There ought to be a law!

Wait; no there shouldn't!

I saw this a few days ago, but I've been trying to put together a cogent rant that won't be misconstrued. Well it might still be misconstrued, but I'm going to rant anyway.

A few days ago I saw this story (actually a slightly different version) in the local paper.

A new state law took effect Friday that requires all convicted adult sex offenders to have a special mark placed on their state driver's licenses or non-driver identification cards identifying them as such.

The mark will be visible to anyone who checks a person's identification -- from police officers to grocery store cashiers to clerks at video stores.

Now I'm not going to stand up in support of sex offenders, but isn't this going a bit too far? I'm all for protecting society from criminals, but do we really want to go down this road? What's law enforcement's take on the law?

"It definitely would give us the ability to track them [sex offenders] better," Thornton said. "It's not uncommon for our officers to stop people and field-interview them. If they seem suspicious or are in close proximity to a victim, it would certainly give us reason to further investigate them in connection to the situation."

I'm not even going to wade into the debate over such "profiling". Instead, I'll just grant this as an actual benefit to law enforcement. If we accept that, why not have a mark that is only identifiable to law enforcement? Why make it a mark viewable by anyone from police to the guy checking your ID at the beer store? How much responsibility do you think law enforcement will take when someone with this mark is denied assistance or service at a business or, worst case, physically assaulted or killed? Further, if it's a "crime reducing" measure, don't you think the store clerk would like to know whether a customer has a history of armed robbery or a conviction for writing bad checks? Let's put those marks on IDs! Shoot, that'd stop crimes before the police even had to be involved, right?

Of course one could counter that sex offenders have a higher recidivism rate and they pose an imminent danger to the community beyond that of a bad check writer. I've always heard that about recidivism, but I don't know the actual stats. Regardless, this law does not make any distinction between sex offenders. It may not be a popular thing to say, but not all sex offenders are equal. On occasion a 19-year-old is charged with statutory rape for having sex with his/her 17-year-old girlfriend/boyfriend. If convicted, wouldn't he/she have the mark? A couple of weeks ago, local law enforcement tried to crack down on some homosexual "cruising" at a local wildlife refuge. One guy got a citation for indecent exposure when he walked over to the woods to urinate. [There are no bathrooms out there and that's his story. Plus, the circumstances of the story seem to indicate the officers did not view him as a serious offender, so I tend to believe his version.] Now he will have the mark on his license.

Yes, we could reduce crime and make society safer by greatly curtailing civil liberties, but I hate when we do it without due consideration. I'm usually pretty libertarian, but not absolutely. I think sometimes the tradeoff might be worthwhile. I just think we need to slow down and think about these things a little more carefully rather than implementing draconian measures across the board. Anyone remember Minority Report?