<p>Since some of the other political threads were getting rather contentious, I thought perhaps it was time to redirect some political conversation to less personal topics. Our local paper has been addressing the rights of homeowners in a well-known community with lots of kids and a big public park to spread the word that John MarkCarr (of JonBenet Ramsey fame) had moved into his dad’s home in the neighborhood. Emails, newsletters, neighborhood watches etc have been set up. Parents are frightened. On the other hand, John Mark Carr was never <em>officially</em> convicted of anything, though all that has been shared about him in the media paints a rather frightening picture of a disturbed gentleman with longstanding inapproriate fixations on young girls.</p>
<p>Apparently the neighborhood made it unpleasant enough for JMC that he and his dad went to a small town in Alabama where some relatives live to see if he (JMC) could live there. Word apparently spread there just as quickly and he didn’t stay there long either. So, his dad is back here in his home but claims he “doesn’t know” where his son has gone.</p>
<p>What are your thoughts? Whose rights, if anyone’s, have been trampled? Other than some reported harassing phonecalls that were made to JMC’s dad’s home, no laws have been broken by the neighborhood homeowners who set up the communication network to keep eveyone apprised of JMC’s presence. Freedom of speech is an inherent right. On the other hand, JMC has only been tried in the court of public opinion (thanks to the child porn evidence being lost) and is not obligated to register as a sex offender (there are some newly established guidelines/laws here in GA about where registered sex offenders can live-- proximity to school busstops, schools, etc). Maybe it is a particularly sensitive issue here because John Ramsey also lives in this metro area, and the graves of JonBenet and her mother Patsy are not far away.</p>
<p>So, what do you think? What would you do if he moved next door to you and you had a young daughter? What about his civil rights? Thoughts? As an aside, I don’t know why all these folks seem to end up in Atlanta, but I must admit I am not saddened to hear that JMC isn’t here right now… as far as I know.</p>
<p>I think that I would not want him living in my community. If what the people are taking who don’t want him in their neighborhood are legal actions (i.e. not threatening to firebomb his house or anything like that) and are based on what’s proveably true (i.e. letting people know about the prior charges against him, article about him, etc.), I would have no problem with their actions.</p>
<p>I learned that there’s a convicted sex offender a couple of blocks from my house. He was convicted of and served time for forcible rape. I have been letting my neighbors know. The info is public record. I’m not breaking laws to let people know this. I’m not suggesting that people try to run him out on a rail, but I am suggesting that it’s important to take safety precautions in general (whether or not we know that a convicted criminal lives nearby)-- the type that many people where I live don’t do because our neighborhood is considered to be so safe.</p>
<p>I am sorry for Carr’s father, who understandably wants to help out his son, whom the father probably loves.</p>
<p>Even if he’s not guilty as a pedophile, which is unlikely, JMC is clearly a disturbed individual and I wouldn’t want any person disturbed in this way to live around me. Parents are well within their rights to be concerned. If he lived next door to me I’d do what I could to encourage him to move elsewhere.</p>
<p>Hi northstarmom-
I am glad you are letting your neighbors know about the convicted sex offender in your area. Being concerned for your neighbors is the right thing to do. We have a neighborhood watch (supposedly), but I really don’t think any of my neighbors uses it, if anything suspicious-looking were happening in the neighborhood. It did gear up a little bit last year when there was a peeping Tom in the area, but he was finally caught (in California)! A long time ago, when I was single, I lived in a townhome community. There was a retired fellow across the street who used to “look out” for all the single women on the block. He was a little bit strange, but mostly seemed (?) harmless, and I liked having someone watching out for me. Sometimes there is an advantage to having a busybody in the neighborhood </p>
<p>As for John Mark Carr, as far as I know, there have been no firebomb threats against his dad’s home. Hopefully Atlanta has progressed a little bit in the past 40 years :)</p>
<p>ucsd-ucla-dad,
Out of curiosity, and hypothetrically of course, if you had such a person living next door, what would you do to “encourage him to move elsewhere”? Serve rattlesnacks? (for those of you who don’t get that, see the funny typo in the “tucson” thread)</p>
<p>I would not want him to move to my neighborhood, but harassing phonecalls, I believe, are illegal. They are not protected speech. Perhaps some lawyer will correct me if I am wrong.</p>
<p>I have not read the Tucson thread (where is it?) But I recall long time ago, some members of Synanon putting rattlesnakes in someone’s mailbox. They were prosecuted, and the whole Synanon operation went into a tailspin (and not before time).</p>
<p>There’s been an interesting case this week here about a teacher who was convicted of having sex with a 15 year old girl in Buffalo, NY. He lives, with his wife and three children, in Fort Erie, Ontario, just across the border. The American judge sentenced him to three years probation in Canada, or a year in jail! Guess what he chose. Canadians are not amused. His name and photograph have been all over the news, both in Buffalo and here, so it’s no secret who and where he is.</p>
<p>Hi marite-
Sorry if I wasn’t clear, but I said that <em>other than</em> the harassing phonecalls (which, according to the paper was just silence at the other end of the phone), nothing <em>else</em> being done was illegal.
And gee, I’d take silence at the other end of the phone over those canned, automated political “vote for me” phonecalls anyday ! :)</p>
<p>Solutions to silence /harassing phonecalls-(1) blast an airhorn or whistle into the phone or (2) click the receiver several times and say “officer, this is the call, please trace it”. They are usually pretty effective. But with today’s technology and caller ID, I would think it is harder to pull off prank or harassing calls these days. Yes, silence at the other end is equally intimidating, but no one, as far as I know, was calling with any active threats against him.</p>
<p>and alwaysamom-
Can the US sentence someone to something in another country? Was he teaching in the US or Canada? Was it only the crime that was committed in the US? I am a little confused.</p>
<p>jym, it’s a baffling situation, but yes, the U.S. judge did, indeed, sentence him to three years ‘in exile’ in Canada. The crime was committed in the U.S., where he taught, and the 15 year old was one of his students at the Catholic school where he taught.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Yes, there is freedom of speech, but it ends when it approaches conduct (legally). Harassing phone calls are clearly “conduct.” Furthermore, we let people have freedom of speech because it is assumed that we let them live wherever they want. One does not trump the other.</p></li>
<li><p>Everyone needs to live somewhere. If those people don’t like where he is living, maybe they should try to find an alternative. After all, he is there legally and has a moral right to be alive - he needs a place to store his body, if you will.</p></li>
<li><p>The big problem with paedophilia is that it is not really “curable.” Even after (if someone committed a crime) incarceration and rehabilitation, the recidivism rate is incredibly high. This, though, is a failure of our criminal justice system and our courts. </p></li>
<li><p>I think that people overreact. First of all, you are nine times as likely to be assaulted by a family member (if female) than you are on the street. Second, it’s not like the parents can’t tell their daughters to be careful of that man, over there with the beard in the white house, and to raise hell if he comes near them. Third, any girl not young enough to defend herself shouldn’t be without parental superivision anyway. I see no reason to harass someone because parents simply don’t want to do their job and watch their kids when they play in the yard (or keep a window open so they can hear them or watch from inside). </p></li>
<li><p>The solution to bad speech is more speech. The solution to illegal acts is prosecution. He could put a flyer in everyone’s mailbox, explain the harassing phone calls, and state, “I am having the phone company tap my line and, if I continue to receive harassing calls, will prosectute to the fullest extent of the law.” You can wire your phone to reject certain calls (ex. non-caller ID). You can re-route your calls to the police station (let me tell you, “Hello, this is Officer Smith here,” will stop those calls in a hurry.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I’m not really sure what I’d do for the encouragement. I’d probably start with advertising - letting people on the neighborhood know the facts, and perhaps setting up a few factual signs in the neighborhood. If I lived in an area with a neighborhood newsletter, I’d probably advertise there if they’d let me. I’d want to make it uncomfortable for him. I’d also want to make sure he knows that we all know about him and are keeping up some vigilance. I think this technique has worked sometimes. I’d probably meet with the neighbors and brainstorm of other ways to legally let the person know they’re not wanted and are under the watch in the neighborhood. </p>
<p>I could manage to get more creative if that doesn’t work.</p>
<p>It’s really a shame that we have so many pedos/rapists living among us. They all to often receive a slap on the wrist and are either let back out into the neighborhood or shuffled off to someone else’s neighborhood. I’d readily vote to lock them all up for life without parole. They don’t deserve to live in the same neighborhoods as our families.</p>
<p>RE: post #4. Yes, it is nice to have people watch out for you. I became friendly with some of my neighbours in DC… I know that they would have helped out had their been an issue. Neighbourhood friendliness can, hopefully, mitigate Kitty Genovese situations.</p>
<p>Aries,
Telling someone to be careful of that man, or dont go over to that mans house, is not always enough. Not all victims have rung the doorbell of a predators home. Jon Benet was murdered in her own home. I was the victim of an intruder during college. Im not saying that this particular man is going to break into his neighbors home, but I also dont know the particulars of his previous conviction. It is something to be concerned about.</p>
<p>Very true, but the point is to be careful of him. You DO know that he’s living in the area, you DO know which particular person he is, and you CAN tell your kids that. It’s not like you were told that one of your neighbours within a half-mile radius (yes, one of those two thousand people) is a convicted paedophile and you have to guess which one it is!</p>
<p>People who are murdered in their own homes are disproprotionately represented in the news. I do have a big pet peeve with people who look at news reports and conduct their lives so as to avoid the dangers in those while ignoring the other dangers. We do have a very warped perception of what is dangerous in society; more people die in car wrecks than from handgun accidents, yet the media is full of handgun stories and the debate about making them illegal. The neighbours do have a legal and moral right to overreact; I’m just pointing out that the dangers are not always what they seem and that there are more constructive ways to go about this.</p>
<p>I know many people who were the victims of intruders, but that’s a different crime than paedophilia. For those genuinely concerned about intruders, there are some very simple things to do. A local police station can give a course on protecting your home and yourself. My point is that the neighbours should do that before crank calling the guy like teenagers.</p>
<p>I do not believe the silent phonecalls were frequent event (though I don’t know for sure). Young kids, even kids old enough to be left to play on the playground while the parents chat on the nearby bench (even closer by than “listening from the window”) can be lured by the “help me find my lost puppy” line by someone they may or may not recognize. You can point out a neighbor, but if he is seen in a different venue, or has changed his appearance, the victim shouldn’t have to be the one to take on all the “due diligence” responsibility. And we don’t want to scare kids so that they are afraid to go out (“mommy- if he is a bad man, how do I know if someone else might be a bad man?”) How many of these 20/20, dateline, 48 hours tv shows do we have to see where every parent is SURE their kid won’t go off with a stranger, or with someone they know unless they say the secret password, only to watch their kids succomb to sleazy, manipulative, calculated ploys to lure these kids who “should know better”. Kids tend to be trusting and kind, until they are taught not to be, and predators prey on these characteristics. Kids who are old enough to walk home from the busstop with their friends can still unfortunately be grabbed in a heartbeat. And you can’t keep your kid on a leash forever. It is tough as a parent to decide when/how to give those “graduated freedoms”. Here, if you are 11 yrs old you are old enough to take the Red Cross Babysitter class and are old enough to be a babysitter. A parent will not be considered neglectful if they leave an 11 yr old home alone (within reason- lets not cook up extreme examples). Is an 11 yr old expected to be able to protect herself if the “bad” neighbor rings the bell, crying , saying his dog was hit by a car in front of her house and can he use her phone to call the vet? If I had to choose, I would prefer to protect the innocent children before I would protect the “innocent” (not yet convicted) pedophile. Sure, I imagine that they both probably have equal rights under the law. Is it any more wrong to parade in front of his house with a sign (hypothetically) than for pro choice believers to parade with signs in front of a women’s health clinic? (I chose that analogy FOR EFFECT- please-- do NOT turn this into an abortion discussion) . I think part of the difficulty is to find the delicate line between what is permitted under the law and what is realistic or practical. And what is even harder to address is this guy’s internet porn addiction. That doesn’t limit him to preying on the neighbors. While this sleaze may have a legal right to lay his head on a warm pillow somewhere, trught be told, I am glad it is “not in my backyard”.</p>
This is a myth. The recidivism rate for sex crimes is variable - less than 5% for some types of crimes. It is highest for male pedophiles who molest younger males. The recidivism rate among males attracted to young girls is about 20% – meaning about 80% do NOT reoffend.</p>
<p>Those statistics are for offenders who actually have molested or raped children. There is no clear evidence that Karr ever went beyond fantasizing and viewing pornography. It seems clear that whatever he said about Jon Benet Ramsey was the product of fantasy, not fact, so it is very possible that this individual has not ever acted out his fantasies. Obviously we don’t know. </p>
<p>I do agree that he is a very disturbed individual, and I certainly would want to know if he were around my neighborhood. But the point is that he has to live somewhere, and children are far more at risk from “friends” and family members than they are from strangers, and they are just as likely to be harmed by someone without a known record as someone who does have one.</p>
<p>Maybe these pedophiliac people should be placed in one of those Active Living 55+ communities, where children are only allowed to visit for short periods of time, when they are released from prison. FWIW, I don’t know if prison is the right place for these types of criminals to be, I think some sort of treatment facility for mental health issues would be more beneficial. </p>
<p>We have sex offenders living not far from us, but I have no way of knowing if it was a case of an over 18 year old young man having a too young girlfriend; or a guy who didn’t listen when someone told him no and took it too far, or a child molester. You really have to train your kids well and keep them on a short leash.</p>
LOL!!! I am not sure if that was meant to be funny, but its a great idea! Oh wait… I’m 53… Can you send them instead to an older adult assisted living place? I don’t expect to be there for a few more years :)</p>
<p>Or search by name, or address. As the home page says, “THE INFORMATION PROVIDED ON THIS SITE IS INTENDED FOR COMMUNITY SAFETY PURPOSES ONLY AND SHOULD NOT BE USED TO THREATEN, INTIMIDATE, OR HARASS. MISUSE OF THIS INFORMATION MAY RESULT IN CRIMINAL PROSECUTION.”</p>
</p>
(for those of you who don’t get that, see the funny typo in the “tucson” thread)</p>