Mari's Law

Another U.S. import coming to Spain. Too bad that it is necessary. This article in El Pais talks about the hand-wringing that will go on over the perceived "Big-Brother" issues of registering sex offenders. I find it interesting (yes, again) that El Pais does not mention the U.S. and our system, only that "some European countries" also register sex offenders. I guess they don't like to admit that yet again, what happens in the U.S., happens in Spain. And that with all their talk of how the U.S. takes away freedoms and has a police state, Spain will have to do exactly the same thing because all societies have nasty perverts.

The Death of Mari Luz sounds pretty damned familiar. For us it was Megan Kanka raped and killed in 1994. The law requiring sex offenders to be monitored and kept an eye on is called Megan's Law. Now there is an internet data base of every person ever convicted of a sex offense showing where they live and what they look like. Check out this link and follow the instructions to get to the map page. Put in "91367" in the zip code (postal code) box and click "view map". This is a run-of-the-mill L.A. neighborhood. There are a lot of blue dots out there - click on them. It is pretty scary if you put in your zip code too.

This system does cause some unintended consequences of course. Once people find out these guys live near them they don't want them there, they don't want them anywhere. Many of these people have no place to go because of this. Well, I guess they made some choices in life that brought this upon themselves.

Critics here say this is double punishment. This same argument will be made in Spain of course. But in the end some kind of equivalent system is surely going to come out in Spain. I know Spain thinks we are too harsh on criminals. But I'm pretty sure people in Spain get pissed off about rape and murder just like we do.