Dru, the Death Penalty, and Visibility
The abduction of Dru Sjodin has become a national story. Sjodin was abducted last week while talking to her boyfriend on her cell phone. She has yet to be found, but yesterday, a suspect was arrested. The suspect had prior convictions for sexual crimes.
Obviously, it's a sad situation. I hope I never endure what Dru's family and friends are going through. There aren't many worse fates, I imagine.
But you know what? This stuff happens every day. Every single day, multiple times. We hear about the Dru Sjodins and Elizabeth Smarts and Jacob Wetterlings of the world because the victims are young, pretty, white and well-to-do. None of that is the fault of those victims or their families. When your loved ones disappear, you jump and scream and do whatever you can to get them back. I don't fault them in any way.
But our society's collective reaction to those cases sure is interesting, isn't it? You'd think that those were the only abductions that ever took place in this country, judging from the emotional attachment the media and the public form with them. Where is the hue and cry for the dozens of young teens who disappear from the inner cities?
Specifically, where was Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty's "fed up" reaction to those abductions? Why didn't they spur him to call for reinstitution of the death penalty in Minnesota, as Dru Sjodin's case has? No, Pawlenty has seen the light now. "I have two daughters!", he offers, as some sort of prima facie evidence for the need for the death penalty for people who hurt daughters.
Pawlenty also bases his call for the death sentence on the notion that sexual predators can't be cured. Really? It is true that some sexual predators remain that way over the course of their lives. But that is not true of all people convicted of sex crimes.
Somehow, sex crimes have become a special category in this country, where those convicted of them can be held long past their sentence and can have their privacy rights altered for public notification. We don't do those things for murderers, yet we do it for rapists. Listen, I'm not soft on rape. It could well be that rape is every bit the damaging crime that murder is in some cases. But we can't seriously argue that to be the case for every victim of a sex crime, can we?
The issue to me seems to be one of recidivism. How likely are sex offenders to reoffend? There are a lot of studies on this, and I'm not in any way a learned authority on the matter. I have read quotes from studies that indicate that prisoners who participate in treatment programs while in prison have a good chance of managing their behavior outside of prison. Other studies seem to show that recidivism rates for sex offenders, while certainly present and a concern, are less than recidivism rates for other crimes.
I don't know what I think. It's a tough issue, perhaps one of the toughest I can think of, in terms of what I believe to be right and what I want as a parent and citizen. Do I want to know if a convicted sexual predator is living next door to me? Sure. Do I think it's wrong for that person's privacy to be violated, and for his sentence to be extended? Yes. I don't know the answer.
It just seems to me that there are ways to help a lot of these people get to the point where they aren't a danger to society, at least enough of a danger to justify a death penalty. We can give them treatment while incarcerated. We can tell people who and where they are when they get out. We can even chemically castrate them, something that has been shown to produce results in many cases. Sure, it's harsh, but doesn't it beat the alternative?
Or, we could just kill them. After all, we have daughters too, right?
In any event, I hope they find Dru Sjodin. It's an awful thing that happened. But remember, that awful thing is happening every day. See, that's the dissonance I feel about it; I get frustrated when the spotlight of the abduction issue never seems to shine on the segments of society who bear the brunt of the many abductions and sex crimes that happen, but then I get my liberal panties in a bunch when I see how our society and justice system wants to forego due process to deal with those same sex criminals.
It would be so much easier to just believe we should put a "bullet between their eyes" whenever they commit a sex crime, as several of my co-workers put it so eloquently the other day. But I end up caught in some nexus of civil and legal rights and the need for public safety.
I hope my life never gets impacted in such a way that I am forced to have a definite opinion on the matter.
11:24:46 AM 
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