As for Ira Glass, I thought his one-hour interview with Daisey was over-wrought. Daisey didn’t hurt “This American Life.” If anything, he gave Glass an opportunity to show how righteous he is.

Oregon is also the state that handcuffed some middle school kids for participating in the time honored tradition in their school called “slap ass day.”

On the upside, Oregon hasn’t registered a 9 year old kid like Delaware did, or Texas with 10 year old kids.

As to the latter, I wonder about the efficacy of a system that causes a person to be registered as a sex offender, yet that list isn’t public. Either the person ought to be on the list or not.

One list that I didn’t mention was that one can obtain by writing to the state. Maybe I might find Mr. Madison’s name there, but I doubt that many people will actually write for that list. I did when I lived in Old Town.

As I remember the list, it showed every registered offender. It was that list demonstrated the weakness in the ‘sex offender’ label.

I think I would agree too that those listed as ‘predators’ should receive more notoriety.

I guess a point might be made that if someone’s name is not actually available on some public list like that of Multnomah County or Oregon’s Internet website he or she is not likely to be the focus of any intention other that drawn to himself or herself.

It is interesting too that those labeled as sex offenders are typically court ordered to attend sex offender treatment. As I have mention, the benefits of such treatment is in doubt, but the state can’t order treatment then not provide access to the treatment.

Thus clinics are necessary in that sense. And I don’t know of any statistics that demonstrate or even suggests that the clinics are related to any sex related crime in the neighborhood where they are located.

Again, it is pure economics that determines that it will be the poor and low income areas where the clinics will be located.

In the end I would agree that public discussion might be beneficial especially if the listing of sex offenders is, in fact, relevant to the public’s safety.

When I was an editor at a Washington state newspaper, law enforcement would send us press releases on registered sex offenders moving into the area. Level 2 and 3 offenders involved violence and were at greater risk of reoffending so we would run a mugshot and a brief on each of them, detailing the crimes they had committed. Some of the Level 3 crimes were so serious you wondered how these men could even be released.

We did not do public notification with Level 1 offenders, whose crimes did not involve violence or coercion and who were regarded as unlikely to reoffend.

Sex offender notifications were popular with the readers. I went over and checked the Website of that paper and found they are still diligent about sex offender updates. http://www.columbian.com/news/2013/may/07/sex-offender-update/

As Mr. Madison points out, Oregon has its own variation on this tier system.

I believe he overstates his case, though, when he talks about public urination leading to sex offender status. Technically speaking, it can. But public urination is still treated mostly as an infraction or misdemeanor – if it’s even ticketed at all (especially in Portland and Spokane, where I’ve seen guys urinating in public with no obvious fear of consequences).

If someone lands on a sex offender registry for public urination, there are probably extenuating circumstances – say, a man exposing himself on more than one occasion near a school.

I don’t think the sex offender registry is going to be repealed, but it needs to be refined.

I have no idea how effective sex offender clinics are. Since so much of the work they do is confidential, it’s difficult to audit their results. It would seem that offenders who have a low risk to reoffend wouldn’t need the clinics, and some of the high-risk offenders are beyond help.

The entire essence of the debate over the location of this clinic is the assumption that everyone going to the clinic has a propensity to snatch children off the street. Most sex crimes involve people who know each other. The stranger-danger event is extremely rare. People tend to place more emphasis on the super-rare event rather than than the reality. Most sexual abuse occurs in the home, not on bus stops and street corners.

As previously stated, Oregon has varied degrees of risk among those forced to register, so the state recognizes not every registrant is a threat to children.

Also, to assume ridding yourselves of the clinic rids yourselves of a “problem” is foolish. Most sex crimes involve people not on any list. No one is addressing the root cause. Instead they waste time sharpening pitchforks and wicking the torches. That is why they fail to solve the issue.

Thanks for your comment. Not everybody is up to speed with the SOR (Sex Offender Registry) laws here in Oregon and for that reason I can understand why you may have wondered why you were not able to verify my existence on “the list”.

As you may have since discovered, Oregon SOR law is divided into two tiers, “predator” (which I was told numbered around 900 people or so) and then all of the remaining registrants for a total SOR count of about 19,000 people. As you can see, Oregon recognizes that not all SOR listed registrants are the same.

You should also know that there are many kinds of sex crimes that will get you on the SOR list: Public urination, exhibitionism, voyeurism, consensual sex (where age differences are greater than three and half years, mooning and streaking, lewd and lascivious and more.

Here are two sex offender news stories that I recall from about five years (or was it seven?). There is a “make-out” park in Salem where three different married couples, each not related to the other couples and at different times, were arrested for lewd and lascivious behavior (although in their cars). Those three sex crimes got the husbands (not the wives – don’t ask me) on the SOR list. Doesn’t take much. Here’s the link: http://www.salem-news.com/articles/august182006/silly_sex_laws_81806.php

Here’s a different story (I’m not able to find the link from about 2004, sorry): Two young people were living together, a boy aged 17 and his girlfriend (adult female) aged 18. The boy was on probation for the crime of theft. On day, a probation officer had come to check up on the boy at his home when he ran into the girlfriend coming out of the apartment where they lived and asked her who she was. She explained everything and showed her identification to the P.O. A few weeks later, the girlfriend was arrested and charged with “contributing to the sexual delinquency of a minor” and ultimately ended up on Oregon’s SOR list.

One of the mistakes that people not familiar with SOR list is to assume that they are all the same: incurable, highly recidivistic (likely to re-offend) monsters that cannot control their sexual behavior. This is not true of the vast number of those on the SOR list. Except for stranger-on-stranger rape of adult women and the “fixated” (dedicated) child abusers, the vast majority of “sex offenders” (registrants) are those who are classified as “situational” (non-dedicated) child abusers (around 90% of all registrants). Here is a link for more reading: http://blogs.psychcentral.com/sex/2013/04/clinician-prejudice-toward-sex-offenders.

Also you will probably want to know that about 94% of all sex crimes are committed by “first time” sex offenders (think about this: “first timers” are not on any SOR list). Here’s this link: http://www.rethinking.org.nz/images/newsletter%20PDF/Issue%2078/C%2002%20watchedpot.pdf

Who commits crimes against children? As it turns out, it is the family members and acquaintances of those child sexual offense victims. The remaining percentage belongs to the “stranger” category. But of those stranger related sex offenses (in round numbers: 3% to 6%) – and from the previous paragraph’s statistic, we know that 94% of them are first-timer sex offenders. Here’s that link: http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/01/living/juvenile-sex-offenders-rights/index.html?hpt=hp_t2.

People who have completed their obligations to society need to be re-integrated back into the community so that they can become the good neighbors that you want: law-abiding, productive and conscientious members of the community. If any person commits a crime of any kind then we have laws described in the ORS to hold them accountable. Free democratic societies respect the principle of equality under the law for everybody not just most.

It’s time to repeal or reform the Oregon’s SOR laws.

Tom Madison, Registrant
Gresham, Oregon 97080
(Not on the public registry)

Take a peek at the list of sexual offenders in your Multnomah County neighborhood, e.g., 97209 zipcode. Read their profiles – click on the photo. https://so.apps.multco.us/

See the Oregon’s database. http://sexoffenders.oregon.gov/ Input minimal information, e.g., a zip code like 97209. See how many predatory sex offenders are living in Old Town. Next compare the two databases and notice the absence of similarities.

Notice that for 97209 Multnomah County shows 10 and the state shows 30. And of the County’s 10, they are not fully replicated in the state’s database. The value of registration databases is practically nil. It needs fixing – not elimination.

The overall problem is systemic. The question might well be – why are they on the streets. Many have not in fact served their full time – they are out on parole mostly because the state determines that it is less expensive for them to be located among us with living assistance than to keep them in prison.

And if they are on the streets why isn’t the system keeping better tabs on them. Multnomah County has demonstrated that the ankle bracelets have little value. The offender that takes off the bracelet is often relocated than returned to prison.

And is it correct to release sexual offenders early? Should money be a determining factor? What are the measures to insure that they become something other than sex offenders? What value are ‘clinics?’ What is the actual recidivism rate?

A neighborhood isn’t told that sex offenders are in the neighborhood. And given their income status even with state assistance – they are either homeless or living in the low income neighborhoods.

The stated intention is that they – the sex offenders – are there temporarily is false. A sexual offender is faced, rightly or wrongfully, with nearly insurmountable obstacles in becoming self-sufficient.

I know that I wouldn’t want a sex offender living in my neighborhood. They are the most repugnant of criminals. But, if they have served their time, their existence in some neighborhood is a risk that society has to take.

And until the system is fixed, the clinics, despite their dubious value, and their clients will be located in lower income areas. The West Hills will not be seeing any clinics or sex offenders in their neighborhoods.

A focused discussion might help, but . . . .

You, on the other hand, might want to reconsider comparing registered sex offenders to Jews in Nazi Germany on the Oregon Action Committee’s Website.