lack.74.251.38.239 (talk) 08:39, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I have to disagree. If McCarthy had gone after "real criminals", it would have been the best thing that could ever have happened to criminals in this country. His complete disreputability would have tarnished valid law enforcement efforts for years afterwards. The man became known as such a notorious fraud that anything he championed was considered suspect. It's very lucky for us that he never championed anything of value to the public. Kasreyn 12:10, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Well this is somewhat beside the point. I was mainly trying to demonstrate that the McCarthy analogy wasn't really relevant. As for what you said specifically, I meant to imply that he wouldn't be such a bad guy if he championed causes like this instead of the kinds of causes he actually did. I hadn't really intended the hypothetical to be carried this far :). Cowboydan76

This article is about as far from "viewpoint neutral" as you can get. Let's analyze:

Intro: a fairly neutral recitation of what the law does

State-Level Counterparts: again, a neutral description of state law

Controversy And Criticism: all negative - no point, counterpoint. Not neutral. Controversy indicates that there are two sides to a story. Not here I guess.

Recent Court Rulings: description of rulings that have NOTHING to do with the law, yet somehow suggesting the law is inappropriate. Not neutral.

The Civil Rights Of . . . : again, not neutral. Only points out what "advocates" opposing the law think. Where's the counterpoint? Missing again.

The New Mccarthyism: Not neutral. Now the article accepts the word of "many" who feel that trying to punish sex offenders is the same thing as chasing down alleged communists. Ridiculous. And not even close to viewpoint neutral.

Just take a look at the references. None are from sources championing the law. naiveray

[edit] State level Counterparts

This section should be expanded, perhaps with a list of states with counterparts. -- ozoneliar 10 October 2006

The Florida Law is also called "The Jessica Lunsford Act." Maybe the title should be modified to read "Federal Jessica Lunsford Act" to avoid confusion. Hoshbaron 17:44, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Controversy and criticism

Some of the criticism is towards a state law, not the federal law, and perhaps should be removed -- ozoneliar 10 October 2006

[edit] NPOV Issues

I did put up a couple of links, both pro and con. I also addressed some criticisms on this bill. Its important to remember that the reason this bill is controversal is because it contains some provisions which strike many as being conterproductive towards the reduction in crime. I am trying to stay neutral myself.

But, as this article must stay neutral, so I will not take a stand one way or another.

I will only note the discussion related to this article should be one based on logic. To state that "Only a child molestor would not want this bill" is incorrect. A number legal and psychiatric experts oppose the law for a number of reasons.

The principal reason for opposition to the bill is that it would be difficult to enforce and would cause many former sex offenders to "go underground" and fail to register.

It should also be noted that opponents of the bill have offered statistics to show that, if properly treated, sex offenders do have very low rates of recidivism. For more on this see this article.Piercetp 00:46, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Recent court rulings

After reviewing the case, it has almost no bearing on the Jessica Lunsford Act. This section belongs to another article, maybe one on child pornography. For the forgoing reasons I am deleting this section. -- ozoneliar 10 October 2006

[edit] The election was on November 7

And it passed in California.. I didnt know it was anywhere else...

[edit] POV section tag

There have been a couple other POV complaints above, but I just wanted to state why I specifically put up the tag for the controversy section. Specifically, the section reads as an argumentative piece, listing facts to draw a conclusion instead of quoting other people who have drawn a conclusion. Facts such as that "web offenders" are listed in the registry are true, but the section uses this fact to draw a conclusion (that web offenders aren't so bad and shouldn't be restricted like this)... which is POV. Furthermore, there are no cited quotes whatsoever, leading me to believe original research was used extensively. I'll give this a couple of days, and then start pruning. Fieari 19:33, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Current Status

As the bill was introduced in the 109th congress and the 110th congress is in session, the bill is dead. Gront 03:50, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] CA's prop 83

Many of the links purporting to be about the federal act are in fact about California's state version, which passed last year. Should they be moved - is there a prop 83 article? - or just deleted? DanB†DanD 20:28, 17 July 2007 (UTC)