Virtual Teen Forums

Quote:

Here is the article that prompted my question.

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Early last month, beautiful 25-year-old Laura Garza went missing. Her family holds out hope she is still alive.
An aspiring dancer from Texas, Garza moved to New York City to pursue her career. On December 2nd, she went to the posh Manhattan nightclub Marquee to blow off some steam with her friend.
Security video shows Garza leaving the club with convicted sex offender Michael Mele, according to the New York Police Department. NYPD officials confirmed that Mele then drove Garza about an hour away toward his apartment. Garza was reported missing the next day.
New York state police searched Mele's apartment and court documents indicate officers observed apparent bite marks on Mele's hand and scratches on his back and shoulder.
According to court records and state police, large pieces of carpet were missing from his apartment and days later, carpet pieces that seemed to match Mele's were found on the side of a nearby road.
Search parties have been combing roads, woods, and swampland, and police divers searched for clues in a nearby lake, but the search has gone cold in recent weeks. Mele is in jail for violating probation and is a suspect, but he has not been charged in Garza's disappearance, according to state police.
Laura Garza is still missing more than a month later. Her family has joined search efforts in New York and prays they will find her alive, but police are treating the case as a homicide.
Don't Miss

Commentary: Why did feds give Spitzer a pass?
In Depth: Commentaries

The worst part about this tragic story? It may have been preventable. Laura Garza had no idea she was leaving that club with a sex offender. After all, most of them look pretty normal. Few fit the Hollywood stereotype of the creepy guy wearing a trench coat and driving a white van.
Laura Garza may have been unaware who she was with that night, but the legal system certainly knew him.
Michael Mele previously pleaded guilty to four counts of sexual assault, including one count of masturbating in front of two women. And he was violating probation. And he had an outstanding warrant for allegedly exposing himself to a woman in a mall parking lot.
Mele hasn't been convicted of anything in this case or charged in Garza's disappearance, but even if he is innocent, the larger question of how the criminal justice system deals with sex offenders remains a vital issue.
In a sane world, Mele is not a free man on that night, able to allegedly target Laura Garza.
But we don't live in a sane world. We live in a world where sexual assault is business as usual. Where's the outrage?
The Garza case is a microcosm of a societal problem. As a nation, we must realize there is no such thing as a "minor" sexual offense -- because sex offenders often start small and graduate to more serious crimes.
According to a 2003 Department of Justice study, 78 percent of imprisoned sex offenders had prior arrests and 28 percent had prior arrests for sex crimes.
According to the same study, one quarter of men serving time for rape and 19 percent of those serving time for sexual assault had been on probation or parole at the time of the offense that landed them in prison.
The formula is simple. Sex offenders start off by nabbing the easy prey -- committing the so-called "minor" sexual offenses like flashing random women, or the crimes Michael Mele committed.
Then, after getting away with it or receiving a slap on the wrist, they become hungrier and develop into full-fledged predators. And it's only when they sink their teeth into their prey that the legal system finally brings down the hammer. But it's too late.
To stop this progression, we must start treating all sexual offenses as major crimes. In the same Justice Department study, on average, the sex offenders served less than half of their sentences. So basically that means Paris Hilton served more of her sentence than the average person convicted of a sex crime does. I'm glad our justice system has its priorities straight.
The simple answer is to take all sex offenders off the streets, from the moment they commit the first "minor" offense. I'm not just talking about putting them behind bars. We need to rehabilitate these predators at the earliest stage possible, before their behavior worsens.
And if the prisons are too crowded to hold them, how about releasing some of the nonviolent drug offenders to make some room? They can't be worse than sex offenders on the prowl who, compared with non-sex offenders released from prison, are four times more likely to be rearrested for a sex crime, according to a government study.
This problem is out in the open. I see it. My viewers see it. But how many Laura Garzas will it take to before politicians and judges see it and are willing to do something about it?

Quote:

Simple Answer to Sex Offenders: First offense gets you life.

By Michael Tefft • on January 14, 2009

CNN commentator Jane Velez-Mitchell recently wrote a commentary titled: “Get tougher on sex offenders.” In the commentary Mitchell tells the story of an aspiring dancer from Texas who moved to New York City to pursue her career. The dancer, Laura Garza, soon went missing after last having been seen leaving a club with a convicted sex offender (who was on parole).
New York state police searched the home of the convicted sex offender Michael Mele and found incriminating evidence but could not tie him directly to the disappearance of the dancer. He is currently in jail for violating probation and is a suspect in the disappearance. He had previously pleaded guilty to four counts of sexual assault, including one count of masturbating in front of two women and one of exposing himself to a woman in a mall parking lot.
The argument that Mitchell puts forward in her commentary is that the Mele should not have been free on the night of the disappearance. To quote her:
In a sane world, Mele is not a free man on that night, able to allegedly target Laura Garza. But we don’t live in a sane world. We live in a world where sexual assault is business as usual. Where’s the outrage?
According to Mitchell there is no such thing as a “minor” sexual offense, because sex offenders often start small and graduate to more serious crimes. Her theory is similar to the one promoted about drug users starting out with marijuana and going on to heroin and other hard drugs. According to Mitchell, after they get away with the first minor crime with only a slap on the wrist, they become hungrier and develop into full-fledged predators. Mitchell’s answer is to start treating all sexual offenses as major crimes. The simple answer is to take all sex offenders off the streets, from the moment they commit the first ”minor” offense.
So I guess if you are convicted of masturbating in public it should be treated the same as rape. The legal system is supposed to lock you up and throw away the key because everybody knows that it is just a matter of time before you go on to rape, kidnapping and murder. Sounds a little like a scene out of the movie “Minority Report” where people are arrested for crimes they haven’t committed yet.
What about somebody convicted of shoplifting? Maybe they should get the same sentence as an armed robber. After all, it is only a matter of time before it progresses from shoplifting to armed robbery. Let’s just nip it in the bud right now. The same goes for someone convicted of domestic violence. Better to sentence them to death now than wait for them to commit murder later on.
Am I exaggerating a little bit here? I don’t think so. Mitchell advocates releasing nonviolent drug offenders if needed to make room for more sex offenders and the longer sentences they will be facing. But isn’t it possible that those released nonviolent drug offenders will someday become violent drug offenders. According to Mitchell it is only a matter of time.
When you start to impose a different legal standard on one group of criminals you are starting down a long slippery slope. No first time offenders, no minor offenses, no misdemeanors, every crime is a felony and comes with a big sentence. Every person convicted of a minor crime treated as though it is only a matter of time until that person commits a more serious crime. You better have some rock hard statistics to support such a theory before you start trying to change sentencing guidelines for a particular type of crime.
Perhaps Mitchell would prefer a judicial system where adulterers are stoned to death and thieves hands are cut off, such as in several Islamic countries. While our judicial system is not perfect and there is much room for improvement, I don’t think the ideas put forth in her commentary are worthy of serious consideration. The statistics she quotes do not support such a drastic solution as the one she proposes.