Here’s a good place for a zero tolerance policy

Amanda Berry and two other women, as I’m sure you’ve heard, have been rescued after ten years of captivity in a Cleveland house. Three men, all in their late 40’s and early 50’s, (allegedly) kidnapped them and somehow managed to keep them imprisoned in that home for a decade.

We don’t know a lot about the scumbags who did this, but we do know that you don’t just wake up one morning at the age of 42 and randomly say “Hey, I think I’ll go find some sex slaves.” No, that’s a point that an evil pervert reaches after many, many years of continually escalating sex crimes. So now I’m just waiting for the part of this story where we found out that one, or all, of the men are convicted sex predators.

Or maybe they don’t have any criminal record at all. That’s plausible. Regardless, they certainly have a history of committing sexual abuse, detected or undetected, because that’s just the way these things always work. So here’s something we could do to hopefully, possibly, maybe cut down on these sorts of tragedies in the future: One strike, you’re out. If we were interested in a Justice System that is actually Just, we’d send the word out that if you are convicted of sex crimes against a child, or rape, or any sort of violent sexual exploitation at all, you go to jail forever. No parole. No second chance. I’m not talking about a 17 year old high school student who’s dating a 16 year old, and all the sudden becomes a “sex offender” when he turns 18 — I’m talking about actual predators. I’m talking about the sick, twisted monsters who violate children and women. It’s insane that these crimes aren’t automatic life sentences. Truly insane.

Recently, I took a peek at the sex offender registry in my city. With kids on the way, I figured I should inform myself. What did I see? First name on the list, a 53 year old man here in town, convicted of sodomizing a 13 year old child. AND HE IS OUT OF PRISON. What the hell, does he need to get caught with a pound of weed to get the real hard time? You know, maybe we wouldn’t need the “registry” if we kept all the psychotic rapists “registered” behind bars. Just a thought.

Maybe this seems like an expensive proposition. It doesn’t need to be. Sex offenders are pricey because we give them special protections while in prison. We task the taxpayers with paying the security detail for sex criminals, as if to reward them for raping children. It might be a bit of a dicey situation for them if they’re put in general population with everyone else, but they’re grownups, it’s their problem. I believe we should treat criminals humanely. But we are not called to burden ourselves in order to afford the worst criminals special protections, so that they can be insulated from the consequences of their crimes. You raped a woman or sexually abused a child, you must now reap the fruits of what you have sown. That is justice and that is fair.

On the other hand, letting mentally deranged molesters and rapists out of prison, ever, at any point, is neither fair nor just.