NY: State poised to institute sex-offender ban on mass transit
New York State is poised to enact a ban on some sex offenders in New York’s mass transit system, a move long sought by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and long dreaded by civil libertarians.
The state budget that leaders are now finalizing would allow judges to ban individuals convicted of some sex crimes in mass transit from using the system for up to three years.
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I was in prison with these guys, who would describe as if it was nothing: “when we were growing up, we would get on the train during rush and rub up on a pretty girl til we nutted.”
These folks should be banned.
Crimes that did not occur on the trains, should not.
Really? Really!
I know it’s not PC to equate some of today’s legal actions with the days of the Nazi regime but come on now…how can you not?
For new convictions of crimes committed in transit, just gives judges discretion.
For non-transit (most) sex crimes, plus past transit sex crimes already adjudicated, there is no effect. And even for new crimes committed in transit, it’s up to the judge to determine whether such a condition is appropriate. And there is a cap of three years.
This won’t win me many friends here but: I don’t see the big issue here. Am I misinterpreting the bill? Should judges be denied to discretion to bar certain convicts from the subway?
The issue I see is.. one things to another. Pass this bills and they’ll push the envelope to even tighter restrictions. History has proven this in the case of person’s forced to register.
I very much agree with you, Jacob. I believe the title above is misleading. This is not one of those one-size-fits-all solutions that helps a few and hurts everyone else. It is a narrowly-targeted and time-limited intervention to help handle a known, serious problem. No one will be subjected to lifelong humiliation under this policy. Think about it like classic probation. If you embezzle from a bank, it’s reasonable for a judge to tell you to do something else for a few years before going back and working for a bank again. People convicted of DUI regularly lose their driver’s license for six months or a year.
If anything, we should be supporting such measures, and work to get lifetime rules changed to time and scope-limited ones. Instead of lifetime internet identifier registration, require three-year registration for those who committed their crimes online. Instead of lifetime bars on “loitering”, impose them for limited times on those who committed their crimes through loitering, prowling, or stalking.
Judicial discretion seems WAY better than a mandate. Nearly all our complaints on this forum, are complaints about mandates.
The MTA has pushed for the ban, arguing that those who commit sex crimes on the subway or bus do so again and again, creating a never-ending cat-and-mouse game for police and unnecessarily endangering customers
Ok, THAT’S a blatant lie!
Are armed robbers barred from ever using a bank or going into a store which has cash registers? Or accessing an ATM machine? Armed robbery as well as muggings happen again and again and many times by the same people.
WHAT IS HAPPENING TO OUR COUNTRY????!!!!!!
And registered citizens are SCARED to march on Washington?? Hundreds of thousands of you are SCARED of getting arrested? Really? For fighting for your rights as the government still taxed any income you make? Taxes your property?
If people can congregate to wear “pussy hats” in protest of a president they don’t like, we can all march to say enough is enough! And make sure to involve the teens who have to register for taking nude photos of THEMSELVES! Show America what it’s so afraid of about registered citizens and stop being the ones afraid of your own shadows!!
Nothing in this bill affects persons currently required to register. It’s a release condition available to a judge to impose (for a limited time) on someone who is being sentenced for a crime in transit. Someone who, for example, “got on the train during rush and rub up on a pretty girl til we nutted,” as someone nicely put it above, and is now being held to account. Will such a person ALSO be required to register for such a thing? Yes, but that’s a separate issue. Absolutely armed robbers can be barred by their judge from going certain places, doing certain things, if their judge perceives a risk.
But Jacob, the problem is that the news media will announce this and the sheep (people) who listen/read it will come to the conclusion that ALL sex offenders will be barred from MTA. And if a registered person happens to be noticed for whatever reason inside of an MTA waiting for a train, whoever notices them will call the po-po and try to cause problems for the registrant.
This is not as easy as it sounds. We’ve got people on the registry for something they did as minors themselves with other minors. But the public looks at the current adult age of the registrant and lumps them in with everyone else who were adults when they committed their offenses.
People call the SOR the “pedophile list” for a reason – because they don’t know any better.
“The MTA has pushed for the ban, arguing that those who commit sex crimes on the subway or bus do so again and again, creating a never-ending cat-and-mouse game for police and unnecessarily endangering customers.”
When we society accept that 95+% of sex crimes are committed by people with NO criminal past?
Of course nearly ALL “sex crimes” are done by people that the “victim” knows – not those on the registry. These laws are “feel good” laws and easy to pass and give the illusion of being positive when they do NOTHING except deceive the public into thinking that they are actually needed.
When has reality or facts ever stood in the way of a politician (such as Senator Lauren Book)?
Just easy targets for politicians and law enforcement and make great headlines for the media to exploit and sensationalize!
That’s why it’s only imposed on people who committed sex crimes IN TRANSIT, and only on some of them, and only for a limited time.