Month: December 2011

Tragedy in Indiana

 
“9-year-old Aliahna Lemmon, was brutally killed by 39-year-old Michael Plumadore”

Another tragic story of the death of a child. I didn’t take long however for the media to start a fervor over sex offenders. They pointed out that 15 registered sex offenders lived in that very same trailer park. However the media did not tell us why they even brought that up.

Not one of the fifteen has been charged with any crime related to that little girl. The man responsible was not on the registry. The crime would seem to be murder and not a sex offence.

However since the media brought up the sex offender issue, let’s look at that for a moment.

The Sex Offender Registry, the crown jewel of child safety. How did it do in protecting this small child?

1. Did it make the mother aware that the murder was a danger to her child? NO
2. Did it give the location where the murder lived? NO
3. Did it give the location where the murder worked? NO

4. Did it list the murder’s face on an internet website so the mother could make sure to keep him away from her child? NO
5. Did it aide in the investigation, hastening the case being solved? NO. Law Enforcement wasted countless hours and valuable recourses chasing down Registrants while the real murder walked around watching Law Enforcement chase the wrong people.
Did the registry give the mother a false sense of security? It seems it did. She was concerned about the RSO’s in the trailer park. She did what she thought was necessary to protect her children. She asked about some of the RSO’s and they were on her mind. The registery did however distract her from the real danger, Michael Plumadore. He was not on the registry, he had credibility. As one of the few men in the trailer park not on the registry he seemed to be the safest choice when the mother needed help.

Some of the media responses to this tragedy point to the cluster of sex offenders. The interesting part about this is that the cluster is state sanctioned because a paranoid public has demanded laws restricting these offenders from certain locations. In some states and cities the living options are severally limited. The media is greatly to blame for sex offender clusters. They pander to proponents that say there is a need to push registered offended away from populated areas. The media however does not report findings from studies that show that residency restrictions are ineffective, costly and counterproductive.

All that residency restrictions do is to give the public a false sense of security. We must ask ourselves, if we force these people to cluster, if we then list their location online, are we not inviting people like Michael Plumadore to take advantage of that situation? After all, a man like Michael Plumadore would see a cluster as a safe place to carry out his crime with less fear of being caught.

Also law enforcement would be concentrating on known offenders in the area and not looking for the real offender.

These are just some thoughts. We need to start a national debate about the all too real dangers of the Sex Offender Registry. How many live may be lost due to having a list such as this, online, for all to see? A list than can easily be used by unscrupulous people in caring out heinous crimes against children.

The headline should read, Sex Offender Registry fails to protect a child, AGAIN!

A Holiday Wish for You

We received this from a member and felt compelled to pass it on.

 

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 Hi.

I’ve been thinking for the last few days about how to wish everyone a wonderful holiday season while keeping in mind that not all of us enjoy the holidays – especially when restrictions (and jail/prison) keep some people from their friends and family. Then I received an email from someone and thought I would pass it along . . .

I’ve read that research shows that for many people, this is the most dismal time of year. And yet our society incessantly promotes the notion that we are all supposed to be happy now, which of course makes it worse for those of us who are not.

It occurs to me that if there is any group that ought to know that not everyone has loving family and friends to sit around a cozy fire with, this may be that group. So I’d like to offer a holiday greeting from a different perspective.

To all those who feel sad and lonely, who feel rejected by society, who feel unloved and unwanted, who feel angry at the world for being such a beautiful place filled with so much wanton nastiness, who feel afraid of the dark ages we seem to be falling into, or who can’t wait for the dark ages to descend in earnest in order to do away with the governmental and cultural structures that oppress them:

May you know that you are not alone.

May you have the courage to stand tall and proud of the wonderful person that you are and know that you don’t deserve the crap that is handed out to you.

May you know, while it can be a good idea in many circumstances to “make the best of it” and to “look for the silver lining” and that some people are complainers whose suffering is their own fault and for whom everything could be better if only they had a more positive attitude, that that is not true of everyone. If it not true of you, may you have the strength and the courage to tell the positive-thinking proponents that their theories do not apply to you.

May you know that you deserve love and peace in your life, and may you enjoy that which you do have, as well as any memories of times in your life that you had more.

May you have the strength to feel grateful for the blessings that you do have.

May you find an opportunity to bring some joy to someone else today, and may you enjoy a warm feeling in your soul from watching a smile come over their face when you do.

May you find someone to hug soon.

May these damned “holidays,” that seem to make you feel inadequate because you do not feel cheerful, soon be over.