A Stitch in Haste

It's always unwise to extrapolate from a sample size of one, especially in the complex setting of sex offender law and policy.

Having said that:

A convicted sex offender was charged Wednesday with murdering a 4-year-old boy whose body was found in a garbage truck in July.
...
Cecil Eugene New II, 46, who lived across an alley from the boy's family, was arrested Wednesday morning, Louisville police spokesman Phil Russell said.
...
Ivan's mother, Rosa Cano, told The Associated Press in an interview in October that whoever killed her son should receive a death sentence.

This horrific scenario has been hypothesized ever since the sex offender mania first began. The reasoning is simple, and is well-known in other areas of egregious crime: The more severely you punish a heinous crime, the more likely it is that the offender will kill the victim, in the logical if evil conclusion that "the dead don't talk."

Something to think about the next time a grieving mother calls for the death penalty for the her child's (alleged) rapist-murderer.

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Meanwhile:

Two House lawmakers from fire-struck California won approval Wednesday of legislation to set up a national registry to track convicted arsonists.

The bill, which was passed by voice vote, requires convicted arsonists to report to authorities on where they live or attend school, and sets up a national database developed by the attorney general to track arsonists and make information available to local law enforcement officials.

The original argument for sex offender registries was that sex offenders were "different" (i.e., especially dangerous to the public at large). Not only has that claim been totally debunked (almost all child molesters prey on victims who are nearby and who have reason to trust the predator), but now even that tenuous excuse has been abandoned -- pedophiles, arsonists, whatever. Stated differently, if sex offenders are "different" -- and arsonists are also "different" -- then which criminals are not "different" and not deserving of lifetime placement on some future shame-and-shun list?