Confession of a Sex Offender

I am a sex offender.  I have never been arrested, much less convicted, but the fact remains, and I want to come clean now before my past catches up with me.  I hope you will show mercy.

It happened about 20 years ago.  I was living in Brooklyn at the time.  It was very late--3:00, 4:00 in the morning.  I had been drinking: I know that doesn't excuse my actions, but I hope it mitigates the situation somewhat.  I was on my way home--let me emphasize that this was in no way premeditated;  I truly had not planned on this happening.  I guess I just couldn't control myself .  Anyway, what happened was, in a dark alley in the Fort Hamilton area. . . . I urinated.

OK, it's not exactly raping a panda, but, still, in many jurisdictions--perhaps in New York for all I know--had I been unlucky enough to be caught, I could theoretically have been charged with a sexual offense (indecent exposure, most likely).  While I probably would have served no jail time, especially if I agreed to plead guilty, this conviction could have placed me on watch lists along with rapists and child molesters.  And as more and more jurisdictions pass laws aimed at protecting children from predators, this could have had significant impact on where I could live and work.

No one could argue against protecting children.  (Well, I probably could if I were feeling ornery, but I won't.)  And some of these laws--like those aimed at keeping child molesters away from elementary schools and playgrounds--are hard to argue with in principle (if somewhat questionable in practice).  On the whole, though, the reflexive impulse of legislators to pass "tough on crime" laws aimed at broadly defined "sex offenders" is wrong-headed at best and quite possibly unconstitutional.

What's truly ironic is that laws banning sexual offenders from, say, public parks are more likely to be observed by the generally law-abiding public urinator than by the truly dangerous sexual predator.  So who's being protected?  True, you can argue that such laws allow police to arrest predators simply for being in an area with children--thus stopping them before they can prey on the innocent.  But unless we are planning to station police at every entrance to every park--indeed, to every public space that falls within boundaries off-limits to sex offenders--then these laws are effectively unenforceable.

To protect the public, governments should consider legislation that allows the criminal justice system to impose restrictions on the truly dangerous and on a case-by-case basis.  There is a significant difference between a serial rapist and someone who pees in a public place--or for that matter an 18-year-old who has consensual sex with, say, a 17-year-old boy- or girlfriend. Nevertheless, all these people could fall under the category of "sexual offender" in one or more jurisdictions around the country.

It seems to me that any law that would treat me--or, let's face it, 99% of the male population and a not-insignificant portion of the female--the same as Ted Bundy is, to put it mildly, flawed  legislation. And anyone who thinks that urination constitutes a sexual offense should retake high-school biology.