Apparently, Megan's Law applies to 14-year-olds. I did a little research on Megan's Law in NJ, and here is the skinny:
Megan's Law registration-level offenses are graded on a scale using the rubric known as the Juvenile Risk Assessment Scale. It has 14 Criteria divided up into Low, Moderate and High Risk. Each of the 14 criteria have a point scale. 0-low, 1-moderate, 2-high. The points are totaled and your sex-offender number is given. Odd that a score of 0 still puts you in the sex offender scale if you do all of the low-risk things. Here is a link to the breakdown. The strangest one that I observed was the victim gender category. 0-female victim, 1-male victim, 2-female and male victim (which implies multiple crimes, or multiple victims) I think women should be outraged at this. I thought we were all equal? So. apparently, sexually assaulting an underage man is worse than sexually assaulting an underage woman. What kind of message are we sending to our sex offenders?
Just for fun, lets do a Juvenile Risk Assessment of this situation based on the news report I read. Take note, these are 14-year olds (now 16) who "sexually assaulted" two 12-year olds (now 14). I don't know where the offense happened.
1. offense history: 1 (Moderate, threats; minor physical force). They have to receive this rating because we must assume that the boys did not consent to having bare butt cheek placed in their faces, so were probably held down somehow.
2. Degree of Contact: 0 (Low, No contact; fondling over clothing) We must assume the victim's clothes were on, but fondling and No contact should surely be in separate categories. RIGHT? isn't no contact.. uh.. NOTHING? so not sexual offense. right? RIGHT? we can't say it was a 1. fondling under clothing because the clothes were probably on.
3. Age of Victim(4 or more year age difference): 1.(11-15) I know in many states, statutory rape is defined by a 4 year age difference. So i guess this category doesn't apply if its less than a 4 year age difference so maybe it should really be a 0. so actually its a 0.
4. Victim Selection: 1 (acquaintance). We may even be able to say these people were strangers making it a 2, but I'll assume they knew each other from school.
5. Number of offenses/victims: 0,1. (first, two known offenses/victims). Again, this is a little confusing, not well defined. 1st offense, definitely two victims, or did one boy only butt face one other boy? I dunno. we will say its a 1 for lack of definition.
6. Duration of offensive behavior: 0 (less than one year). I think the butt face incident only happened once. but now that this has dragged out for more than 2 years. that's offensive behavior, the victims probably still think about it, god a butt in your face. I mean, I don't want a butt in my face, but I don't think that it is worthy of a Megan's law offense.
7. Length of time since last offense: 0 (4 or more years). Why is this category here for 1st timers?
8. Victim Gender: 1 (male). I spoke about this earlier. if women can vote, drive, enlist, drink beer, do everything men can, except get drafted, should not the levels of risk for sexual offense be the same? Maybe its a gay sex offender, does that make him a WORSE sex offender than the straight one?
9. History of Anti Social Behavior: 0 (no history or very limited history). I don't know anything about these kids, but as far as I know, when I was 14, the bullies were the popular kids.
10. Substance Abuse: 0 (no history). I'll assume these kids were on the up and up at 14.
11. Response to sex offender treatment: 0 (good progress) do these kids need to go to treatment? the judges acknowledged that it was to humiliate and degrade the victims through sexual contact. Humiliation and degradation don't seem like the goals of most sex offenders. I think the kids' parents could probably have treated their children in this instance. Is it the state's place to raise our kids?
12. sex offender specific therapy: 2 (no involvement). I am going to assume they are not in therapy... because they don't need therapy, they need a slap on the wrist. yeah its messed up to put someone's ass cheeks in someone else's face, but we also have to change in a locker room full of naked-same-sex people. So... trip the wrong way, and possible law suit says this law. The real rating here is probably a 0. Because the parents are probably forcing them into therapy.
13. Residential support: 1. (stable and appropriate location but no external support) What is an external support system? What is a stable and appropriate location? None of these make sense at all. parents and uh... parents for both... clearly they aren't doing a great job if it came to this.
14. employment/educational stability: 0. (stable and appropriate) probably in school, probably doing ok.
so Even by my gross misinterpretations of these arbitrary grades, they only have an 8. in a more reasonable argument, they would have a 5 or a 4.
And one of these categories is gender... which I am pretty sure if you stuck your butt cheeks in a girl's face, it would be way worse than doing it to a male play-mate. at least from chivalry's point of view.
I am not trying to defend sex offender's here, nor am i saying that these boys' behaviors was OK. It is gross. When I was 13, a classmate pulled my pants down in gym class for all the world to see. What did I do? I pulled up my pants, and never spoke to that kid again. Guess what? He didn't graduate High School, and now he is in the Marines. Maybe he is waiting to strike and pull down more pants. Doubtful.
Megan's Law is an appropriate response to sexual predators. Statutory rape is a crime and anyone who commits it should be locked away forever. These 14-year-olds have been dragged into legislature that they probably didn't even understand at the time. I know, "Ignorance of the Law is no excuse from the Law." But How these Judges interpreted Megan's Law, which is meant to warn Parents of convicted sex offenders in their area is an atrocity. It is a shameful reading of the law and will ruin 2 kids' lives, and possibly more in the future. The act committed by these two boys is not "criminal sexual contact". Children are immature.
The Judges are the true criminals here. They are not doing their Job properly. By interpreting the law in this way, they define this act as criminal sexual contact forever in the future and weaken Megan's Law. A law that covers everything covers nothing.
The next time you are thinking about mooning someone, think again.
