[REBORN FROM THE ASHES][comment][01.12]

emteddybearUID: 2699606

paedophile:恋童癖
entice：欺骗
grief：悲伤
In no time at all：立刻马上，任何时候
latitude ：纬度，回旋余地
ensnare：诱捕，陷入陷阱
prostitute：卖淫的
indecent exposure猥亵暴露

prosecutor：起诉
molestation：折磨，损害
mug shot：面部照片
ruin：破坏
bar：阻止，栅栏
repeal：撤销

compulsive ：强迫性的
cowardice：懦弱的
vengeful：抱负性的




good  sentences
1.Had they known he was a sex offender, they would have told their daughter to stay away from him.
2.And registers give parents a false sense of security: most sex offenders are never even reported, let alone convicted.
3.However practical and just the case for reform, it must overcome political cowardice
, the tabloid media and parents’ understandable fears.
4.Sensible sex laws are better than vengeful
ones.


MY COMMENTS：
This report is mainly about the sex law, which really changes my mind about the etics【ethics】 of european【European】
countries. What I want to say is just that the sex offender law is a little ridiculous. I don't mean that sex law should not be proporsed【proposed】, but the one practised【practiced】 in Amercian【American】 is unreasonable, Just as the three reasons given by the arthor【author】. Why have their sex law changed like this? I think there are many reasons, and I want to list several below.

Firstly, American is a nation who strives for liberity【liberty】 and nature very much. Almost everyone in America have the idea that sex is something so nature that no one can interfere them, especially for the young people. However, this may give many offenders excueses【excuses】. As the growing up of this kind of crime, government【government】 has to strength the management, and vote to propose more and more items, but never repeal them because of the government's cowerdice【cowardice】.

Secondly, as paraents【parents】, everyone want to protect their childern【children】 from been hurt. In parents' opinoin【opinion】, each injury even very small is unforgivable. This must give government much more presure【pressure】 than normal. Maybe at times, it is not a offence, the poor mother Janet Allison is a good example.

Of course, there are many reasons, now I just give two. And what I want to talk about later is the problem in our country. Recently, the government is fighting the salacious webcites【websites】 and information which are spread by cell phones. In the last few years, our socielty【society】 has developed so fast, going with the development of the technology. For one thing, more and more people can surf on the internet and possess cell phones, enev【even】 many infancys【infancies】, who is lack of the ability of self-control and discriminate power. Especially in our country, the relative law and network security is not very robust. For another, with China's WTO accession, China has been effected【affected】 a lot by European, not only the technology, but also the moral ideas. People in China are more and more open, which makes such voluptuous things much more than before. I really hope that this situation can be better soon. It is really harmfull【harmful】 for any people and any nation.

qxn_1987UID: 2610437

01.12(comments)

Illiberal politics

An ever harsher approach is doing more harm than good, but it is being copied around the world

IT IS an oft-told story, but it does not get any less horrific on repetition. Fifteen years ago, a paedophile（恋童癖者） enticed seven-year-old Megan Kanka into his home in New Jersey by offering to show her a puppy. He then raped her, killed her and dumped her body in a nearby park. The murderer, who had recently moved into the house across the street from his victim, had twice before been convicted of sexually assaulting a child. Yet Megan’s parents had no idea of this. Had they known he was a sex offender, they would have told their daughter to stay away from him.

In their grief, the parents started a petition, demanding that families should be told if a sexual predator moves nearby. Hundreds of thousands signed it. In no time at all, lawmakers in New Jersey granted their wish. And before long（不久以后）, “Megan’s laws” had spread to every American state. America’s sex-offender laws are the strictest of any rich democracy. Convicted rapists and child-molesters are given long prison sentences.

When released, they are put on sex-offender（性犯罪者） registries. In most states this means that their names, photographs and addresses are published online, so that fearful parents can check whether a child-molester lives nearby. Under the Adam Walsh Act of 2006, another law named after a murdered child, all states will soon be obliged to（不得不） make their sex-offender registries public. Such rules are extremely popular. Most parents will support any law that promises to keep their children safe. Other countries are following America’s example, either importing Megan’s laws or increasing penalties: after two little girls were murdered by a school caretaker, Britain has imposed multiple conditions on who can visit schools.

Which makes it all the more important to ask whether America’s approach is the right one. In fact its sex-offender laws have grown self-defeatingly harsh (see article). They have been driven by a ratchet effect. Individual American politicians have great latitude to propose new laws. Stricter curbs on paedophiles win votes. And to sound severe, such curbs must be stronger than the laws in place, which in turn were proposed by politicians who wished to appear tough themselves. Few politicians dare to vote against such laws, because if they do, the attack ads practically write themselves.
（self-defeating adj.弄巧成拙的，不利于自己的企图的）
In all, 674,000 Americans are on sex-offender registries—more than the population of Vermont, North Dakota or Wyoming. The number keeps growing partly because in several states registration is for life and partly because registries are not confined to the sort of murderer who ensnared Megan Kanka. According to Human Rights Watch, at least five states require registration for people who visit prostitutes, 29 require it for consensual sex between young teenagers and 32 require it for indecent exposure. Some prosecutors are now stretching the definition of “distributing child pornography” to include teens who text（v.） half-naked photos of themselves to their friends.

Registration is often just the start. Sometimes sex offenders are barred from（不准） living near places where children congregate. In Georgia no sex offender may live or work within 1,000 feet (300 metres) of a school, church, park, skating rink or swimming pool. In Miami an exclusion zone of 2,500 feet has helped create a camp of homeless offenders under a bridge.

There are three main arguments for reform. First, it is unfair to impose harsh penalties for small offences. Perhaps a third of American teenagers have sex before they are legally allowed to, and a staggering number have shared revealing photographs with each other. This is unwise, but hardly a reason for the law to ruin their lives. Second, America’s sex laws often punish not only the offender, but also his family. If a man who once slept with his 15-year-old girlfriend is barred for ever from taking his own children to a playground, those children suffer.

Third, harsh laws often do little to protect the innocent. The police complain that having so many petty sex offenders on registries makes it hard to keep track of（明了） the truly dangerous ones. Cash that might be spent on treating sex offenders—which sometimes works—is spent on huge indiscriminate（不分青红皂白的，不加选择的）registries. Public registers drive serious offenders underground, which makes them harder to track and more likely to reoffend. And registers give parents a false sense of security: most sex offenders are never even reported, let alone convicted.

It would not be hard to redesign America’s sex laws. Instead of lumping all sex offenders together on the same list for life, states should assess each person individually and include only real threats. Instead of posting everything on the internet, names could be held by the police, who would share them only with those, such as a school, who need to know. Laws that bar sex offenders from living in so many places should be repealed, because there is no evidence that they protect anyone: a predator can always travel. 【The money that a repeal saves could help pay for monitoring compulsive molesters more intrusively—through ankle bracelets and the like.】

In America it may take years to unpick this. However practical and just the case for reform, it must overcome political cowardice, the tabloid media and parents’ understandable fears. Other countries, though, have no excuse for committing the same error. Sensible sex laws are better than vengeful ones.


Comments:

First, I am so sorry for the both victims and their heartrending parents.

Of course, the sex offender, who we always abominated exceedingly, did do something extraordinarily wrong and deleterious that had hurted some people so deeply, and we also can understand the great sorrow the victims’ parents had suffered.

If only there is any law could promise to keep their children safe, will most parents support it, while careing less whether it is enough just or fit. We have no difficult to understand this when we stand on the point of the victims’ parents, and yet, no matter how, we should be rational at the same time, though it might be difficult to some extent.” Sensible sex laws are better than vengeful ones.”

In this passage, the speaker argued from three aspects that the punishment should fit the crime and the sex law should be justice and effective.

In addition, I wanna talk something else simply about my perception about the justice of law, which may relating to Issue17&174 that kon has given. Different laws to different people or group may have different meaning. Sometimes we can not simply say, from my point of view, whether a law is just or not. Some people may feel a law is just while others never think so, because of different culture, background, custom, education, or because of different standpoint, and so on.

=====
拼写：
whether
relate

prettywraithUID: 197049

Comments (2010-01-12):
This article let me remember one recently popular movie "The Lovely Bones", which begins with a similar plot with this article. I have little words about America's sex laws, because these things are seldom discussed in China nowadays. But, today, it is urgent to perfect the country laws punished and prohibited the sex offence in our country. In this aspect, compared with America, China falls behind for a long time. Only for heterosexual offence, today, China still does not set up complete laws system to protect the victims and punish the criminals. Children are the vulnerable group in society, and government should take more effective laws to protect them. Just as the author has said "Other countries, though, have no excuse for committing the same error", by studying the America's experience like this article's suggestions, I hope government will do a better job to protect the next generation.

Wrong spelling:
society  scoiety

adammaksimUID: 2675466

oft-told=often told

paedophile :is a psychological disorder in which an adult or older adolescent experiences a sexual preference for prepubescent children.

According to the World Health Organization, 16 and 17-year-old adolescents qualify if they have a persistent or predominant sexual preference for prepubescent children at least five years younger than them.

child-molester :跟paedophile 差不多意思

ratchet effect：The ratchet effect is the commonly observed phenomenon that some processes cannot go backwards once certain things

have happened, by analogy with the mechanical ratchet that holds the spring tight as a clock is wound up. It is related to the phenomena of featuritis and scope creep in the manufacture of various consumer goods, and of mission creep in military planning.

This is a ratchet

prostitute n.娼妓

mugshot n.脸部照片

rink n. 溜冰场

tabloid n.小报

comments:

While reading this essay, the first image comes to my mind is the controversial T-bag from "Prison Break".

Though the character invented, the struggle and conflict T-bag suffers is a truly epitome for thousands of peadophiles in America. The main controversy of this subject roots in whether we have right to mark someone for his sin lifelong or in which condition we can do so. As to me, for the second question, it will not be so difficult to find a solution for the lawmakers. However the first one is even tough for philosopher, for it is based on another question whether a person's nature can change. And if we chose pessimism "no" to this question, it is truly necessary for nations to separate the dangerous from people's daily life for what they once committed. I tend to say people can change even with a mind once distorted like T-bag. Yet how can we judge if a person is eventually changed…

Err…quit here.

splendidsunUID: 2723757

1-12
Comment：
This is a very sensitive topic that involved everyone in our society. Firstly, we could draw a picture about the sex laws in America. Although well-known for its open mind to sex, US establish very strict laws of this area. Especially to meet the need of many parents of adolescents, they try their best to make their children live in a safety environment. While, the excess strict laws makes it is difficult to focus on the truly dangerous persons that commit sexual crime. The sexual predators name list for public has little value of avoiding of the hurt to the children. And the assessment of a sexual predator also has defects. In my viewpoint, the so called sexual predator should be classified according to their behaviors and the negative influence they bring to the society instead of putting them in the same group. In this way, people would make it clear that who is the most dangerous while others are not. At the same time, despite of punishing the predators the most effective way of preventing the sexual crime happening is to inculcate children have a strong awareness of self-protect.

错字：
Adolesent— adolescents

Words:
paedophile恋童癖
entice怂恿
rape强暴
sexual predator 性捕食者
rapist强奸犯
molester猥亵者
penalty处罚
impose强加
ratchet effect齿轮效应
have great latitude to
prostitute妓女
consensual sex 认同的性行为
indecent exposure有伤风化的暴露
child pornography儿童色情作品
be barred from 不准
tabloid小报
vengeful复仇的

KiKi~淇水滺滺UID: 2679824

Comment


When reading this article, I thought about the time when I was addicted to the US TV drama CSI: Maiami. I spent all day and night watching it rather than doing assignments and preparing for the exams. However, this article relates to it a lot. I still remember that one episode in this series of drama talking about child-molesters. In that episode, a CSI officer found that there is a child-molester living in her block. In order to protect her children, she posted his image on the trees both sides of the road. However, this leaded to the death of this man although he tried to become a better people at the end.

I admit that child-molesters are somehow dangerous to the innocent children and it’s hard for them to inhibit their impulsion, control their minds and change their behavior, at least we should give them another chance to try.