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March 6, 2008, 5:04 pm PST

03/07 Dr. Phil Now: Disturbing Headlines

Quote From: trlemay

I am the mother of a sex offender...I'll explain, my son at the age of 19 ( by one month) met a girl on MySpace whom he thought was 21.  She had posted 21, she looked 18, I think. They got together after chatting online several times.  He has always liked girls a few years older than him...he asked questions such as "where's your car"  she replied, "it's in the shop", he made other comments and asked other things, she had a reply that would validate her age of 21.  They were together consensually twice.  This girl has been dating a 23 year old and others, my son just happened to be the one to admit to knowing her and being with her, he didn't think anything of it when questioned by the authorities.  This girl was actually 14, her father is an investigator the the local sheriff's dept.  My son is sitting in jail with a whole bunch of young guys in this same situation, he is also sitting in jail with a man that sexually abused his own 4 year old daughter, older men who have forced themselves on young girls within the same age of the girl that my son was with.  I ask why do we place ALL of these people in the same bucket and label them the same?  My thoughts are that the sex offenders have different classifications for the degree of the offense.  Do you agree?  I thought the same as all of you who have expressed your thoughts and feelings as to where they should live and how "they" should be treated by society.  I thought those thoughts until I walked in the shoes of the mother of a sex offender.  I can't express the hurt that I feel, not for me, but for my son and the other kids that do have the scarlet letter forever stamped on their forehead.  Where does my son live when he gets out, where does he work, is banning sex offenders from neighborhoods discrimination, is it fair?  This "girl" that I speak of is still advertising herself on MySpace, with the same age of 21 posted, with the same picture that makes her look pretty close to the age she has posted.  Her life didn't stop, her life didn't change, she's not locked up for entrapment or lying or changing my son's life forever.  What's fair about that 
I agree that our penal system is labeling people as sex offenders who are not preditors.  We need to re-classity the differences between real threats to our children, like a John Cuohy, from people who don't deserve to be placed in that category.  Not everyone who had sex with an under-aged person is a sexual threat.  Our young people are sexually active and look older than we did so why can they engage in sex with someone 18 willingly , not admit their age and then the older person spends the rest of their life with the stigma of being a sexual offender?
 
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