When it comes to criminal behavior of any kind, whether we are talking about sex offenders or illegal tobacco sellers, society has an obligation to protect itself -- and to protect the rights of the accused. That’s the essence of what life in America is supposed to be all about. When it comes to sex offenders, however, we are failing shamefully and disgracefully on both counts – and it doesn’t have to be this way. I am neither a lawyer nor a criminologist. What I do know, however, is that before you can craft a solution for any problem, you have to know what you are trying to do. Job one should be to protect people from predators – and especially to protect children from pederasts. A sex offender registry won’t do that. Matter of fact, I can think of few things more stupid and un-American. What such lists do is lump child rapists with teenage boys who had consensual sex with their slightly younger girlfriends. What these lists are is an invitation to vigilante violence and an invitation to treat people as subhumans. Besides, countless cases of wrong addresses appear. What if I buy a house from someone on the list? I will be instantly classified as a pervert by the neighbors, who have heard that a sex offender lives at my address. Here’s what we need to do. Bring back the concept of criminal insanity. People who are a danger to children should be locked up, in a mental institution, for as long as they are a danger. You don’t see society rushing to release John Hinckley, the man who shot President Reagan in 1981, from the mental hospital where he has been kept ever since. People who want to sexually molest children are not normal. According to the experts, these urges are overwhelmingly powerful, not something that can be changed by a few years in prison. Some think they cannot be changed at all. When that is the case, it should be clear to a hamster that we have an obligation to keep these people in quarantine. To release them, tell people where they live, and then tell them to stay away from parks and playgrounds sounds to me like the worst of all possible worlds. The idea is not to torment these people and make them pariahs. You don’t have to be Freud to know that is likely to increase their potential for psychopathic behavior. I have no sympathy for anyone who would harm a child. However, we need to develop practical solutions. Law enforcement personnel may need a list of the most serious types of sex offenders. I don’t have a problem with that. But I think the courts should rule that public dissemination of any kind of blacklist is unconstitutional on privacy grounds. We’ve had blacklists before in this country, political, racial and ethnic ones. They did great harm. And one thing is certain about such lists.

Sooner or later, one of the names on it may be you