Daniel's Law

Let me just say this before it passes us by.

Because it shouldn't pass us by.

And I hope it doesn't.

Australia just passed a guilty verdict on the man who sexually molested and killed a 13 year old boy here in southeast Queensland 12 years ago. I don't know all the details because I can't bear to hear them. Maybe he didn't molest this one because this one struggled and that is why he died. I've been hearing about this case ever since we moved here. Everyone here knows Daniel Morecombe was waiting at a busstop to go to get his haircut and the bus driver passed him by because the bus was full. But waved to him that another bus would be coming soon.

Except this creep found him first.

I don't know how the Morecombe's can bear it, let alone start a national campaign for awareness and prevention as well as going into schools and teaching other children how to be safe so that the same thing that happened to their little boy doesn't happen to them. It took them ten years to find the body and two more to prosecute the man everyone knew was guilty.

But I do know that Australian understatedness is just killing me.

They gave this guy – a guy who has been in prison before for molesting children and was let go on parole– a life term with possibility of parole in twenty years.

Are you friggin' kidding me?!

The Morecombes say they are disappointed with the sentence but are certain he will die in prison.

Are you friggin' kidding me?!

How certain can you be when there is THE POSSIBILITY OF PAROLE? For someone who was parolled before and then killed your little boy?

The guy who let him out of prison the first time says he's sorry he did.

Ya think?!

They are working for a national registry for convicted sex offenders – like Megan's Law in the USA – but the justice system is worried this would lead to vigilantes taking matters into their own hands.

I know this had been said before but....

Are we actually worried about protecting convicted, parolled sex molesters more than we are worried about protecting ourselves and our children?

Are you friggin' kidding me?!

There are very few rights that we don't, as a democracy, have. We can choose our partners, our haircolour, what books we read, who we hang out with, what music we listen to, who we vote for, who to pray to, what to teach our children, where to send them to school, what we want to believe.

But it has never at any time in any civilisation been our right to kill another human being.  (Defining "human" being something else we have had to work on.)

That man did not have the right to sexually molest children or to kill them.

And others shouldn't have the right to try. Or to be protected so that they can try again.

There should be a Daniel's Law here the way there is a Megan's law in the USA.

It won't protect our children from every psychopath out there, but it will let us know which neighbour not to trust as a baby sitter. I looked up the list when I lived in Arizona and NAMES came up in HANDFULS just within our walking area.

(Of course when Damon got home he found I had also been inadvertantly registered in a few inappropriate sex sites, but hey.... Sorry babe, not researching what you wish I was!)

It's not about forgiveness and second chances. Look what Daniel's killer did with those.

It can't be about an individual's right to privacy. They gave that up when they took that right away from someone else. Against their will. Forcefully.

It's about protecting ourselves and our children.

Are we actually worried more about protecting the rights of convicted sex offenders to anonymity more than we are our own childrens' rights to safety?

There should be a Daniel's Law and a Megan's Law because there is no Daniel or Megan.