Doug Miller recently wrote an impassioned post (okay, "pissed off" is a better description) on sex-offender Joseph Duncan and our flawed system for handling these people. Doug believes folks guilty of sex-offenses should be locked up and never let out of the clink.

Doug, I absolutely agree with you. This isn't about punishment, or justice... it's about pruning the tree. After incarceration, we return sex-offenders to a society they can never be part of, and pretend they will not do it again simply because they have been jailed for awhile. From Google's cache, Joseph Duncan blogged about it:

Monday, March 01, 2004, Daily Torment, 8:47 AM

Just got back from Florida visiting my friend and his family. I had a lot of fun and I felt very welcomed by my friends family even though they know full well about my past. We Spent a day in Epcot Center at Disney World, that was a lot of fun. Then we drove to Tampa (where he lives) and I got to eat at some great local restaurants having terrific seafood. We also went to the Strawberry Festival which was a pretty big fair and also a lot of fun. I like traveling because I feel more "normal" because of the anonymity of being a traveler. For example, at the Tampa airport they called my name over the intercom to ask me if I wanted to switch to an emergency exit row seat, I did not cringe when they called my name the way I do when I am around where I live. In fact, when I got to Minneapolis to change planes and continue home, I immediately started feeling self conscious. At the gate where we were boarding for the last hop every time I saw someone looking at me I thought they recognized me (as a sex offender) because they might remember me from the police web site or newspapers. I don't know how the courts can pretend this law does not penalize sex offenders. It is a daily torment for me.

Did Duncan deserve his daily torment? Sure, if you hold him to the standards of a "normal human living in a normal society." But a normal person wouldn't do what he has done. All we accomplish with Megan's Law and community notification is the creation of conditions for further tragedy, blinding ourselves to the real problem. These people aren't reformable, they're broken. A frustrated broken person eventually tries to break the machine they cannot fit into.

Statistically, crimes of this sort are on the rise. Those who commit them generally have a history of being abused in some fashion themselves. People like this aren't just born. It's easy to think that way, to draw a simple line which separates us from them, but in truth there is nothing more than a fuzzy smudge to represent where they begin to deviate socially from others, and some black spots in their past where someone warped their development by abusing them. Doug calls them "monsters" and "filth", which is valid from the majority's view, but obscures the truth.

We're creating these people.

We've created a society awash in violence and sexual objectification of youth, one of uncaring parents ill-prepared for kids, parents who must focus on money rather than their children. It's a society of people without the slightest understanding of social responsibility because they have no connection to any society other than the one shown on their televisions and the devastating emptiness of their own family.

We made Joseph Duncan. We're the responsible parties, you and I and all of us.

Don't believe me? Go to Victoria's Secret and answer this: how old are these models? Flip through the pages of any grocery store beauty magazine and consider the ages of the women you see in ads for skin care. How old are the main characters in violent video games? What, almost to a film, is the backbone of any Hollywood blockbuster today? Sex and violence as power. Better yet, just make a bet with yourself for how long and in how much lurid detail the media will cover this case and shove it in the faces of every viewer. We gorge ourselves on it, and then call foul to cover our own sick fascination.

"But wait," I hear you cry, "he had a choice! He chose to do these terrible things. He's responsible, not I." This line of reasoning requires a further acknowledgment for your position: there are people out there right now, walking around free, capable of committing these same acts but choosing not to. And on a bad day, they'll choose to harm, just as Joseph Duncan did. I'd prefer a society where people are not capable of harming children like this, wouldn't you? A society where it's not a choice, because it's an action people wouldn't even consider. They consider it because it is part of their culture, and this brings it home to you and to me as active forces within that same culture.

Don't misunderstand: I'm not advocating banning sexed-up advertising, or placing restrictive laws on movie content, or censorship of any form. The more you hide something, the more desire you create for it. Censorship won't work.

But neither will the "Hang 'Em High!" of the Old West or the complacent naivete of Ike-Land. We need to face up to our own responsibility.

We are society. We are the ones who can continue to say this is acceptable as a substrate for our existence or who can work to slowly change it. If you have kids, you might start by paying more attention to them, and explaining all of this even if it's difficult, even if you fumble. Ignoring it won't make it go away, and they swim in it every single day. Teach them of the goodness of family and love and even (gasp!) that sex is not dirty, not violent and is definitely not power. Most importantly, be a shining example. If you don't have children but want to be a parent, you might start by waiting until you are more capable of raising them properly, until you are mentally and financially stable and understand the above concepts yourself. You might start by acknowledging that yes, we do have a problem. You might start by getting your own fascinations with youth as beauty and violence as power in line.

It starts with abused children and poor parenting. If we end those, we end all of this.

My own emotions say the same thing Doug says: this guy is "filth." But if we think of it in this way, we'll never see the real problem, of which we are all a part. Until we see the real problem, we'll never get a real solution.

And a real solution is the only option left.