Sunday, July 03, 2005

Missing Girl Found

I copied this off of AOL news, although I could have found it anywhere:

More than six weeks after she disappeared from a home where family members were bludgeoned to death, an 8-year-old girl was found safe Saturday, sharing a meal with a registered sex offender at a Denny's restaurant in her hometown.

Shasta Groene was reunited with her father, but her 9-year-old brother, Dylan, remained missing and was feared dead, Kootenai County Sheriff's Capt. Ben Wolfinger said.

Joseph Edward Duncan III, a registered sex offender from Fargo, N.D., was arrested and charged with kidnapping. He was being held without bond, and Wolfinger said more charges were possible.

Undoubtedly the Radio talk show hosts and bloggers, etc, will be back on the usual "keep them out of my neighborhood" line. The comment I want to make here, is one I've made before. While this sounds like a good idea on the surface, there are two major flaws. 1. Sex offenders, like everyone else, have the ability to get into a car and drive. It makes no difference where they live. You cannot protect your children by simply making the sex offender move to another neighborhood. 2. Often, they don't inform the authorities when or where they move so that the authorities don't know where they are, as in this case.

There are two things that we, as concerned parents can do to help prevent the kinds of scenarios like the one unfolding before us now. One is lobby our government to keep this scum in jail. Permanently. Or, at least until they are too old and/or infirmed to be a threat.

The other thing is more immediate. Keep a vilgilant watch on your kids. Make sure you always know where they are. Educate your kids. Teach them what to do if accosted.

Of course, there is never any guarantee that a child is ever completely out of danger. When I was living in Kansas City, a 10 year old girl was snatched literally off the sidewalk in full view of her friends and neighbors and parent in broad daylight. A neighbor gave chase, but lost sight of the suspect some blocks away. This happened only a few blocks from where I and my children lived. The body of Pamela Butler, 10, was found a few days later, after the suspect was captured. He had raped and tortured her before he killed her. He did not live in her neighborhood. He lived across town. A town of 400,000 people. Also, there is no way that we can prevent people who haven't been caught yet from striking in our neighborhoods.

The best thing we can do is watch our kids, and pray that God will keep them safe, for, when it comes right down to it, He is the only One that can.

4 comments:

Francis Lynn said...

Castration is a nifty way to go, besides jail.
Find out if a sex offender is living in your town. It gives their address, photo, crime history, etc: http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cid/cac/states.htm Or go to the link on top left of my site.

tugboatcapn said...

I think emasculation would be an even better way to go,Francis. Make them right smoothe down there. Can you think of a better deterrent?
I live about 20 miles from where John Couey molested, tortured and buried poor litle Jessica Lundsford alive. Her father is a truck driver, so I identify with him in a big way, and now because of the impatience and incompetence of local law enforcement agencies, it looks like much of the evidence against him will be thrown out of court.
There is no room in society for monsters like this. There has got to be a way to make the punishment so horrible that the threat of it will over ride the urge to commit such crimes.

Toad734 said...

why do we make sex offenders register after leaving prison but don't require no one else to do it?

We don't require murders, arsonists, theifs, drug dealers or anyone else to register with the communities in which they reside but we do for sex offenders.

Is it because everyone knows that these people are always going to be repeat offenders and molesting children is a sickness that cannot be cured? I believe that is the case, so my question is why would we ever let these people out; we already know they are going to do it again!

Mark said...

Toad, very good point! You are absolutely right. pedophilia is incurable, however,the desire to recommitt, like in alcoholism, can be suppressed. The first step is in admitting there is a problem, from there, therapy can sometimes help a pedophile to understand that committing pedophiliac acts is wrong, and in that way, it can be stopped. Unfortunately, since there is no cure for it, there is never a guarantee that he won't do it again.