If i was a politician, I could spin it as "Catching Real Sex Offenders Act" where I would refocus the list towards the "scary types" and put the the frivolous ones on a second tier (drunk guy pissing on a wall, kids doing stupid things) or forgiven; and viciously attack politicians who want to distract and waste our police's time & money bothering with a guy who drunkenly pissed on a wall 20 years ago and go after the Real Bad Guys who parents are actually scared of.
I could spin it as "Catching Real Sex Offenders Act" where I would refocus the list towards the "scary types"
This is actually how Minnesota's sentencing laws work. Long before the federal sentencing reform, Minnesota calculated for each convicted criminal a
criminal history score
and
severity score
and used a grid to determine sentence length based on how much a convict was a consistent, dangerous offender. Over time, the grid was adjusted as to specific crimes as criminals learned which offenses were least likely to lengthen their sentences. Minnesota spends less per taxpayer on imprisoning convicts than most states, and yet spends MORE per prisoner on programs that tend to reduce recidivism. Minnesota simply doesn't imprison people for long terms for minor offenses, but uses community-based sanctions to deter and correct those people.
The problem is your opponents would still slap up a bunch of ads saying "elai would let monsters take your children". Most people aren't following the debate they are being sensationalized by 30second editorials.
Not if you sell it right. In fact, I'd argue it isn't even that hard a case to make if you push the right points.
Put it this way: If 10 people are marked as sex offenders in your area but only one of them is actually guilty of a violent sex crime than the 9 other guys wrongfully on the list only serve to make your children less safe. Because they end up distracting you from the real danger and making it so you only pay 1/10th of the attention you should to the one guy who is actually dangerous.
Follow that up with a bunch of real life stories about 17 year olds put on the list for having sex with 16 years olds and you'll be set. Because you'll have proven the current laws make children less safe while themselves harming innocent people.
That's not hard to understand and I don't think it's hard to sell to the American public.
Don't doubt the power of spin. Living wills = death panels in a sizable percentage of the population. You're right, but the truth doesn't matter very much.
Remember, spin can go both ways, even if it seems one party is better at it than the other, and I think that might be what the OP is trying to get across.
Call it the "Serious Sex Crimes Act."
Spin it as:
"America's worst sex offenders are putting our wives and daughters, our mothers and sisters, in increased danger because of a new political plan to force our police to spread their resources too thinly to put these criminals behind bars. Our choice is clear: put our families in danger, or return to a time when we prioritized our law enforcement to protect what is most valuable to all of us."
Done well, it would be difficult to fight -- any protest would be a direct attack on our families.
Sounds nice having both just read the same article, but in the end, people rarely get gung-ho about "spreading law enforcement too thin". Example: war on drugs. It's just not an issue people care enough about to affect their vote.
A better way to sell it is "iron brand the dude that might rape and kill your daughter (but not the mom of the now-married couple)".
I don't understand what you mean by this. If the truth is that the current sex offender laws make kids less safe and you can prove that to people I'd think the truth matters a great deal. People empower "Spin" too much in their heads. The reality is it's reasonably ineffective against someone who can clearly and coherently state the truth.
You have been hanging around smart, reasonable people too long and begun to believe everyone is smart and reasonable. This is unfortunately not the case.
More people are smart and reasonable than you give credit for, the problems are the soundbite-driven media and advancements in the field of marketing and news-as-entertainment.
The truth is that living wills are not death panels, but after some powerful people started the lie it caught on and now half the country believe it. The same thing would happen with something as easy to spin as sex offenders.
The criticism that the article makes is essentially that there isn't enough information - i.e. the public can't tell a 'real' threat from someone who (as a teenager) fell victim to archaic rules.
Are the court records publicly accessible? If so, why not build a database that mashes the Megan's Law DBs with greater detail on the actual cases, so people can make their own judgments of whether they should be concerned (or indeed, should pop round with a casserole to get to know their new neighbor).
