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Thread: new consequences if busted in a Texas Strip Club

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    Banned Melonie's Avatar
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    Default new consequences if busted in a Texas Strip Club

    ... it seems that Texas has now extended their "public punishment" law not only to drunk drivers but also to those guilty of sex crimes. Now is NOT a good time to be charged with prostitution in a Texas strip club!


    L A W
    A New Scarlet Letter
    A Texas judge forces sex offenders to broadcast their crimes
    with house signs and bumper stickers
    By CATHY BOOTH THOMAS/CORPUS CHRISTI


    Gabriel Trevino did a bad, bad thing. Three years ago, at age 31, he fondled
    the 14-year-old daughter of a friend. For this "slipup," as he calls it, he
    pleaded no contest and took five years' probation rather than risk a
    two-to-20-year prison term. Now he thinks prison would have been
    preferable. These days, people drive by his modest bungalow house, then
    back up to read the 18-in. by 24-in. sign posted by the little white birdhouse.
    DANGER, it says. REGISTERED SEX OFFENDER LIVES HERE.

    Sitting by the front window in his darkened living room in Corpus Christi,
    Texas, last week, Trevino was at once defiant and near tears as he talked
    about this public mortification. "I made my mistake, and I'm paying for it," he
    said. But, he wondered, why should his wife and two stepdaughters pay too?
    "I can't even go out and cut my yard. I just stay in the house...I was doing
    good in therapy. How is this helping me?"

    The answer is simple, says state District Judge J. Manuel Banales, who on
    May 18 ordered Trevino and 13 other "high-risk" sex offenders on probation
    to post the signs in their yards. "It will keep people like you, sir, honest," he
    told Trevino last week after denying a request to rescind the order. "Your
    neighbors will watch you and make sure you're not taking another child into
    your home." Hours later, Ban ales ordered yet another sex offender--No.
    15--to put up a sign on release from jail.

    In the past decade, all 50 states have passed so-called Megan's laws,
    requiring sex offenders to alert the community to their presence. Twenty-eight
    states run Internet sites listing such criminals. In the mid-1990s, judges in
    Texas, Louisiana, Florida and Oregon began ordering individual sex offenders
    to post signs outside their homes. But Banales--who also mandated bumper
    stickers and even temporary placards for traveling in someone else's
    car--drew national attention by applying his ruling to so many at one time. His
    move sparked a debate on the rights of these offenders and the merits of
    public shaming. "We don't brand people in America," argues Gerald Rogen,
    president of the Coastal Bend Criminal Defense Lawyers Association. "And
    we damn sure don't punish the offender's family as well as the offender."

    Banales' judgment, however, was in keeping with a 1999 Texas law--signed
    by then Governor George W. Bush--permitting judges to impose public
    punishment for some crimes. Drunk drivers in the state, for instance, are
    sometimes made to stand at busy intersections with signs identifying their
    transgression. Whether more conventional public notifications have worked as
    a deterrent is unclear. A Washington State study found that such policies didn't
    keep sex offenders from committing more crimes, though they did help police
    find and arrest recidivists more quickly.

    Banales' extreme version of notification is having immediate consequences for
    the Corpus Christi 15, as landlords evict them and bosses fire them. One man
    attempted suicide after Banales' ruling. The families also worry about
    vigilantes. "I'm scared for my mother's life and myself," says Trevino's
    stepdaughter Ann, 20. Lawyers for the 15 are considering filing a joint
    challenge or separate ones in the 13th Court of Appeals, arguing that the signs
    violate the right to privacy and constitute "cruel and unusual punishment."

    Judge Banales is unmoved. From a list of nearly 300 adult sex offenders, he
    chose 14 of the 15 by working with probation officers and a polygrapher to
    pinpoint those who had multiple victims, were not showing progress in therapy
    or had failed to show empathy for their victims. Even in court last week, for
    instance, Trevino persisted in questioning the judge on why a 14-year-old
    could be tried for murder, but could not consent to sex.

  2. #2
    Pamela
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    Default Re: new consequences if busted in a Texas Strip Cl

    I have 2 sex offenders down my street, one was my friends mother having sex with an16 yr old boy.
    We don't have signs posted in the yards to let us know they live there, but we all get a letter in all counties when one moves into our neighborhood. Picture and crime. I think this is fantastic, otherwise i would not have known they moved so close.
    Pamela

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    God/dess doc-catfish's Avatar
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    Default Re: new consequences if busted in a Texas Strip Cl

    I know prostitution is a sex related offense (I won't call it a CRIME), but I've never heard of prostitutes being put on "sex offender" registries. If such is true, then the politicians have truly flipped their gords. Putting 19-year-old boys who get their 17-year-old girlfriends knocked up on those lists was outrageous enough.

    Those lists should be reserved for sick people like Mr. Trevino. By extending them to all sorts of ridiculous extremes, they make them a joke, not to mention an unneccesary burden for the law enforcement authorities, which really doesn't protect anyone.
    Former SCJ now in rehab.

  4. #4
    Pamela
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    Default Re: new consequences if busted in a Texas Strip Cl

    Some states also have a class a guy can take for getting caught "doing the act" or soliciting a prostsitute, class taught by former prostitutes too. No fine. and his name will not go in the news papers. Florida is not one, but has been talk. Maybe it already has gone through, i don't really keep up with this stuff. But it was mentioned in the news a year or so ago for the state of Florida. Pamela
    Sorry bad spelling day again :-/

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    Member Shawn's Avatar
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    Default Re: new consequences if busted in a Texas Strip Cl

    I completely believe that any person that is a convicted sex offender when it comes to MINOR CHILDREN should absolutely have to have it posted for everyone to see. (personally i think they should be shot, but ill refrain from that tangent now) BUT i believe that if 2 consenting adults are doing their thing and not harming anyone, who cares??? A fine is one thing for a first offense, but no need to post someone's sexual preferences all about their property. Shawn

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    Default Re: new consequences if busted in a Texas Strip Cl

    Sex offenders in ontario are registered. When they are released the town they move to is notifyed and the local news usually broadcast it.BUT I TO THINK THEY SHOULD BE SHOT!!!!!!!!

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    Default Re: new consequences if busted in a Texas Strip Cl

    I happen to agree with your assessment of proper treatment of REAL sex offenders. But the problem is that a prostitution bust can technically place a Texas dancer in a situation of the same ongoing public embarrassment as the drunk drivers and the perverts.

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    Default Re: new consequences if busted in a Texas Strip Club

    I have mixed feelings about the registered sex offender laws. I understand the desire for community awareness but at the same time I have to hold true to my belief that once a person pays his debt, he should be able to move on with life.

    Even in court last week, for instance, Trevino persisted in questioning the judge on why a 14-year-old could be tried for murder, but could not consent to sex.
    I think that raises an excellent point. We need a consistant approach to the way we handle crimes involving juveniles. Yes, one end of the spectrum deals with juvies as criminals and the other deals with them being victims but it is still an inconsistancy that needs to be resolved.

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    Default Re: new consequences if busted in a Texas Strip Club

    Quote Originally Posted by Sergent D
    I have mixed feelings about the registered sex offender laws. I understand the desire for community awareness but at the same time I have to hold true to my belief that once a person pays his debt, he should be able to move on with life.



    I think that raises an excellent point. We need a consistant approach to the way we handle crimes involving juveniles. Yes, one end of the spectrum deals with juvies as criminals and the other deals with them being victims but it is still an inconsistancy that needs to be resolved.
    Yes - I have mixed feelings about the registered sex offender laws also. Like someone pointed out, there are those 16 year old boys caught fooling around with their 15 year old girl friends on there. First, second, and third degree rape or molestation of a minor by a definate adult (not this 17 year old tried as an adult but can't even run the deep frier at McDonalds bullshit) I can see a person going on the list.

    I think a letter in the mail would do the world just fine compared to a big sign in the yard. Might make people crack a smile or cover their mouth and point until they try to sell their house or hold the local 4H club meeting two doors down.

    Child molesters DO have an unusual amount of replay on their minds when they get out of prison though, so I am like... someone should be aware... but that is fucking it for everyone for that 1 out 100 (made up stat) who don't.

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    Default Re: new consequences if busted in a Texas Strip Club

    The intent of offender public shaming is to change behavior as well as public notification of the sexual offender. Is there reasonable evidence, other than a Judges opinion, that shaming can change a sexual offenders behavior? If the offender receives multiple threats and a driveby shooting, has the Judge compromised his rights and endangered his life? It is a complicated issue with many questions such as ...will they post a sexual offender sign in front of Neverland Ranch or will Jackson receive special shaming?

    Community Notification of Sex Offenders - HTML, Monica M. Ratchford - About half way down the page.
    Does Treating Sex Offenders Reduce Reoffending?' by Carol Hedderman - PDF file
    "Peter, did you take Stewie to a strip-club? He smells like sweat and fear." - Lois and Stewie (Family Guy) ... "Through early morning fog I see, Visions of the things to be, The pains that are withheld for me, I realize and I can see..."

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    Veteran Member scarlett623's Avatar
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    Default Re: new consequences if busted in a Texas Strip Club

    Quote Originally Posted by Sergent D
    I have mixed feelings about the registered sex offender laws. I understand the desire for community awareness but at the same time I have to hold true to my belief that once a person pays his debt, he should be able to move on with life.

    At age six I was molested multiple times by a family "friend". I will live with those experiences for the rest of my life. It will affect how I deal with relationships, how I raise any children I may have, how I pick the house I live in. If I have to live with the repercussions of the act of an adult when I was barely in kindergarten, then he DAMN WELL better have to deal with those consequenses for the rest of his life too. There is absolutly NO WAY he can "pay his debt" to me.

    That said, I think lists and other punishments should be reserved for those that commit the most serious crimes. In Michigan the sex offender registry is loaded with out-dated information and petty garbage like some teenage boy grabbing a classmates butt as she walks down the hall. As was stated before, this just makes the registry a joke.

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    Default Re: new consequences if busted in a Texas Strip Club

    I believe that a person must be convicted of acts of prostitution 3 times before having to be a registered sex offender in Texas. But maybe I am wrong. At least a dancer in Houston must be convicted of lewd dancing 3 times, then she must register as a sex offender.

    Also in Texas, anyone convicted of an act of incest also must register. I don't know much else, but I think the public disclosure is good, but there are problems with the definition.

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    God/dess doc-catfish's Avatar
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    Default Re: new consequences if busted in a Texas Strip Club

    Sex offender registries were originally intended to be for the intent of public safety, namely to notify the public where individuals who posed a threat to either their or their children's safety were located.

    These registries should be limited to people who engage in acts of sexual predation, not those involved in consensual activites that a great number of people don't even think should be illegal. Just another example of the goody goody Christian conformists in this country using the law books to make a subordinate class out of everyone they don't like.


    Does it make any logical sense to have a registry for prostitutes, but not have a registry for drunken drivers? (16,000 deaths and a half million injuries caused by the latter every year). Apparently no one is enforcing the Eighth Amendment anymore.
    Former SCJ now in rehab.

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    Default Re: new consequences if busted in a Texas Strip Club

    Quote Originally Posted by scarlett623
    If I have to live with the repercussions of the act of an adult when I was barely in kindergarten, then he DAMN WELL better have to deal with those consequenses for the rest of his life too. There is absolutly NO WAY he can "pay his debt" to me.
    I'm not trying to marginalize your victimization but that is the case with all victims of henious crimes. Nevertheless, people are given finite sentences. Once they complete their sentence, they should be able to put it behind them as much as possible.

    These lists seem to be just as much about public humiliation as they are about public awareness. Public humiliation seems cruel and unusual to me. They also open the person up to attacks by people who don't want him around or were former victims themselves. Although the offender may deserve what they get it doesn't make a retaliatory attack right.

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