No one in this world deserves to be raped, molested or assaulted sexually. Unless you know someone who has been mistreated sexually, it is difficult to understand the horrors victims have to live through.
Jaycee Lee Dugard was kidnapped at the tender age of 11, and held in captivity for 18 years. Dugard, now 29, has two children.
Her captor, Phillip Garrido is allegedly the father. This sick man’s fantasy has stolen from Dugard many of the beautiful things in life.
From the joys that come from something as little as graduating from the eighth grade to something as special as a first kiss. Garrido destroyed Dugard’s childhood.
With so much time in captivity, how will Dugard move on? According to the San Francisco Chronicle, health experts believe that, “The challenge will be to try to integrate these two parts of her life — before she was take, and her children now — in a way that can be meaningful.”
Bear in mind, Garrido was no amateur to sexual deviance; in 1972 he was arrested for drugging and raping a fourteen-year-old girl.
Four years later he was convicted of kidnapping and raping another woman.
Garrido was sentenced to 50 years in prison. He got out in less than 11 years.
A man arrested twice for rape and once for kidnapping was released into society with a slap on the wrist. This shows the many flaws in our prison system.
Pedophiles, like Garrido, are released as if society is baking them a cake and holding a sign that reads, “Welcome back to normality.” These pedophiles should be castrated, to be fully accountable for their crimes. However, California is broke and our prisons are overflowing, so the state is making some forms of pedophilia, termed non-prolific, a misdemeanor rather than a felony.
If Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has his way nearly 27,000 men convicted of felonies-turned-misdemeanors will be released. Some of these men have destroyed lives and families. All of them have hurt someone one way or another and this is why they were put in prison to begin with.
When these convicts leave, there is no regulation on where they are going to live.
Some of them may move into your neighborhood. They’ll have a nice window view of the elementary school down the street and all your city will do is send letters reminding you to keep your windows closed and watch your child.
Like that letter really makes any difference.
Releasing pedophiles that commit non-prolific crimes as opposed to those that commit prolific crimes, differentiates the two offense, making one seem worse than the other — sort of like a white lie versus a real lie. One is a little less harsh than the other, but it does not erase the fact that both are still lies. This is something that the state government should not forget.
The sad thing is, while the state releases pedophiles, they forget that there are still more pedophiles out there in our neighborhoods and schools. This is happening because our lawmakers are getting more and more out of touch with their constituents.
Even with such disconnect people should never be discouraged to report a prolific or non-prolific sex offender. One person’s inaction could be another person’s life.
Uzo Umeh is a sophomore nursing major and an assistant opinions editor for the Daily 49er