Sex Offender Colonies: Good or Bad?
Does it bother you that the media suggests a “sex offender colony” is a good solution for housing registered citizens?
Nobody discounts the incredible work that communities like Matthew 25 Ministries and the Villages, among others, do for registered citizens. After all, because of the draconian residency restrictions, many have nowhere to go.
That said; is colonizing an unwelcome class of citizens in a far-off community far away from most civilization the right solution to correct an ineffective scheme of municipal ordinances?
Is separation from one’s family and exile FOR LIFE an appropriate blanket punishment for anyone with this label?
Doesn’t access to family support, proximity to social services, housing stability and employment foster successful reentry and doesn’t this “solution” undermine all those elements?
We are grateful for the existence of Matthew 25 and their community in Pahokee. We certainly wish that a similar community were available (or could even exist given the dense population) in Miami, so that 220 people would not be living homeless by the railroad tracks without toilets and without basic sanitation. But we are incredibly angry about the senseless, politically motivated, completely ineffective, empirically proven to be counter-productive and inhumane residency restrictions that necessitate them.
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The better course of action would be to fight residency restriction laws.
It reminds me of Leper Colonies. They were all outcasts of society and looked down upon. I fear that there would be vandalism and citizens made targets. It is another example of people trying to control the age we live in and judging others and putting everyone in the same category.
YES! This is a very good idea.!
The rest of you that think out situation is unconstitutional and unfair and society should pay attention to the law need to wake up.
A colony could offer us all protection, homes and a community that we are all accepted in. Think about how little we have won in the courts. We should embrace this idea. At least we would have a place that no one could throw us out of. Not only that, there is safety in numbers!!!
Mike, how can you see this as a good idea, or a solution at all?? This is no different than in Nazi Germany when they took all the Jewish people and “rehoused” them into a “safer area” away from the dangers of the general public. Sound familiar? What needs to be done, instead of forcing everyone into tiny “villages” away from the populace is to get rid of the draconian laws that do absolutely NOTHING AT ALL to promote public safety.
This is the action they want us to be committed to. However, this is not the answer to the already policies in place. This will help those with homelessness, yes. In prewar Germany, they didn’t call them “villages “.
With the lawmakers creating so many proximity laws colonies will be the only alternative….the lawmakers would be surprised to know that they actually know a registrant……
No, I don’t agree with colonies. The whole residency restriction is plain stupid. We have survived and endured as a society for hundreds of years without it and all of a sudden in only a past decade, they think it is important ? Please! It has been nothing but a disaster and they know it.
As you said it : senseless, politically motivated, completely ineffective, empirically proven to be counter-productive and inhumane residency restrictions that necessitate them.
I must defer to Derek Logue’s article, “The Fourth Reich: Sex Offender Laws as a Prototype for the Holocaust,” on this topic. “On March 9th, 1937, Himmler ordered a round-up of registered “professional and habitual criminals or dangerous sex offenders.” Armed with registration lists, the Gestapo rounded up 2,000 asocials and sent them to the concentration camps.” Anyone who can’t see the similarities with the way sex offenders are treated in America in 2016 is in denial.