Change what is considered a sex crime in Idaho, as the majority if the country has.  Reading this will show that this is the logical solution.

Imagine sitting around the dinner table eating with your family. As you sit down with your spouse and child, there is a knock at the door. The person at the door is a child protective services agent accompanied by a Sherriff’s deputy. They show you a warrant to search the house, take your child into protective custody, and you to jail. While you are being read your rights a uniformed agent ransacks your home, you are being scolded by the officers as to how disgusting you are, and how they can’t believe what you did. You respond to their insults with questions as to what they think you did. The responses from the intruders are that “you know what you did; you child molester.” Now imagine that you know that you are innocent, that no way in this world would you ever hurt a child, especially your own. Imagine that even though you profess your innocence you are still against all your pleas for understanding, being taken away. Although this sounds like a fictional tale, it is not. Contrary to what your mind may want to believe about living in a free country, this scenario happens frequently in 21st century America.

The numbers of people charged in the United States with sex crimes has reached epidemic levels. For the past few decades convictions for sex crimes have been increasing, and some of the most fraudulent cases were in the mid 1980’s in Kern County California (Nachman). Dozens of people were falsely charged in Kern with sexual abuse of children as part of massive pursuit to catch and punish "sex rings" by the Kern county prosecutors and sheriff’s office. The number of those convicted ranged somewhere between 60 and 100. They had their lives torn apart, permanently altered, and publicly humiliated as a result. The prosecuting attorneys built cases off of the testimonies of pre-teen children. The testimonies were used to convict and condemn to prison the parents of those same children. Now thirty years later, those supposed victims are coming out and reporting that they were coerced and manipulated by sheriff’s deputies and prosecuting attorneys to lie about the abuse. Those wrongfully convicted by the false testimonies are getting out one by one, mostly due to what is stated by the courts as a “technicality.” Even though these people who suffered for so long now taste freedom, nothing will ever replace those many years they spent behind prison walls.

Today in our country we house well over 25% of the world’s total inmates in jails or prisons (Office of Justice). With our increased sentencing time and overzealous prosecutors, American judges are pressured to send people to prison or jail for durations of time that range into the hundreds of years. It is considered a political achievement to have a high conviction rate or a high sentencing rate. This indirectly motivates judges and prosecutors to push for convictions (regardless of guilt) to obtain public favor, which in turn guarantees votes. With this country’s incarceration rate reaching a fever pitch, many people are being wrongfully convicted and unjustly sentenced by the court system. Some people with enough resources or determination to regain their freedom fight the system and win, and are rewarded with exoneration. Although some are lucky enough to fight the system and win, most charged with a sex crime are never given the chance to have their cases reexamined.

The number of exonerates that have been released by the “Innocence Project” has surpassed 300 (Innocence Project). This does not count for those who are released on technicalities such as unlawful prosecution methods or erroneous testimonies. With this high number of faulty convictions few of these people released were forced into the correctional system due to a sex crime. This exemplifies the fact that America will show compassion to a person who might sell heroin to a five year old or kill someone while drunk driving, but if a person has consensual sex with a seventeen year old then they receive zero mercy or forgiveness.

In our current standards of prosecution of sex crimes, the government holds a no tolerance standpoint. This has been allowed since the public is continuously fed a large supply of rhetoric from political careerists who intend on feeding the fears of the populace to ensure that they obtain votes to stay in office. This is also in part to some popular T.V. shows like “Law and Order, SVU” which portrays all people who are charged with a sex crime as psychopathic murdering child rapists. Unwarranted fears are established by politicos and T.V. shows which fool the general public into thinking that every person who is charged with a sex crime is a potential “Joseph Duncan.” The general public wants to protect their assets; this such as their homes, their retirements, their jobs, and their children. The desire to protect one’s assets is natural and honorable, but when fueled by false beliefs these desires become more harmful than good.

Forcing the public to think that every single person charged with a sex crime is a dangerous murdering pedophile, is an apex-fallacy. The percentage of people who are awfully deviant sex criminals is miniscule in comparison to all those who are charged with a sex crime. Only an estimated 17% of all convicted sex offenders are labeled as a level 3, which are the true pedophiles who victimized a child 12 or younger (Office of Justice). The majority of sex crime cases in Idaho are for things that in most of the country wouldn’t even be considered a misdemeanor, such as public nudity, sex in public or consensual sex with a 16 or 17 year old. Currently 39 states have laws that would reduce the punishment for a person in their twenties who has consensual sex with a 17 year old to a misdemeanor or less. Idaho is not one of them (Just). Although not all of those charged are completely innocent, the punishment that they receive may not always it fit the crime nor is it fair. Not long ago it was common for a man in his twenties to marry a woman who was 16 or 17. Today due to Idaho’s no statute of limitations on sex crimes, some people who may have married under these circumstances could potentially be charged with a sex crime. This could include people who have been honorable, upstanding members of society for decades, but due to this draconian law they potentially could be labeled criminals.

Even though the majority of those convicted with sex crimes are not a group of sadistic serial rapists, there are in fact sadistic serial rapists in this world. To completely ignore the potentiality for a person to prey-on, victimize, or even murder another for sexual gratification is foolish and would facilitate opportunities for those who do. The punishment system in place, if used correctly, is there to prevent, deter, and punish sex crimes with a seriousness that equates to murder. Society has a set of rules in place with the idea to protect people and children from being fearful of going to places like day-care, parks or church. The punishment for sex crimes directly prohibits any convict from ever again frequenting such places where potential victims congregate. To ensure the safety and security of society and its inhabitants, lawmakers incapacitate anyone convicted with a sex crime from ever again being allowed in the vicinity of parks, churches, daycares, schools, or anywhere children frequent. To simply allow a potential sexual predator to “run-amuck” throughout society would be irresponsible and incomprehensible for any legislator or parent.

Most politicians take a hard stance on crime, as this is what the general public is told that they want. When a voting public wants to be safe, then the ruling classes evoke strict laws to make people feel like they are protected. One of the answers to this potential threat is the politicians in Idaho make the laws that encompass every person charged with a sex crime regardless of the severity, to fall under a one size fits all type of punishment. This is where all are treated as the exact same, such as the same labels, the same orders of never having contact with children (to include family members), the same treatment programs, the same timeline for punishment, and being on the same registry. This is flawed since there is no separation for sex crime punishment but there are varying degrees of punishment for other crimes such as murder-1, murder-2, vehicular manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter, and aggravated battery, each crime has its own unique level of restrictions, punishment, and societal restitution.

Currently in Idaho anyone charged with a sex crime receives a felony, and mandatory sex offender registration. This includes anyone who commits a crime that most other states deem nothing more than a misdemeanor. Since a felony never goes away, people in Idaho are being sentence to what is essentially a lifetime of suffering. A rational person must ask the question why is it that something that is accepted in Washington, Nevada and 37 other states as a misdemeanor or less, is a felony here in Idaho. Across the nation the recidivism for sex crimes is the lowest out of all listed crimes ranging around 2.5% (Office of Justice). This begs the question as to why we punish level 1 offenders with a life sentence when are the least likely to reoffend for any type of crime? The majority of the country recognizes this fact, but Idaho for some reason refuses to follow what science, factual evidence, and rationality should dictate.

Idaho legislators and judges seem not to want to address this issue or they simply make too much money from the system the way it is. This mindset can be explained for several reasons outlined on the Innocence website. In Idaho there is no compensation law for those wrongfully convicted. There is no law that mandates recorded interrogations. There is no law mandating the preservation of evidence. Finally there is no criminal justice reform commission to ensure proper use of the judicial system. Other states that have a more progressive viewpoint, or as I like to call it 21st century thinking, have these laws to help protect the people from flagrant legal abuse, some of which border Idaho like Oregon, Washington, and Nevada. Of all the problems within the legal system, and there are many, this one I feel is the most heinous. This is because it is common belief throughout this state that anyone convicted of a sex crime, regardless of the severity, is now and forever labeled worse than the Taliban. Most people in this state have a mentality of burn them at the stake and never forgive them, well to that I respond with the words of Martin Niemöller; “First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out because I was not a communist; Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist; Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist; Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew; Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.”

If we continue down this destructive path and never allow forgiveness, there is no telling who might be next on the chopping block of “justice.” People ask me what the answer is, well I don’t know other than copying the laws of other states, which clearly works for them, and would work for us. Thousands of people in Idaho are being punished as sadistic criminals for crimes that the rest of the country sees as minor. Currently this is nothing more than a 21st century version of a scarlet letter. There should be a legal change in Idaho’s classification of what is a sex crime. Currently too many are suffering from this umbrella definition of a sex offender, and most of which do not deserve it. If the courts continue to employ a one size fits all classification of sex crimes then clearly they see it as nothing more than a cash crop for the political careerists and the prison corporations. If life is intrinsically valuable, and we want to think of our society as being intelligent and rational, than there is no need to indefinitely punish a human being. If a person commits a crime, regardless of what it is, they are still human. Their fundamental rights as a human being should not be forfeit due to a one time mistake, as many sex crimes are.

Work cited.

Just for reference.  Age of Consent. bbPress. 2010. Web. 24 April, 2013

Nachman, Dana. Hardy Jr., Don. Witch Hunt. Documentary. Jach Cummings, Jackie Cummings, Allen Grafton. Executive producer Sean Penn. 2008. DVD.

Office of Justice Programs. Bureau of Justice Statistics. NA. 2013. Web. 24 April, 2013.

Innocence Project. A Snapshot of Exonerations. Innocence Project. 2013. Web. 24 April, 2013

UC Santa Barbara, History Department.  Martin Niemöller’s famous quotation.  Harold Marcuse homepage. 2000. Web. 24 April, 2013.