TrueStory--
Are we assuming that "known sex offender" means "child rapist"? In this case, the lack of restrictions on contact with minors is either a direct fault of the court that sentenced him, or else a technicality that arises when we apply broad terms like "known sex offender". What was this person's original crime?
Normally, I would say yes, the police should move forward if a "known child rapist" is attempting contact with children. But for that to work, we need to include such language in the sentence.
In the example you've given, as to the question of whether parents should be "chastised" in their efforts to "protect their young children", I'm inclined to ask if every resource of the public record has been exhausted. Although people keep coming back to it, it's important: the information already exists in the public record. So it seems that, on the one hand, yes, parents care; on the other, they don't care so much to go even slightly out of their routine to get the information. They want it spoon-fed to them by the government.
One of the operating realities here is that, among the United States, at least, Justice is supposed to be blind. Much like every sin weighs the same with God, so must it be with Justice. Certes, we have varying sentences reflecting the perceived severity of the crime, but when a sentence is ended, a sentence is ended. Lifetime therapy for a pedophile is no different as a "sentence" than lifetime therapy for a paranoid-schizophrenic arsonist. When it's appropriate, it's appropriate. But the American mass psychology is that of a vigilante. People often go out of their way to aggravate a bad situation.
What freedom is being restricted entire communities? Where I live, that concept flies in the face of true liberty. To suspend the freedom of a given minority element to appease the majority is a horrible concept that has been counterproductive to social progression. And here comes the near-paradox: It is not illegal to have pedophilic emotions; as sick as it sounds, that state of mind is not against the law. It is the act itself, committed unto another person. History shows you cannot write a perfect exception to an imperfect principle. If we make that particular mode of thinking illegal, then all thought is, by precedent, subject to judicial and legislative approval. If we remove the repugnance of the subject matter, say, change it to armed robbery, what then? Should it be illegal to consider--merely consider--the possibility of gathering funds via the bullet? Should it be illegal to feel that a given group, labeled "terrorist", might have a point? Should it be illegal to deal with your own demons?
With freedom comes responsibility. Unfortunately, that responsibility means you have to go out of your way sometimes. Certain crimes are the result of societal climate; by that I mean that various horrors are the natural byproduct of human society. Preferably, I would rather find the device that creates such widespread pedophilia, but the root of the problem, I'm sure, would scare us all into denial. Actually, to be honest, I believe it already has. We can go on "protecting" our children from from a menacing spectre, or we can slay, wound, cripple, or otherwise disable the most part of the spectre's ability to function.
We can't stop every child rapist--unless of course, we want to steal children from their parents and raise them with robots. But we can figure out what, within society, is causing so many people to fail to reconcile the conflicts that motivate their unacceptable behavior. Maybe we can hobble the process.
But I still think advertising a duck pond to a bloodthirsty society of hunters is just a bad, bad idea.
thx,
Tiassa
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"Let us not launch the boat until the ground is wet." (Khaavren of Castlerock)
