Convicted sex offenders at the library
By adamg - Sat, 08/13/2005 - 9:03am.
Civil-rights lawyer Harvey Silverglate says a city effort to keep convicted sex offenders away from children in BPL branches might go too far and discourage them from using the library. Carpundit, also a lawyer, has a question for Silverglate:
... What an ass. Got any kids, Harvey? I do. And I don't want any sex offenders in the library, ever.
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Civil rights
Yeah, civil rights are for sissies!
What do the librarians think?
Curious how there are no comments in the article by librarians saying that they've noticed any problems or wanted this kind of help.
Sex offenders are bad but . . .
I, like Carpundit, am a lawyer with a kid, and I definitely don't want sex offenders near my child. However, until we're willing to actually pass a law that says sex offenders can't walk the streets - ever, we will have to accept that they will, to a certain degree, walk among us. I know that's unsettling for parents (I can't help but be worried by it myself), but the law doesn't say they can't use libraries, and until it does, we shouldn't try to bend it to that purpose. It cheapens laws to ignore what they actually say and bend them to other purposes just because the people affected are especially unpleasant.
Unless we are willing to
Unless we are willing to lock up all convicted felons forever without possibility of parole, we have to accept that they will eventually rejoin the rest of us outside.
Do we want to stigmatize them for life, which will probably lead them to reoffend? Or do we want to reintegrate them into society? If the latter, keeping them out of libraries isn't the way to go. We do allow convicted bank robbers to enter banks, after all.