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Geekery Today: posts from December 12th, 2001
Off to Europe (posted 12 December 2001)
To all of my loyal readers (and the finks out there, too): Geekery Today will be on temporary hiatus during my much-needed winter vacation, while I spend a couple weeks hanging out in Europe with L. and another week or so in Dallas with the extended fam. See you all next year!
Worries over notification laws (posted 12 December 2001)
Another "Boo hoo hoo, poor rapists" story, concerned with measures such as sex offender registries and involuntary detention in mental health clinics for sex offenders who have served all their time in prison. You know, there is a simple solution for all this.
- Rationalize age of consent laws so that consensual sex between adolescents with less than 2-4 years age difference is not considered statutory rape. Thus, there is no worry about consensual sex between adolescent partners giving the older one a criminal record just because they are on the wrong sides of the age-of-consent line.
- For anyone who commits acts covered under the remaining rape laws - whether child rape, acquaintence rape, serial rape, gang rape, or anything else - throw him in jail for the rest of his life, without the possibility of parole. Thus, there is no worry about the constitutionality or fairness of notification laws or involuntary detention in mental health facilities after release. There is no release at all.
Simple, isn’t it? Treat rape like a serious crime, and these worries disappear.
