Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Fla. sex offender jailed for racy reading

Now, I don't have any sympathy for sex offenders, but I never realized they were prohibited from having sexually stimulating material when on probation. I'm not sure that's such a good idea, wouldn't we rather they look at magazines and movies than repeat their crimes? And I can see that there might be some worry that the sexually stimulating material would lead them to commit another sex crime, but unless you think they can someone avoid being sexually stimulated, then I don't think there's much that can be done about that, anyway. Unless you castrate them. And whether or not they actually have porn physically in their possession, if they have internet access, they can always get porn anyway.

But in court papers, Calderon's lawyer, Mel Black, described Maxim as far from obscene.

I'm sure I wouldn't describe Maxim as obscene, but I'm also sure that it's not that far from it. But either way, the guy is going to have urges, and I would rather he satisfy them looking at Maxim, or porn, or whatever, then repeating his crimes.

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10 comments:

Melissa McEwan said...

That's incredibly stupid. The last thing you want is sexually frustrated sex offenders. Letting them have wank material surely won't prevent recidivism, but withholding it sure seems likely to increase the chances of it.

Idiocy. More victims to come.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, that's what I was thinking too. Also, not letting them have magazines isn't going to do anything to prevent them from getting porn as long as they have internet access or cable, even if it would work.

Anonymous said...

IMO, the point of the story is that Maxim is not on the same level as Hustler, Barely Legal and other, more "obvious" hard-core porn (which is, rightly or wrongly, prohibited). Another probationer was arrested for having a copy of the Kama Sutra in a bedside table next to the bed he shared with his wife. Do we really want the government saying that's not OK? How far are they going to go in deciding what is and isn't "sexually stimulating?" R-rated movies? The SI swimsuit issue? They're establishing a standard that is nothing short of prudish.

Melissa McEwan said...

The other issue is that some of these guys were probably convicted of statutory rape, which, if the guy is 18 and the girl is 17, shouldn't mean he's banned from reading Maxim for the rest of his life, you know? (Or, for that matter, serve a live sentence on a sex offenders registry.)

I'm the last person on earth to be an apologist for sex offenders, but it just doesn't do anyone, including potential victims, any good to lump them all together as if perpetrators of every sex crime are the same, and relegate them all to punishments that may, in some cases, be too severe for the crime - or likely to cause recidivism.

Re: cable/internet - maybe that's being monitored.

Anonymous said...

I really have no sympathy for these people, in general, but as Shakes points out, we really don't know what it is they did. I'm sure there are situations where people don't need to be monitored so closely. And they could deem just about anything as sexually stimulating and therefore deny it to these people. Hell, the one guy who is married probably finds his wife sexually stimulating, so shouldn't they take her away?

I really think they need to rethink how we handle these people in this country because it doesn't seem to work. Everytime some kid gets taken, it seems to be that the guy who did it was a registered sex offender, so it doesn't seem that that really does any good as far as preventing future crimes. Maybe they just need to be locked up longer, or indefinitely, I don't know. But if you're going to let them out, I don't think you should let them out with such unrealistic expectations.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I'll check that out. I don't really know what the answer is, but I think it's pretty clear that it doesn't work the way we're doing it.

Anonymous said...

"They could deem just about anything as sexually stimulating"--
THAT'S THE POINT! Their definition of sexually stimulating seems to be "anything that would make your great-grandmother blush." I'm not disagreeing with those who say that our classification and treatment of sex offenders and predators needs a lot of work--clearly it does. But, again IMO, the problem here is the government deciding that Maxim is the equivalent of hardcore porn. It's not. And this is an awfully dangerous slippery slope.

Melissa McEwan said...

Totally. And let's not forget that there are people who find shoes a sexual turn-on. There are probably people who find slabs of cement a sexual turn-on. I don't think you can rid the world of things that make someone horny. The only think that would be left is Denny Hastert.

Anonymous said...

Shoes? Freaks!

Anonymous said...

The issue with pornography is that while there is definately a continuum of topics that can be classified as pornography, by and large it's agreed by mental health therapists that people become desensitized to images over time.

So, if he's drooling over a picture of some early 20s girl in Maxim now, he MIGHT in the future have to look at even younger girls, or women in violent situations or whatever in order to be sexually gratified.

It's definately something to think about. Personally, God help the person that touches my child. He or she better pray the police catch him before I do. I'm not afraid of jail.