A Stitch in Haste

Tennessee has jumped the shark on paranoid sex offender mania:

Costume parties, jack-o-lanterns, haunted houses and handing out treats are forbidden under newly issued Halloween guidelines for Tennessee sex offenders on probation or parole.
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The restrictions prohibit sex offenders from attending special Halloween events like corn mazes and haunted houses, handing out treats, displaying Halloween decorations, accompanying trick-or-treating children or wearing costumes.

They apply to all sex offenders on probation or parole ... and not specifically to those offenders whose crimes involved minors.
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That means offenders with children must find someone else to accompany them trick-or-treating, he said. Offenders may not wear costumes, even at adult parties. And if other children come to knock on their doors on Halloween, the offenders must not answer.

So essentially sex offenders, including non-pedophiles, are forbidden from "doing" Halloween in any form — even supervised, even exclusively among adults. Because "it's all about the children."

Such hysteria of course has nothing whatsoever to do with "the children." It is instead a witch hunt, a blood lust — just without the blood. It is the never-ending quest to seek out the danger, the enemy, The Others Who Are Ruining America™. And when sufficiently monstrous dangers cannot be found, they must be invented.

Tennessee may be the most extreme in this "No Halloween" overreaction, but it is not the first. I blogged about a similar panic in supposedly enlightened Westchester County, New York, and elsewhere last Halloween.

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I've blogged several times about the increasingly manic denial of basic liberties to convicted sex offenders, including the constitutionally suspect practice by some cities of banning them outright from residing there.

And while I remain a "law and order" kind of person and acknowledge the empirical evidence that recidivism rates are much higher for sex offenders and especially child molesters than they are for other categories of criminals,* I am increasingly convinced that we are approaching an unfair — and ineffective — mob mentality toward perpetrators of sex crimes.

And what better time to lose all sense of reason than Halloween?

In Westchester County, high-risk sex offenders on probation will be required to attend a four-hour educational program on Halloween night. In New Jersey, state officials are instructing paroled sex criminals not to answer their doors if trick-or-treaters come knocking. And in counties throughout Texas, parolees with child contact restrictions are being told to stay away from Halloween activities, even family gatherings.
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In effectively detaining sex offenders on Halloween, most officials say they are not responding to any attacks known to have occurred on past holidays but are concerned that the occasion presents a tantalizing opportunity for offenders to have unsupervised contact with children.

Wouldn't a better approach simply be to have the children supervised while they trick-or-treat? Don't parents do that anyway these days?

More:

But yesterday, civil libertarians and advocates for victims criticized the new measures as incomplete solutions and, in some cases, politically timed. Carolyn Atwell-Davis, the director of legislative affairs for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, applauded the efforts but pointed out that most children are victimized by people they know, not by strangers. And by focusing on one night of the year, the restrictions will have limited value, she said.

Ah yes, the Politics of the Warm Fuzzy Feeling, just in time for Election Day. And what generates a warmer, fuzzier feeling than "protecting children"?

But remember: "sex offender" includes those who target adults (i.e., rapists) and not just child molesters. And while I'm no expert, might it not be therapeutic and rehabilitative to have sex offenders experience "normal" (and safe) interaction with children via an activity such as handing out Halloween candy?

And what about the kids? Is there no negative effect from teaching them that it's okay to treat some people — even very very bad people who do very very bad things — as outcasts who are beyond all redemption and must be avoided forever? Is it wise to tell children that there really are monsters, and that they live right down the street, and that they are so horrible that you can't even ring their doorbell with Dad by your side?

At what point does "protection of society" and "retributive justice" morph into blood lust?

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Effective immediately, I will not be blogging with any frequency about new legislative developments in the sex offender mania, simply because there are far too many for me to chronicle in real time. As interesting judicial developments wind their way through the courts, I will weigh in as appropriate.

For real-time blogging about the sex offender mania, you should look to the excellent Sentencing Law and Policy blawg, or the brand-new Sex Crimes blawg.