In an editorial piece today, The Atlanta Journal Constitution offers an analysis of the Georgia sex offender law that, I think, points to a grave indication of just how deeply totalinarianism has crept into our society. I've been concerned about this aspect of things for quite some time, because this is just one of the tools being used to marginalize an entire generation.
Gerogia's Sex Offender law is written in such a way that it 'inadvertently' roped in many teenagers whose crime was to, well, be teenagers. Each year it has been tightened, requiring the registration of all those convicted of a sexual crime, even when that 'crime' was consensual sex between teenagers attending the same school. The law now forbids those who are registered from living, or working, near churches, schools, bus stops, pre schools, day care sitters and baby sitting services. Essentially, it forbids those registered from living or working close to anyplace there might be children. And there is discussion about tightening it further. The sex offender registration lists are mandated by the federal government and, of the thousands on them, there are only a handful of real predators.
There are numerous accounts of young people who have been incarcerated and had their futures taken from them by being registered sex offenders. Their egregious and horrendous crime: because they engaged in what some may call adolescent behavior with other students.
The most notable is Genarlow Wilson, who netted a ten year term of hard time in prison for engaging in consensual oral sex with a classmate at a student party. The AJC article also tells the story of a young man forced to leave home, then move again, to comply with the most recent tightening of the law. He now lives in a van in the woods, with no water or eletricity. A young woman, caught in the act when she was a senior, is now married but family has been driven from their home by the law as well. She is afraid to have children or go to church because it would place her in violation of the law, by placing her in proximity to schools, churches, bus stops, day care centers and pre-schools.
The story also relates the case of two thirteen year olds who were charged as felons after rudely patting female classmates on their butts. Of course it was rude and reprehensible behavior. But is hard time and lifetime as aregistered pervert the approapriate remedy for a 13 year old? May less dramatic measures would be more effective into shaping these young men into citizens -- such as commnity service and year of detention. Or maybe not. The tought on crime crowd seems to think there are two natural states: sinless and hard felon. This is not simply a story for Georgia, either.
Now I am not in the habit of advising adolescents to go out and have sex. It is always better to wait for maturity before giving yourself to another person so completely. But neither am I naieve enough to believe that young people are going to avoid touching one another until their wedding day. I do question the purpose of society crimilizing every activity which society may wish to discourage.
In fact, this strategy is already so discredited by abolition and the drug war that there should be little need to rehash it. Criminlizing behvaior is not sufficient to prevent it. It merely overburdens the criminal justice system, marginlizes people who otherwise might be productive citizens, and does more to encourage crime than prevent it.
My concern runs deeper though. Most grade schools in our area have removed recess from the schedule. Parents are limiting the amount of down time for middle schoolers with strict and full schedules of structured (and competitive) activities; and for high schoolers, the pressure is on to work, study and achieve in everything they do so they can get into a 'good' college.
Added to this, teens' interpersonal activity is being policed not just by their parents, but by government agents intent on jailing them and marking them for life, if they happen to cross the line from affection to passion. Is there enough stress on our adolescents yet? I mean, shouldn't we make them responsible for the fate of the world before their graduation while we're at it?
And what do we expect to end up with? Can it be anything other than unimaginative, fearsul, repressed, aggresive and hostile people? Won't society really be worse when we try to turn people into unthinking serfs afraid of their own shadow?
That's a bit of a rant, I know; but I can't help comparing this to the old laws that stipulate how my wife and I may behave in our own bedroom with each other. And that, to me, is the real question here: do we want to raise another generation so afraid of their sexuality that they can only understand it as a dehumanizing activity? For that is how the commodotized sex in advertising shows it: bereft of emotion and personal conneciton.
As one whose family was seriously damaged by the repression and fear of sexuality in the 1950's moralism, I truly do hope we do not go back to being unable to discuss sex and understand it with some maturity. But this is beyond that. It is a step toward medieval strictures that dehumanized it and saw all sexual activity as the devil's work. It is tugging us toward a Puritan ethic that refuses to see the beauty of the world and focuses only on the evil in it.