Pity the poor sex offender. They have to register their address, can’t live near schools and playgrounds, and their names are available for all to see at the national sex offender registry. And now, things are about to get worse. Ohio is considering a bill that would require sex offenders to put flourescent pink license plates on their cars. Apparently, this is not as original as I first thought. Drunk drivers in many states are required to have special colors on their license plates as well. But Ohio would be the first to have them for this particular type of criminal. On the theory that “your car is your office” for many sex offenders, they hope to make it harder for them to operate.
Ohio tried to pass a similar bill a few years ago but failed, partly because that version failed to distinguish between violent sex offenders and those who wound up on the list for consensual underage romance (16-year-old boy plus 15-year-old girl can get the boy on the database). They also aimed for pink that round, predictably upsetting everyone who sponsors breast cancer research.
It is hard to feel any sympathy for s.o.’s, particularly if they are of the violent strain. One wonders, though, if we wouldn’t be better off just tatooing it on their foreheads, that way they could be identified everywhere, and it would cost less. The problem with a car is that other people may have to use it — like a spouse. The law would make it a misdemeanor to loan a regular car to a sex offender, which presumably means they couldn’t rent or borrow one if theirs breaks down. Would Hertz need to run a criminal background check and sex offender check before loaning out a car? And I wonder how easy it would be to get insurance on the car itself… do you think an unattended s.o. car, with those bright neon plates, might have a slightly greater chance of being vandalized?
On the other hand, I can see at least one real benefit. The kids would never ask to borrow the car.
Although I’m in favor of stricter regulation of sex offenders, and in fact think that there should actually be a sex offender colony in every state that every offender has to stay at during their entire registration period following their prison sentence, I think that license plates are a HORRIBLE idea. Here’s my take.
Road rage is rather problematic in the first place. Studies show that most violators of road rage are not abnormal people, it’s just that the adrenaline they have from driving provides the trigger for the moment of their rage. Now, if they are like me, I get really antsy when I come across a known sex offender. If you see a car on the highway with a pervo plate, your initial urge is hatred or fear.
Now, in many people that can provide the trigger mechanism. Perhaps they will cut off the other car, veer toward it, whatever. But I’m talking about NORMAL people. Now, add to the mix someone who’s had a traumatic experience and are the type to hate sex offenders in the first place. WHAM! Suddenly, they find they’ve forced the other car off the road into a tree, killing the driver.
What’s the problem, you may ask? The answer is simple. Collateral damage.
First of all, if someone can run a pervo off the road into a tree, and I’m on the driver’s jury, he’s walking, so let me be clear on that. I approve of societal justice, when it is applied properly. But the problem is deeper… what if it’s NOT the pervo behind the wheel, but is instead his wife or kid or brother or nephew or friend or anyone BUT the pervo?
Next, let’s say that instead of running off the road into a tree, let’s say it’s a group of kids at a bus stop. WHAM! Now you’ve gone from a potential sympathetic jury to one who wants to hang the driver along with the pervo! (I will say this, that if someone forced the pervo off the road into my kid, I’d still take out the pervo, either then or down the road, because it was HIS status that caused the incident in the first place.) But the collateral damage possibility is enough to call this a bad law.
Better idea: just shoot the bastards. Most juries won’t convict you, and you won’t have to worry about taking out a busload of kids like tenpins.
[…] while back, we reported on the efforts of the Ohio legislature to label cars owned by sex offenders by issuing special license plates. Some argued that this was too intrusive. However, taking a look […]