Speaking of trolls....

[Are_grits_groceries]

Miami sex offenders still living under bridge

MIAMI — A sandy shoreline runs outside Patrick Wiese’s front door. A white crane toes through gentle blue-green waters as the sun beams overhead. The view of downtown is spectacular, the fishing good and the rent free.

Yet he’d give it all up for a bed in a warehouse.

Wiese is among 52 sex offenders living under a busy bridge over Biscayne Bay that connects Miami to Miami Beach. The state insisted two years ago it would urge them to leave, but the community has only grown.


http://www.bradenton.com/331/story/1326715.html

Maybe Billygoats Gruff too. :scared:

[XemaSab]

1. I doubt there are whooping cranes living under a bridge in Miami

It was an egret. :P

[Are_grits_groceries]

2. Hope there are no baby egrets. nt

[JitterbugPerfume]

13. try to live your life

with no egrets:fistbump:

[arcadian]

15. Or a white heron.

depends on what color it's legs were.

[DainBramaged]

3. So, these people paid for their crimes, but are effectively left out to die

And I thought we had progressed beyond cruel and unusual punishment.

Oh wait, on edit, we torture people, never mind, par for the course, no problem, ok they are no different than those we have incarcerated for years, tortured and now cannot let them go because we were so wrong.

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[madrchsod]

4. i have no sympathy for molesters

but the only place they can live is under a bridge? that`s counter productive for everyone involved

[LeFleur1]

5. Yeah

They should be under the water under the bridge.

[cliffordu]

11. (snort) Yep....

[burning rain]

17. Agree.

Either they've paid for their crimes, or they haven't. If they're to be let out of prison, they should be able to have a place to live, and hold down a job. Life probation might work.

[Richard Steele]

18. And bear in mind that most "sex offenders" aren't actually "molesters".

That term covers everything from real molesters to
people who had a child spot them peeing in public.

Most fall somewhere in between those 2 extremes.

One example from my personal experience: When I lived in Raleigh, NC,
a guy moved into the unit next to me. He had just gotten out of jail,
and was on the NC Sex Offenders List.

Obviously, I had some concerns about that.
I was pretty good friends with the Apt. Managers, and they showed me
what they had turned up on the guy when they checked his backround.

Basically, he had been caught in his car with a street-corner prostitute
at 2:AM, parked in some alley downtown.
Which wouldn't normally lead to jail time, except it turned out
that the prostitute was only 15 years old. SURPRISE!

Now, I'm not DEFENDING guys who leave their SO's home asleep
while they cruise for street hookers. That's kinda creepy, IMO.
(And he WAS kinda creepy; a regular Rush Limbaugh fan)

But "kinda creepy" isn't the same as "child molester". Far from it.
And I think our society needs to make that distinction, rather than
the current "one label fits all" approach to every infraction that
has a sexual component to it.


I also think we should try to HELP 15-year-old girls
who are selling themselves on street corners, rather than
treating them like criminals...but that's a whole other post.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

6. Do you think these people have been punished enough for their crimes?

"Yes" is a perfectly good answer; if so, they should be allowed - and, indeed, strongly encouraged - to reintegrate into society, to reduce the risk of them reoffending.

"No" is a perfectly good answer; if so, they should still be in prison, locked away to reduce the risk of them reoffending.

"Sort of, they've paid enough of their debt to society that we're going to let them out onto the streets but not enough to stop us going on treating them as pariahs", and thus encouraging them to associate only with other sex offenders, to view society as already their enemy whatever they do and to go underground where they're harder to keep track of, but not restricting their freedom of movement enough to make it harder for them to reoffend, is not a good answer.

[NutmegYankee]

7. I have problems with this - I find it unjust.

There are many cases where individuals have been out of prison for years, started families and settled down, only to have these laws enacted and years after their release from prison, be forced to move from their home, and possibly away from their families.

Seriously, how can this be justified in the face of justice? Once you have done the time for the crime, the penalty is over. This is no different then a future legislature deciding that speeding will now involve more than a ticket, but that anyone with a speeding ticket will now lose their license permanently, and then makes it retroactive. You could have had a ticket in 1979, but now you lose your license for it in 2009. And don't complain, it isn't more jail time, it's just a "Civil penalty".

It doesn't matter if it's sexual crimes, or being a Jew in Germany, being rounded up, registered, and forced out of your home should make every American shudder. It's a dangerous road we walk.

[Dinger]

8. I Agree With You (nt)

[Liberal_in_LA]

9. This story at the same link:

A drunk teacher forcing her students to dance with her. :rofl:


Fla teacher accused of being drunk at school quits


A Tampa Bay middle school teacher has resigned after officials say she was drunk at school.

Kylene Nelson, a language arts teacher at Rushe Middle School in Land O'Lakes, faced dismissal over last week's incident. In a letter to the district, she said her last day would be April 21, the date of the next school board meeting.

The 42-year-old reportedly forced students to dance with her before being removed from class. The Pasco County Sheriff's Office says Nelson later ran from campus and passed out at a nearby recreation center. Authorities say her blood-alcohol level was more than three times the level at which Florida law considers a person impaired.

[elocs]

12. If sex offenders are never to be given a chance to rehabilitate,

then what is the point of ever letting them out of prison at all? The point does seem to be to hound them from place to place for the rest of their lives with the mark of Cain on them forever. "Sex offenders" also include the 18 year old kid who had sex with his 16 year old girlfriend who he met in high school, but he pissed off her father.

So after these people have served their time, then either give them a chance to go straight and stop torturing them like a cat playing with a mouse or simply keep them in prison for the rest of their lives. Of course we all know what Republicans would suggest be done with them. It wouldn't matter to them if some of these (mostly) men just might be innocent (it is statistically likely that some are innocent). Their philosophy would be to kill them all and let God sort it out.

[BlooInBloo]

14. Sounds good in principle, but do you want one near YOUR kid?

... Thus, all of the sex-offenders-can't-be-within-100-meters-of-just-about-anything laws.

[Hannah Bell]

19. "Sex offender" covers a wide variety of crimes, e.g. the 21-yr-old who sleeps with the 16-yr-old.

They're not all dirty old men stalking playgrounds.

Keep them in prison or let them support themselves/house themselves when they get out.

[arcadian]

16. It earns point for politicians.

Everybody is "concerned about the children!!!"