There is just something about a sex offender. You fancy yourself a fair and open-minded person. You don’t think alcoholics and addicts should be banished from society or killed off to cleanse away the flawed gene. You can even muster some sympathy for a bank robber or career burglar if he has a sad enough tale to tell.

But march a rapist or child molester forth and even the most compassionate of people will scowl and spit, bare teeth and raise claws. In a society that protects its children above all else, nobody is lower on the totem pole of disdain.

The writer of a letter I got is right: When a man hunted down and killed a pair of pedophiles last spring, there was more soft applause than horror. Pedophiles are regarded by most as lower, more vile and dangerous than rabid dogs. And you don’t hear a lot of outcry from the various rights groups because the very concept of taking sex by force or from a child is almost universally scorned.

Every once in a while, I get mail from confessed pedophiles. They present themselves timidly, like cats poking their heads from a closet before emerging. And God help me, I look for something within their tale to feel sympathy or understanding. But so repugnant a crime does not give itself up easily to forgiveness. So rather than attempt my own assessment, I give it to you:

“Dear Mark,

“I am a convicted sex offender. I cannot give my real name due to the danger of being hunted down and physically harmed, fired from my job and forced to move out of my apartment. I must protect myself at all times. I did prison time and probation. The writing of sex offenders stirs anxiety and fears in the community. The hateful views of readers provokes fear and anxiety in offenders pictured online. Announcement of sex offenders in the area places them (sex offenders) at extreme danger of assault. With the murder of two sex offenders last April, the online photos and neighborhood postings places the sex offender at even greater risk of bodily harm or death. Sex offenders lost their jobs, housing and the right to begin life over. They become objects of serious and severe physical assault.

“Of course I deeply regret my mistake from the past. I live in the memory of how my actions hurt my family, friends and co-workers. My sin brought great shame and humiliation to the community I worked in. However, my sex offense does not represent me as a whole person. As a human being.

“There are many questions that should be raised about the injustice of public posting of sex offenders. They are questions that have not been taken seriously in the past. The safety and rights of sex offenders have been ignored since the beginning of the online posting and in the local newspaper. The methodology of public posting has created a vicious attempt at hunting down sex offenders with the intent to kill them or run them out of town. When the two men were killed last April, it was interesting that the murders were viewed with a complacent attitude.

“The apathy in rejecting those who have fallen to the roadside demonstrates a morally dangerous and deliberate/hostile force to quiet any humanistic approach in helping the sex offender toward recovery.

“Should society be asking compassionate questions in the needs and treatment of sex offenders?

“Does anyone have the right to place another human being in lifelong danger by posting sex offenders online? How would those who make judgments feel if they had a parent, brother, sister or friend posted for life on the Internet?”



Draw your own conclusions, people.

Mark LaFlamme is the Sun Journal crime reporter. You can write to him at [email protected].