Repeat offenders have put themselves beyond the pale, especially child molesters and sex offenders. For the good of the community they should be tagged, as well report weekly to the local Police. This is perhaps more caring and humane than a life in gaol, and the general public is protected.
As for civil libertarians they are smug , self-righteous pains in the posterior. We have such a one in Qld.I believe he is what is termed a 'criminal lawyer'(nothing wrong with that) It is my understanding that such a person uses a point of law - ei: "Was the arresting Officer wearing Police issue socks? No! then technically he was not in uniform so the arrest was illegal" ( I am not suggesting that this lawyer works outside the law)- This civil libertarian is letting crims loose into the community. So much for the civil liberties of the rest of us.

Numbat,you nailed it pretty well ,however some lawyers have the morality and discipline of a paedophile ,with the differential of lusting after money instead.

There is a balance between the rights of the sex offender, having done his time for his crime and protecting society - the recidivism rates of certain classes of sex offenders is enough to suggest the certain damage they will cause upon release is enough to guarantee they should be permanently tagged and monitored for the rest of their lives (and possibly dyed purple so we can all see them coming).

This is obviously another pro-choice article. The abortionists are saving some 100,000 little souls from pedophilia every year, in Australia alone. If only tagging was allowed by these nasty civil libertarians … things could be so much better.

Seeker: We kill, murder, slay and dispose of unwanted perfectly formed and completely healthy children by the thousands, to our shame. So no wonder, seeing the love we show the unborn, that deviates sexualy abuse those we allow to live for what ever reason. Regards, numbat

seeker - I fail to see what “pro-choice” has to do with imposing limits on the opportunity for paedophiles to inflict their abuse on children.

Pro-Choice, in the context of abortion, is about an individual woman exercising authority over her own body and her own bodily processes.

Pro-Life is about a group of control freaks demanding to subvert the sovereign rights of women - complete strangers - and force them to obey the demands of Pro-Life.

Tagging paedophiles is about protecting children from control freaks who would exploit them and force them to obey the demands of paedophiles.

It must be a long bow which you aim to make such claims seeker – maybe you could be more erudite in your explanation for making such a claim.

Don’t mind me Col, you just go ahead protecting the rights of women to make their choices. This was just me thinking aloud – trying to gain some relativity on these two classes of crime. For example if 80,000 of those 100,000 are perfectly good babies, no health risk to the mother or the baby, and abortion was a result of lifestyle choice, or simply, “because we can, and choose to”, then pedophiles probably rely on similarly flawed value and decision systems. What’s more, they could probably claim higher moral ground, if in the midst of their sexual deviation madness, they believe in the value of life.

After all, sexual deviation continues to gain respect in our society. Gay marriages are about to become a reality. Even old feminists are verging on crossing the line – think Germaine Greer.

As for mothers who choose to allow their foetus to eventually venture out – the rate (and severity) of child abuse (or even murder rates), probably dwarf the risks of pedophilia. If tagging judges, kings of pop and frustrated old feminists is the best solution we have in protecting our children, then I choose to remain sceptical.

As a father of 3 I endured the child sexual abuse campaign of the late 80’s (or was it early 90’s ?), when my then wife would look at me sideways if I got too close to my children. We now continue the theme by giving serious consideration to banning family snaps at our children’s swimming carnivals… Hope you’re OK with my rambling thoughts, Col.

Seeker – I am a father of two 20+ daughters. My ex-wife never “looked at me sideways” during or since our marriage.

Read my last post.

Turning contemporary sexual values into an omnibus where paedophilia, abortion and hedonistic indulgence is rolled into one, as you are doing, just rationalises the corruption of paedophiles present, demeans loving gay relationships and twists the right of individual adults to make their own choices, by adding incidence numbers to them.

Let us get this right as a basis for moral values as they exist in the real world

What a woman does with her own body, how she chooses to use that body, has nothing to do with the self-righteous busybodies who somehow feel they have the right to demand we all follow their edicts, further noting “abortion” is not a “crime” and claims that it is merely illustrates the formings of a twisted mind.

What occurs between two consenting adults is a private matter concerning those two consenting adults and regardless of what the same self-righteous might feel, has nothing to do with them. “Gay marriage” represents a public announcement of a bond of love between two individuals – I am not Gay but certainly understand that emotion. Likewise – as a committed couple there is no reason why a committed gay couple should be deprived of the types of insurance, legal and other social benefits which committed hetrosexual couples expect.

Now paedophiles -

On the one side, an adult in a position of power and
On the other side – unwilling participant(s), a child or children, easily manipulated and which the evil adult will use every form of lying, deceit, blackmail and intimidation to subject to that adults sick will.

If you cannot see the difference between paedophiles, gay marriages and abortions (two involve consenting adults and one heinous predatory abuse against unconsenting children ) – you are one sick puppy.

You may dislike my stand on abortion but you corrupt your own writings if you use it here - it reads like you are defending paedophiles.

The concept of pre-emptive restriction to lessen the risk of a crime occuring is an old one. Mostly it does not involve the wearing of electronic tags but then it often does not involve any history of offence either. Cases in point (and I choose not to make value judgements about their value or legitimacy in this post).
- Restrictions on gun ownership.
- background Checks/Blue cards for people working with children.
- the forced wearing of ID cards required in many work places

There are probably plenty of other items which could be viewed as a restriction on freedom which can be added to the list. Maybe the council dog control officer who visited my property the other day and left a card in my letterbox telling me no action was required (I don't have a dog and have never had one).

The old "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" (or visa versa). I do have concerns about restrictions on the privacy or freedom of those who have not previously offended, few when the individual has shown a willingness to offend and we have reason to believe that they may be an ongoing risk.