Gotta say- That's some pretty aggressive horseplay. It weren't my nose that got sat upon, but if it were, a lifetime of awkwardness and excuse-making for the sitter might feel something like justice.

No, this is just wrong.

If these kids had actually not liked one another, and had beaten one another up, would they be labeled for life with felonies, or even misdemeanors?

I never liked getting into fights myself, but should typical adolescent/teenager behavior be criminalized like this?

It's all just authoritarian zero tolerance bullshit. And it results in a deadening of the world.

Oh c'mon. These kids as menaces?

Hell even as "bullying" its pretty mild. Boys treat each other roughly, its how we're wired, give a 3 year old boy a toy sword, he's going to bop another boy on the head with it. Put a couple of teenage boys together, they're going to tease each other, horse around, and yes, maybe sit on one another to get some cheap laughs and prove who is the toughest along the way.

Wait. Since when is this typical? Quick poll. You were 13 once. How many times did you teabag somebody?

That's what I thought.

Something happens between "I want to make my friends laugh" and "I know, let's knock these kids down and put our balls in their mouths!" Something goes through a person's mind. Something not normal. Something not common. And if that's already the process you're prone to at 13? Yeah, maybe you bear some watching.

Way to water down the sex offender list with people who shouldn't be on it. My friends used to do this sort of stuff, it was called a brown nose and if you went camping with them, you were at risk. And the usual response of the victim was to punch the perpetrator. I guess putting them on the sex offender list for life is much more appropriate. If you're a complete moron like this judge, that is.

These guys are more like Dennis the Menace, which is why we have to change the criteria that land folks on the registry. These young men were never "predators." And as the years go by, the idea that they pose a danger to children will become even more ridiculous

Wrong. We need to get rid of the registry. It has become a weapon against innocent people.

What happens if these boys grow into men and want to have families? Oh, wait, they can't live within 1500 yards of a child.

This is what happens when liberals make laws based on emotional responses to crimes. Legislation based upon emotion is ALWAYS bad.

"Wrong. We need to get rid of the registry. It has become a weapon against innocent people."

Well, no.

I used to work in a jail. Believe me, there are people who really really need to be on that list.

I also once caught a pedophile using my network to look at kiddy porn. He was a teacher at a middle school, and the objects of his affection were middle school aged girls. We caught him before he actually molested one of them, and because of the list he will never be hired by a school again.

And that is as it should be.

Are the kids in question sex offenders? Probably not. But making more intelligent choices about who should be included on it is a better modification than just scrapping the program.

> No, this is just wrong.

Yeah?

> Wait. Since when is this typical?

Exactly.

Jason, pin Jerry to the floor while I unbuckle my belt and...

IThis was exactly a sex crime, having somebody rubbing their nuts in my face at that age would have scarred ne for life. That being said, there needs to be periodic reviews of who is on these lists

About every four to six months we get one of these from Amy... Where you're slapping your forehead at the end of it, wondering why her compassion isn't first given to the ones first wronged.

Age 14 is waaay old for forgiveness of sexual misconduct, especially of males, especially when it's violent, coercive, and humiliating.

In other words, I regret the "gotta say" at the top of the first comment. Of course I "gotta say"

Wait. Since when is this typical? Quick poll. You were 13 once. How many times did you teabag somebody?

0. Nor was I teabagged. I'd have come away with a prize if someone tried to do that to me involuntarily.

That's what I thought.

Ever cop a feel from a girl when you were that age without her consent? feel free to sign up for the list.

If your point is that these lists are blind, we get it. But not all youthful misconduct should be readily forgotten. If my 7th-grade squeeze-girl had been purposefully humiliated by my bun-fragrance in front of other people, there's no way she'd have bought my lunch in Santa Monica like she did last summer.

Such behavior from those boys propbably would have been nipped in the bud years ago if it werent becoame increasingly more illegal to punish children.

Maybe "The Law" is only a soothing idea to help us bear up in an arbitrary society ruled by political power and whim.

=== ===
12/25/08 - Econlog.Econlib by Bryan Caplan

[edited] At the risk of offending many friends, I think the law is a shockingly phony discipline. Virtually everyone imagines that the law agrees with what they favor on non-legal grounds. Almost no one admits that many or most laws are so vague that there is no "fact of the matter" about what they mean.

Once in a while, a law professor has told me this verbatim, and then has gone back to arguing about the law. The philosopher in me insists, "If there's no such thing as unicorns, we can't argue about unicorns," but the Great Unicorn Debate never stops.
=== ===

The Law is Going from Bad to Worse

Depends if they farted or not.

@Crid: "It weren't my nose that got sat upon, but if it were, a lifetime of awkwardness and excuse-making for the sitter might feel something like justice"

Sorry Crid, but I was bullied mercilessly for years to the point that I still have emotional issues about it, and even I don't think that an entire lifetime of punishment with an obviously false 'sex offender' label, is anything remotely like "justice" here - if anything, it is raging emotional abuse against these kids. These are not sex offenders, and condoning an obviously incorrect punishment that destroys their lives simply because we don't like what they did? That would make us vile barbarians, not members of a civilized society. We have to be consistently for justice.

Condoning the blatant abuse of a legal system simply because it gives us the exciting feeling of being able to dish up arbitrary power against random victims on a whim, taints our entire legal system.

Also, if these kids do not have recourse against incorrect abuses of the legal system, then *neither do you* Crid. If these kids have no protection against abuse of the system, then nobody does. Today it's them, and you laugh, tomorrow it's you or someone you know. And if you had no sympathy for them, don't expect others to have sympathy for you or your loved ones.

> if these kids do not have recourse against
> incorrect abuses of the legal system, then
> *neither do you*

Don't be a sanctimonious priss... We have no reason to trust your judgment, either.

You don't like the sex offender law? Fine, change it... And Good Luck to you.

But these are spectacularly unappealing poster children for your cause.

Well here's the deal. At 14 they ARE old enough to know better. Would you like someone pulling their pants down and sitting on YOUR face unrequested while their friends laugh? Doubt it. I simply can't feel for them. Any more than I feel like a 14 year old who ties up and someone to death should be let off as a juvenile, either.

Not to mention, how do we know it wasn't sexual sadism they passed off as a stupid (incredibly stupid) prank? Their word?

If it's sex assault if an adult does it to an adult, then you really can't argue that it's not, here. They aren't 4, they're 14.

"This was exactly a sex crime"

No, it wasn't, a sex crime must have sexual intent. To claim some stupid 14-year old bullies had sexual intent here is disingenuous, nobody here is really naive enough to believe that that is what was going through their heads. What is happening is you're having an emotional response, you have an understandable vile dislike of what the boys did, but you're translating that into a distortion in order to hit these kids with a disproportionately huge stick. Wielding a disproportionately huge stick unjustly against these kids is in itself an act of barbarism far worse than their original act, and because it is wielded unjustly (they do not deserve to be on the sex offenders list for life), would make our act of barbarism worse than the very injustices you probably feel you're fighting against. It's "abuse by proxy" - you want to hit these kids with a big stick, so you stretch the truth in order to be able to play the 'sex victim' card, in order to whack them with "the system", all the while making your hands look clean by portraying them as something they're not - it is ultimately just another form of bloodthirst, and has no place in civilized society.

I agree they should be punished. But they should be punished for the crime they committed, and that's all. Not one they didn't.

"Where you're slapping your forehead at the end of it, wondering why her compassion isn't first given to the ones first wronged"

Whenever someone is a victim of an injustice, it is bad, we can all agree on that. When the first wronged are wronged by other members of society, it is bad. But when injustices are committed BY the justice system itself? Then you have much bigger, much more important problems. I don't see that as too difficult to comprehend.

@momof4: " Doubt it. I simply can't feel for them."

It isn't about "feeling for them". It's about having an intact justice system that actually carries out, you know, justice - and not capriciously execute acts of injustice. That affects you, it affects your children, it affects your brothers and uncles and aunts and friends and their relatives and friends. If we don't have a sound justice system, we're all lost.

You don't have to "feel for them" to want to defend and retain the integrity and usefulness of the justice system. You don't have to feel anything for them at all for that.

And just because someone "should know better", is not a reason to carry out disproportionate Judge-Dredd style "justice". A 14-year should also "know better" than to litter, does that mean it's OK to execute 14-year olds for littering? No.

"We have no reason to trust your judgment, either"

WTF is the relevance of that statement?

"But these are spectacularly unappealing poster children for your cause."

So you admit you are incapable of separating your emotional response to the specific people involved in an individual case, from the principle itself. Thank you, you prove my entire point.

"A 14-year should also "know better" than to litter, does that mean it's OK to execute 14-year olds for littering? No."

Do we execute ANYONE for that? If so, I haven't heard about it. I'm saying if pinning someone down and dragging your nuts over their mouth is a crime, then it needs to be treated like a crime. And it is.

Defending and retaining the integrity and usefulness justice system is a lost cause, IMO. Has been for decades. I'd call making taxpayers pay for Anthony's choice of defense is a better example of that fact, than this.

> you are incapable of separating your
> emotional response to the specific
> people involved in an individual case,
> from the principle

Not at all. The specifics are the principle. These kids were all fucked up. Imagine if they'd been just three year older when trying to sexually humiliate someone... Or five years older. Or seven years older, at their athletic peak. And imagine the kid underneath were your daughter.

The problem isn't that some blog commenters are twitchy: The problem is that these kids were doing something monstrous.

First off, these kids were 14. Does that mean they were old enough to know better? Of course. Does that mean they knew the penalty for their actions would be life destroying? Of course not. Were their actions truly monstrous? As compared with what? Would you prefer an ass in your face or having someone break your nose? Ass in your face or have your car stolen? Ass in your face or have your ex wife rape you in divorce court? I imagine the answer will differ from person to person. But in the end, the punishment should fit the crime, and in this case, it does not. Having these bullies pinned down and given the ass in face treatment would have sufficed.

> these kids were 14. Does that mean they
> were old enough to know better? Of course.
> Does that mean they knew the penalty for
> their actions would be life destroying?

Does it matter?

See, that's the thing about morality. When you're doing the right thing anyway, you don't have to weigh the penalties too attentively.

Show of hands: How many of you would have, in early, more tolerant times, done more teenage face sitting humiliations if you'd explicitly known you WOULDN'T be put on a list for there rest of time?

Anyone? In the back there, NumberSix? Anybody? No one?

Well then.

"...a sex crime must have sexual intent."
~Lobster

Not if the legislature wrote it to be a strict liability crime.

If you're speaking in lay terms, then I say you're wading in the useless waters of whether a crime is really about sex when the actor performs a sex act (or targets the reproductive organs) to fulfill the desire to humiliate or dominate.

~~~
Groping someone is a quick, one motion act that can be done before a teenage brain knows what his hand did. Teabagging someone, I'm guessing, requires many more component steps, allows time for forethought, and requires that the actor physically subdue the victim.

Too much money to be made in the sex offender registry. They'd put every male on the planet on the sex offender registry if they thought they could get away with it.

Wait. Since when is this typical? Quick poll. You were 13 once. How many times did you teabag somebody?

Not just teabag someone, but physically restrain and tea bag someone against their will.

If those boys had done that to a girl, they would have been facing rape charges.

This wasn't a 16-year-old who slept with his 15-year-old girlfriend or two idiots who mooned a bus. And this wasn't bullying. This was physical assault.

I wonder if being on the list will become cool for teenagers soon.

It will suck once they get older and they won't like it.

What I saw, only mentioned ass in face...which with out something to indicate otherwise would to me imply poop on face and nothing sexual at all. So it seems the kids should be punished, just this is the wrong punishment.

I just thought of the old Wil Smith song with line that goes something like "she said, "Speed turns me on." Can speeding now be a sex crime?

"What I saw, only mentioned ass in face...which with out something to indicate otherwise would to me imply poop on face and nothing sexual at all. So it seems the kids should be punished, just this is the wrong punishment."

I'm not a man, but I've been with plenty of them, and if there's a way to get a butt in the face without the balls coming along for the ride, I've yet to see it. (as if being just the butt would somehow make it okay). Putting your genitals on someone else's unwilling face while restraining them is a crime in every state in this country. For good reason. And most kids outgrow their poop obsession around age 5. Hell my 7 year olds wouldn't do that.

> and nothing sexual at all.

This is starting to turn into that old Carolla joke... His mockery of demented, smug feminists from the suburbs: "Rape is about power, not sex! It's not a sexual crime!!!"

There are a thousand versions of that skit, and those at the link are just the easiest to find, not the funniest. You get the point, right? Other people don't decide what's sexual and what isn't... Especially for experiences which involve, y'know, removal of pants, physical dominance, and smirking onlookers.

14 was OK for me, personally. Nothing like that ever happened.

But I'd have to imagine that if other kids did that to me... And my surrounding community knew about it and haughtily dismissed it as "horseplay"... That it would certainly and fucking well play out in all of my trusting relationships with others. ...Perhaps in sexuality most centrally.

I think it's blindingly telling that no one here has asked, or even speculated, on what other punishments or consequences might have been brought to bear on the mitzvah-aged "boys" (14!) who committed this assault... Consequences beyond their entries on this highfalutin', white-people-problem shitlist.

(Their Dads are not in their homes. Anyone want the wager? Name your price. Anyone? No takers?)

Nor has anyone discussed how many other people on the street —old ones, young ones, or distracted ones— would be able to repel an attack from 14yo boys who were in the mood for "horseplay".

(How is your aging, widowed mother doing nowadays, back there in your hometown?)

The Banker makes an interesting point about the normalization of the List:

> I wonder if being on the list will become
> cool for teenagers soon.

This may be enough to neutralize the topic for those inclined to consider this matter in a bloodless, intellectual way...

And apparently there are more of you than I'd thought.

"What I saw, only mentioned ass in face...which with out something to indicate otherwise would to me imply poop on face and nothing sexual at all."

Without getting too unsavory, let's just say that that depends entirely upon what one is into.

"Show of hands: How many of you would have, in early, more tolerant times, done more teenage face sitting humiliations if you'd explicitly known you WOULDN'T be put on a list for there rest of time?"

Nice strawman. The real question is whether these two CHILDREN, and at 14 they are still children, they are not 2,3 or 5 years older, would still have done their ass-in-face routine, if they knew it would destroy their lives. Chances are they would have taken a pass on their laugh to avoid life destroying consequences.

" And my surrounding community knew about it and haughtily dismissed it as "horseplay"... "

Another strawman, you are on a roll. I don't think anyone is suggesting these two escape punishment. However the punishment should be appropriate. The sex offender list should be for people who pose a clear and consistent danger of sexual predation, otherwise the list becomes meaningless.

> Nice strawman.

I don't think you do much logical argument. (Or "nice" sarcasm, for that matter.)

> The real question is whether these two
> CHILDREN, and at 14 they are still children,
> they are not 2,3 or 5 years older, would still
> have done their ass-in-face routine, if they
> knew it would destroy their lives.

It's just an idiotic thing to say. It elides the morality of the context. It presumes they should never have been concerned with the decency of their conduct, or its implications for other, but only with its impact on their own lives. And it assumes that the only way to make people behave better is to threated ever-greater (and more Hammurabi-primitive) punishments for misconduct. (Militant Islam loves that shit, BTW.)

> I don't think anyone is suggesting these
> two escape punishment.

No one is discussing their punishment at all: That's my point. People can't consider this event except as a reflection of the sex offender shitlist.

I said these things earlier. You should read twice before commenting.

Seriously... Is that the society you want? One where we control people's behavior with ever-harsher punishments, rather than asking them to think about what their behavior means to others?

...Because I'm thinking this is part of the popular resentment of masculinity, about how everybody wants government to take over the functions that an actual, breathing MAN used to perform in a family... Like disciplining children. (And when the public gets pissed off at a kid, they want Daddy Government to be harsh....)

Skenazy wrote:

The boys committed their crime at age 14. And just what was it? Horseplay. Stupid, disgusting horseplay.

So said one of the defendants' lawyers; but if Skenazy bothered to read the appellate court's opinion here, it's clear that the appellate court rejected that description of the boys' behavior, saying:

By contrast, the cases before us do not involve an isolated incident of one classmate inappropriately slapping another classmate on the buttocks causing a mere fleeting moment of embarrassment to the victim, as was the case in D.W.[where the court dismissed defendant's conduct as "horseplay"], or an act of "sexual curiosity" devoid of any malice or purpose to degrade or humiliate the victim, as the court characterized the juvenile's conduct in G.B.

James and Daniel used their bare buttocks, which by implication must have also exposed all of their constituent anatomical parts, as key components of the message they sent to W.R. and O.D. Although James and Daniel may not have done this for their own sexual gratification, the record showed that the victims were humiliated and degraded by this message of sexual prowess and domination. What occurred here were deliberate acts of extreme bullying, carried out by James and Daniel with a clear intent to degrade and humiliate the two younger and physically weaker victims, using unmistakably sexual connotations to accentuate the message.

Skenazy continued:

The judge then considered what he had in front of him, and rather than think, "These punks could use some community service time and maybe a suspension from school -- plus an in-person apology to the kids they sat on," he thought, "These two are sex offenders."

No, the trial judge looked at New Jersey law and applied it to the defendants in front of him. What a good judge thinks is "What does the law say?" rather than "What would I like to do to this particular defendant?".

After all, what they had done was, technically, "criminal sexual contact" with intent to humiliate or degrade. And so sex offenders he ruled they were.

It's the judge's freaking job to "technically" apply the law, not to hand down decisions and sentences based upon his (or Lenore's) feelings and intuitions.

Power blog comment, D.

"I don't think you do much logical argument. (Or "nice" sarcasm, for that matter.)"

Sorry, if you were being sarcastic, you failed. You just came off as a bleating moron. My bad.

"It's just an idiotic thing to say. It elides the morality of the context. It presumes they should never have been concerned with the decency of their conduct, or its implications for other, but only with its impact on their own lives."

To the contrary I am saying that most 14 years going through puberty do stupid things. Quite often, we tell children what the consequences of their action will be, because knowledge of consequences modifies behaviour, in the absence of a fully developed moral compass. They are still children and are still learning "proper morality." These two probably had no clue how "Monstrous" their actions were. In fact they obviously thought it was funny. Yet according to you they completely deserve their fate because they obviously didn't have proper moral values. Well, if you honestly think everyone's moral values are fully developed at age 14, we should make that the proper age of adulthood and consequences.

"No one is discussing their punishment at all: That's my point."

Really? That's your entire point??? I thought I saw a few suggestions, you didn't like them? How about pinning them down and letting their victims give them the ass hat treatment in return? Don't like that one? How about 6 months in Juvie? I'm sure there were other options for punishment as well as different crimes they could have been charged with. False imprisonment comes to mind.

"Seriously... Is that the society you want? One where we control people's behavior with ever-harsher punishments, rather than asking them to think about what their behavior means to others?"

I want a society that doesn't throw the book at idiot kids for being idiot kids. I'd prefer it if their parents raised them right.

"I said these things earlier. You should read twice before commenting."

Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.

"James and Daniel used their bare buttocks, which by implication must have also exposed all of their constituent anatomical parts"

That's false. I can quite easily plant my bare ass crack on your face while keeping my genitals concealed. The half pants, full moon position works well if you squat.

> These two probably had no clue how
> "Monstrous" their actions were.

Oh... Why didn't you say so?

They didn't know.

Matt wrote:

That's false. I can quite easily plant my bare ass crack on your face while keeping my genitals concealed.

How dexterous of you-- but one of the victims testified at trial that a defendant brushed his penis against the victim's lips, and the trial court found that testimony convincing-- as opposed to the self-serving statements of the defendants that Skenazy bought hook, line and sinker.

Also, before you decide to rub your bare ass on someone else, consider that, half-moon or not, many people (and therefore judges) will see that as a sexual assault.

They didn't KNOW, Dale! C'mon, man! They didn't KNOW there would be consequences. For themselves. How are they supposed to do what's right if they don't know there will be consequences? For themselves? Dude!

(Someday I'll be like you and do the reading and follow the links, etc. For now, it almost never seems necessary.)

I don't think anyone is suggesting these two escape punishment. However the punishment should be appropriate.

And what is appropriate?

According to Amy's first sentence, it was a "prank."

According to Skezany, it was "horseplay."

Is that how we describe forcible ass-to-face contact with its attendant violent overtones?

I'll bet the two 12-year-olds whose faces they sat on would describe it differently.

I'll bet you would, too, if it had been your face.

Keep in mind, too, this was done publicly. They were trying to get their "friends to laugh." That means there was an audience and this act was in fact done "with intent to humiliate or degrade."

And 14 is old enough to understand the impact your actions have on others and on your own future.

Should their entire lives be ruined for this? Perhaps not. But a slap on the wrist for "horseplay" or a "prank" is dismissing the suffering of the 12-year-old victims of this crime.

"But a slap on the wrist for "horseplay" or a "prank" is dismissing the suffering of the 12-year-old victims of this crime."

Suffering?

"When I was 12, this bully got naked and sat on my face." That's a lifelong scar? Only if you tell the kid it is. Boy, does that put leukemia or gunshot wounds in their place. "Whoa - somebody sat on your face? You're so brave to carry on!"

The alternative you suggest - dismissing this - now criminalizes all sorts of juvenile behavior - exactly in support of a "nanny state", which judgment is infinitely superior to yours and mine in all cases.

ALL cases.

Sex IS more important than murder. Sex, as in, who does it to and with whom, with whose "approval", is being MADE to ruin lives by those people for whom it simply MUST - to make their own lives somehow more complete.

"(Someday I'll be like you and do the reading and follow the links, etc. For now, it almost never seems necessary.)"

(Especially when commenting about another's profession.)

All head, no beer.

> (Especially when commenting about
> another's profession)

Not especially, but plenty often enough. When so much foolishness is brought to the comments, why bother with the reading?

My father-in-law calls this an Atomic Sit-Up. They did them in college 45 years ago. Nasty.

Back then this would have been solved by the two perpetrators getting their asses thoroughly kicked by their targets. Later, they would all sit around drinking beers and smoking cigarettes that they stole from their parents and everyone would be a little tougher, with a little more hard-(l)earned respect for each other.

Today, we have to take them to court, because the targets are told they can't retaliate, that they're not allowed to raise a fist, that they need help from the gubmint to settle the problem, and perpetrators are told that they can sue their targets for any retaliatory actions.

I like the old generation's method better.

When I was in high school, we were running on the track and somebody ran up behind another kid, yanked down their shorts, and ran off.

Then it was an embarassment and a cheap laugh.

Today it is a sex crime mandating a lifelong punishment.

I don't see a whole lot of difference between that and this.

It cheapens the list to the point where it is rapidly becoming useless.

Until it becomes useless, it destroys the lives of people who do not deserve to have their lives destroyed.

Putting children on this list serves no purpose. They're not hardened criminals any more than the teenager who copped a feel on Miss Alkon at 15 or whatever age it was.

This is idiocy beyond all idiocy.

And crid you DO sound emotional on this case.

It simply isn't rational to put teenage pranksters on the same list as people who rape toddlers.

If we really love "lists" so much, then we should have lists used and available solely to law enforcement when it comes to children, if a teen commits a violent or potentially suspect sexual act on another teen, log it, and look for a repeat pattern if their name comes up again.

If it doesn't come up by the time they're an adult, their name is tossed.

The 30 year old that rapes toddlers, belongs on a watch list for good, just in case he ever gets out of jail, and he should not.

> And crid you DO sound emotional
> on this case.

Yep, and that emotion is fear. It's frightening to see people in a forum like Amy's —a feminine, feelings-centered, underdog-loving crowd— being so oblivious and disinclined to empathy when confronted with this tale.

> It simply isn't rational to put teenage
> pranksters on the same list as
> people who rape

It's not rational to call this merely a "prank". Those who do, I contend, are heartlessly concerned about these events only as they personally are likely to be affected in their lifetimes.

Well, none of us are likely to get assaulted this way. But patience with "pranks" like this will, I contend, play out as bigger trouble for others (both as children and later as adults) in future times, even if you and I are then safely reduced to dust and worm food.

I was bullied throughout my childhood and teen years and really had no friends for much of that time, save for kids from my temple youth group I started hanging with around age 14 or 15 on the weekends.

I think what these kids did is horrible, and they should be severely punished for it. But, to be somebody who bullies others in horrible ways is not the same as being somebody who has an uncontrollable urge to have sex with children.

I don't believe in "patience" for behavior like this, but if you turn everyone into a sex offender, it waters down the list and meaning of those who really are.

This is yet another example -- in an increasingly long list of examples -- that demonstrates the sex offender list has become a waste of valuable resources and an unfair punishment for way too many. If law enforcement was keeping track of a much smaller list of ACTUALLY dangerous people, the list could be an effective and valuable thing. But as so often in the case with our society, decisions like creating the sex offender list are made using too much emotion and politics while lacking sufficient thought.

When me and my two 8th grade classmates got caught trying to do a milder version of a prank similar to one in the movie 'Porky's', fortunately it happened well before the sex offender list law. Otherwise 3 dangerous "predators" would need law enforcement resources keeping track of them for 80 years.

Pushing and shoving is bullying and battery. Sticking your junk in your victim's face is sexual assault.

These bullies are lucky the victim didn't go home and get Daddy's gun and pop a cap into their underdeveloped brains.

Yeah, Amy, I was bullied too, and of course it was the popular athlete and his buddies, so there was no recourse with the adults.

So I got a gun and produced it when the four of them confronted me.

Problem solved, and I mean SOLVED. Nobody fucked with me from then until I graduated from high school.

It wasn't smart, but I was 14 and terrified and sick of being their victim.

Right, I get it. I don't think it was rape in the actual sense - but I think they should frog-march these little jerks through a public perp walk and make this a long, drawn-out and painful public humiliation for them.

The more bullies are slapped down by society the more aware kids will be that it's unacceptable violent behavior.

I shouldn't have had to get that gun. These kids shouldn't be sexually humiliated in public. In both cases the perps need to feel the full weight of society's butt in their face.

Maybe a deal. We call them pervs until they're 18 and then wipe their, um, records clean.

"back then this would have been solved by the two perpetrators getting their asses thoroughly kicked by their targets. Later, they would all sit around drinking beers and smoking cigarettes that they stole from their parents and everyone would be a little tougher, with a little more hard-(l)earned respect for each other."

First off, they were 12, how do they kick the asses of people with 2 years on them? Second off-do we simply expect rape victims to kick their rapists ass and be done with it? No? If a man held you down and rubbed his balls in your face while his friends laughed, would you feel pranked or assaulted? What if it was a 16 year old football playing "kid" and not a man that did it. Would you feel pranked then?

"When I was 12, this bully got naked and sat on my face." That's a lifelong scar? Only if you tell the kid it is. Boy, does that put leukemia or gunshot wounds in their place. "Whoa - somebody sat on your face? You're so brave to carry on!"

Why certainly, let's blow off the victims in this. After all, they were only publicly humiliated and quasi-sexually assaulted. It's not like they got leukemia or shot, so no harm done.

Is a 14-year-old kid who sits his bare buttocks on a younger, weaker kid's face while forcibly holding that kid down going to turn into an adult we want in a civilized society? Not without a significant rebuke for his actions and a hard lesson that assaulting other members of a society is wrong.

And grounding him or taking away his X-Box for a week ain't gonna show him that what he did is reprehensible. While putting them on the sex offender registry for life might be extreme, they are not being put on it for "horseplay" or "pranks." They publicly assaulted two younger kids with intent to humiliate and degrade.

Fourteen is old enough to know and, absent explicit instructions not to assault younger kids, be able to figure out that these actions are wrong. And old enough to accept that there are societal repercussions for such actions.

This wasn't just bullying, playing keep away with his hat or pantsing him in gym class. It was borderline sexual assault.

Back then this would have been solved by the two perpetrators getting their asses thoroughly kicked by their targets. Later, they would all sit around drinking beers and smoking cigarettes that they stole from their parents and everyone would be a little tougher, with a little more hard-(l)earned respect for each other.

While a good ass-kicking is more than called for in this situation, how do you propose the younger, weaker 12-year-olds perpetrate this reciprocal assault?

Perhaps they could, like another poster, bring a gun to equalize the disparity in size and strength. Because guns in the hands of angry pre-teens always works out so well.

Does anyone here really belive that a lifetime wortg of dead end jobs, being barred from college, the rest of high school, being limited on where you're allowed to live "might" be extreme?

We really need to punish these kids to the point that they have to have parole officers for LIFE?

> We really need to punish these kids
> to the point that...

We need them punished. And again, I think it's fascinating that none of the people screaming "This is too much!" have bothered to establish, or ask, whether they've faced any consequences at all.

A crime happens. What do you do? Give me your short answer:

___________.

Nonono.... Don't rush to add "And then you try to W & X" or "But you shouldn't try to Y & Z. "

Moral seriousness is demonstrated by first considering the matter at hand.

"We really need to punish these kids to the point that they have to have parole officers for LIFE?"

Maybe.

Registration requirements vary by state (and fed)., by crime, and according to the age of the perpetrator.

Of course, once something is published on the internet, it may never disappear.

I think these guys displayed an astounding lack of empathy and absence of a fear of consequences. I wonder about their upbringing, about what they've imprinted on. Sexual predators don't just hatch out of an egg over night.

As for the way these things used to be handled back in the day - that's just the way it was - it wasn't necessarily a good idea to have it go that way. I'm glad I learned how to throw a punch, but I should have been free to go to school eager to learn. Instead, my excitement was replaced with anxiety about having to defend myself against physical assault. How humane is that, to send children out into the world and tell them, either explicitly, or implicitly through failure to adequately punish, that it's their job to defend themselves against physical assault - are the rule of law and police protection only for adults? Battery and sexual assault aren't serious crimes if children before you had to go through it too?

I think these guys should squirm, and I think their community members should be given a heads-up, a fair opportunity to question these guys directly before hiring them, allowing their children to fraternize, etc.

Perhaps the problem with the online registries is that they provide too little information - the name of the criminal charge can sound far worse than the actual facts of the case.

Yes! 'Chelle-ster!

> I think these guys displayed an astounding
> lack of empathy and absence of a fear of
> consequences. I wonder about their upbringing,
> about what they've imprinted on. Sexual
> predators don't just hatch out of an egg
> over night.

Now, it's possible that Michelle is wrong about that last part... That these facesitters will experience the roundabout punch which so many boys suffer in late adolescence, when they realize the aggressive, condescending social space they've so carefully crafted for themselves won't translate to a single ounce of poontang.

After that transition, and it can happen in an afternoon, a lot of outgoing (if arrogant) boys drop behind a thick social shell from which they never emerge.

But even then-- I don't want them not to face-sit merely because they'll grow up to rape, and I don't want them not to face-sit merely because their names will land on some idiotic list. I want them not to face-sit because it's a horrible experience for the 12-year-olds.

The only implications which you guys in the "It's just a prank!" contingent appear inclined to consider are the ones which might affect you (adults) and your (adult) friends.

If you could be straightforward about it, that wouldn't be so objectionable. A tight perspective often enlightens.

But I think it's like the gay marriage thing: You're unable to consider the impacts on society except as impacts you (adults) and your (adult) friends.

(Plus, you get to savor the sweet ego-juice that comes from pretending to be the Rosa Parks of your generation... With the contemporary bonus of being sarcastic about it, a pleasure never tasted by the lady from Montgomery.)

We're talking about impacts on children. With GM, the loving insight that children deserve mothers (or fathers) is more deeply eroded. And with this discussion, the suffering of the first young victims seems again to have been elided. The needs of the most vulnerable children don't seem to register in your thinking.

Again-- If you just wanted to ignore the specifics to talk more generally about Sex Offenders list, that would be fine! Earlier this month we had yet another instance of lurid scandal in the Anthony case, after which people's most gossipy judgements started to morph into bad policies. So, y'know, I get it.

But to call this a "prank" leaves me distrusting your capacity for justice. Imagine the glances that flashed up and down the school hallway (or wherever) in the moments before this assault. Ask the twelve-year-olds whether they felt they were being hunted that afternoon...

Yes, these facesitters were predators, whether they belong on the list or not.