by James Kellard

Created on: May 18, 2009   Last Updated: May 19, 2009

There are quite a few laws these days meant to "protect" children when in fact they end up doing more harm than good. The most serious example (in my opinion) are the laws regarding sex offenders. To be clear, child molestation, rape, and other serious sexual crimes are deplorable and should be punished. That being said, sex offender laws have been perverted themselves and are being taken advantage of. The problem is that no politician will touch this issue with a 10-foot pole because it is more politically beneficial to appear as if you are tough on crime and "protecting" children, whether that is the case of not.

Megan's Law (the sex offender registry), requires sex offenders to "register," publicly branding them as sex offenders. On the surface, this seems like a good idea. If a convicted rapist or child molester lived down the street from you, you would want to know. There are many problems with this however.

Unfortunately there are people who take advantage of any law. There have been cases in which someone has been convicted of a crime as serious as rape based solely on the testimony of one witness. In some cases it is later discovered that the witness either lied or was mistaken, whether out of some sort of revenge or just as honest case of mistaken identity. Let us assume for argument's sake that a man is accused and convicted of rape based on the testimony of a woman who has mistaken him for someone else. Not only will this man most likely end up serving time in prison for something he did not do, but even after he is released he will have to register as a sex offender. Even if it is later discovered that the man is in fact innocent, he will have to fight through the courts to have his name taken off the sex offender registry. Once someone has been branded a sex offender, even mistakenly, that label generally sticks. No judge is going to want to be the "judge who excused a sex offender," even if it is the right thing to do.

The above example, while something that has probably happened a number of times, is a hypothetical and a seemingly rare occurrence. The problem is there are more and more situations in which Megan's Law is being taken advantage of by over zealous law enforcement and prosecutors. Recently it was in the news that a teen girl and her 16 year old male friend had been arrested for child pornography because the girl had sent him naked pictures of herself. If convicted, they would both have to register as sex offenders. This type of

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