ipl-logo

Sex Offenders In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter

562 Words3 Pages

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Book, The Scarlet Letter, Hester was required to wear an A, a symbol for her crime of adultery. Back then, this seemed to work in the Puritan society, but is it effective today? Today, we have a symbol for sex offenders. Sex offenders cannot live near children or schools, and they have to register as an offender for the rest of their life. But what about those who confessed to their crime, learn from their mistakes, and never do it again? They will have to live with the burden for the rest of their life. In The Scarlet Letter, Hester had to do just that. Hester stood on the scaffold in front of the public as punishment for her affair. But in the seven years she spent serving her punishment, she realized that she did wrong, confessed, and she never did anything like that again. The point is, that Scarlet Letter Laws are unfair compared to the rest of society’s laws today. No other law will require you to register as a sex offender, and restrict you to live near children for the rest of your life. However, there are some aspects of it that are needed, especially if the person is a repeat sex offender. The flaws of the Scarlet Letter Laws are clear. People can change, …show more content…

A new Georgia law forbids registered sex offenders to live or work within 1000 feet of schools, daycares, churches, swimming pools, and even school bus stops. However, according to Source D (Homeless Sex Offender Faces Life Term in Augusta), “Homelessness is not an acceptable excuse.” Now tell me, how do you expect a registered sex offender to even have a home after they get out of jail? Yes, some of them might live with family, but some of them don’t even have that option. Another law that was passed in Florida in October of 2001, required women to run ads in newspapers describing themselves and their sexual histories, if they wanted to put up a child for adoption AND couldn’t find the child’s

Show More
Related

  • Megan Criminal Law

    406 Words  | 2 Pages

    Sex offenders come in all status, all colors, creed, and background. But, they still have certain unalienable rights. All persons have the right to be tried in civil or criminal courts and proven guilty. This takes us to the uniformity act in our judicial system. I agree that if a person is young or old, rich or poor, black or white, the law should be enacted and due process enforced.

    Read More

  • Packingham V. North Carolina First Amendment Case Study

    182 Words  | 1 Pages

    The United States Supreme Court in the Packingham v. North Carolina first amendment case has ruled in favor of Lester Gerard Packingham. The state from now on may not bar social media access to registered sex offenders. The case’s build up dates back to 2002 when 21 year old college student Lester G. Packingham had a sexual relationship with a 13-year-old girl. For involvement with a minor he received a 10-12 month sentence, but having never met problems with the law, the judge required him to go on a 24 month probation and register as a sex offender. Five years had passed and in 2008 North Carolina forbid any person on the sex offender list to use any type of social media.

    Read More

  • Megan's Law Policy Analysis

    1758 Words  | 8 Pages

    Policy Analysis: Megan’s Law Sexual violence, particularly against children, is a significant issue all around the world. In the early 1990’s in the United States, there were multiple well-publicized cases of sexual violence against children. From kidnappings, to rapes, and everything in between, violence was being committed against children and something needed to be done about it. In 1996, Megan’s Law was passed in response to the sexual assault and death of Megan Kanka, a seven-year-old from New Jersey (Corrigan, 2006).

    Read More

  • Constitutionality Of Megan's Law

    2359 Words  | 10 Pages

    On July 29, 1994, New Jersey resident Megan Kanka was lured into the home of Jesse Timmendequas, a convicted sex offender, with promises of seeing a puppy (Corrigan, 2006). Once she entered his house, she was raped twice, strangled with a belt, and suffocated with a bag (Corrigan, 2006). Timmendequas was arrested soon after and confessed to this crime (Corrigan, 2006). This event outraged Kanka's parents and the surrounding community (Corrigan, 2006). They used this tragic death to create Megan's Law as an addition to the Jacob Wetterling Crimes against Children Violent Offender Registration Act, which required sex offenders to register within their counties (Welchans, 2005).

    Read More

  • Flawed Criminal Justice Policy Summary

    523 Words  | 3 Pages

    Chapter Eight of the book Flawed Criminal Justice Policies, authors take the closer look at the laws and faulty policy regarding the sex offenders. According to the book policy makers started the myriad laws to protect the public from the sex offenders with increased prison sentences, and restricting the residences to the violators. Today we have very similar situation when it comes to treatment of sexual offenders. The process starts with the sex offender being committed to the prison sentence, and lastly to being registered as a sex offender on many public websites, so that the people could distinguish who the sex offender is and where he/she lives. In this chapter we can learn about a lot of different statues that were made to protect people from the sex offenders.

    Read More

  • Adam Walsh Research Paper

    2118 Words  | 9 Pages

    No research to date has indicated that applying harsher penalties or mandating national registries has reduced the recidivism rates among sex offenders, reduced sex trafficking against minors, nor child pornography. Despite the ongoing efforts of The Adam Walsh Act alongside other child safety acts as well, children in the United States are still perishing from sexual and physical abuse each day. According to data from the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS), “49 States reported a total of 1,585 fatalities. Based on these data, a nationally estimated 1,670 children died from abuse or neglect in FFY 2015, which is 5.7 percent more than in 2011. This translates to a rate of 2.25 children per 100,000 children in the general population and an average of nearly five children dying every day from abuse or neglect”.(www.childwarefare.gov) Human Rights Watch shares that “the real risks that children face are quite different: government statistics indicate that most sexual abuse of children are committed by family members or trusted authority figures, and by someone who has not previously been convicted of a sex offense.

    Read More

  • Megan's Law Essay

    914 Words  | 4 Pages

    Megan’s Law is a federal law that has changed the course of the criminal justice system in the United States of America. Prior to Megan’s law, convicted sex offenders were able to easily re-offend due to lack of public notification. In the year 2000, it is estimated that there were more than 248,000 sexual victimizations and over an 8-year period in the United States there were 366,460 attempted or completed rapes and sexual assaults (Welchans, 2005). The prevalence of sexual assault, rape, and pedophilia in the United States has sparked a large conversation over the last decade, which has led to the creation of several laws, including Megan’s Law. This analysis of Megan’s Law will focus on the positive aspects that implementing this law has

    Read More

  • Megan's Law Essay

    748 Words  | 3 Pages

    Megan's Law is a controversial law that requires sex offenders to register with law enforcement authorities upon their release from prison. The law was enacted in response to the sexual assault and murder of 7-year-old Megan Kanka by a neighbor who had twice been convicted of similar sex offenses and was on parole. The law requires offenders to provide their name, photograph, physical description, list of offenses, current address, place of employment or school, and automobile license plate number. In terms of the ideal characteristics of criminal law, Megan's Law can be seen as a positive step towards protecting public safety. The law aims to prevent future crimes by providing the public with information about convicted sex offenders in their

    Read More

  • JJDPA Analysis

    1292 Words  | 6 Pages

    Furthermore, this leaves room for states to implement their own practices and ways to address status offenders. It has also been argued that the Act “fractured the juvenile justice system so that officials in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare handled white, middle-income youth” (Hinton, 2015, p. 816). Programs which labeled white youths as “children in trouble” marked minority youths as “chronic offenders” who were deemed a danger to society, and tried as an adult. The exceptions and revisions that have been made to the Act make it possible for repeat status offenders to be detained in secure

    Read More

  • Special Session 11 Punishment

    1091 Words  | 5 Pages

    The passing of these new laws changed the lives of thousands of children from then on out. Children tried as adults often face lengthy prison sentences sometimes as long as life without parole. Such sentences send the message to children that if they mess up that there is absolutely no hope for rehabilitation. The laws were originally placed in order to “scare kids straight” so to speak; it was to keep them from using violence because the fear that they could spend their life in prison. Yet, minors who commit accidental crimes or are an

    Read More

  • Public Shaming In The Scarlet Letter Essay

    966 Words  | 4 Pages

    In Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne, a Puritan woman, commits adultery with Reverend Dimmesdale. As a form of punishment, the judge forces Hester to wear a scarlet letter to signify her wrongdoing. The purpose of the scarlet letter is to correct Hester’s conduct. With the symbol of the scarlet letter, Hester’s Puritan community publicly judges and ridicules her. Today, judges sometimes still use public shaming as a form of punishment.

    Read More

  • Sex Offender Registry

    275 Words  | 2 Pages

    “Teenager’s Jailing Brings a Call to Fix Sex Offender Registries,” is an article written by Julie Bosman, and published by the New York Times Newspaper. The article is written about a 19-year-old named Zachery Anderson who is listed on a sex offender registry for life. The cause of this was talking to an under aged female through a dating app called “Hot or Not.” Although, Zachary Anderson did not know that the girl who had lied about her being 17, was actually 14, he later plead guilty to what had happened. Reading this newspaper article had me thinking about all sorts of things, whether it was about the fact that Zachary had sex with a female who was under the age of consent in Michigan or the fact that he was put on the sex offender registry.

    Read More

  • Hester's Punishment In The Scarlet Letter

    640 Words  | 3 Pages

    Hester's punishment was a judicial sentence; however, being forced to stand on the scaffold for three hours, and to wear the scarlet letter "A" for the rest of her life. It was socially humiliating. Hester was sent to prison for committing adultery. Hester was forced to live with the consequences by wearing the scarlet letter "A". Hester is physically and emotionally reminded of her sin, while wearing the scarlet letter "A".

    Read More

  • The Role Of Adultery In The Crucible

    685 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the novels, The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, discipline played an important role. Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter committed adultery and was sentenced to wear the letter “A” on her bosom at all times and to stand on a scaffold every Sunday at twelve. In The Crucible, discipline was known to be more extreme. Innocents began to lose lives as they were either hanged or pressed by stone. In both novels, the discipline was supported by the townspeople.

    Read More

  • Hypocrisy Of The Puritan Society In The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne

    936 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the “Scarlet Letter,” Nathaniel Hawthorne portrays hypocrisy of the Puritan society, where the protagonist Hester Prynne face many consequences of her actions and the how she tries to redeem herself to the society. During the seventeenth puritans believe that it is their mission to punish the ones who do not follow God’s word and it is their job to stop those from sinning. Therefore, the hypercritical puritan society punishes Hester harshly for committing adultery, but in Hester’s mind, she believes that what she did was not a sin but acts of love for her man. Eventually, she redeems herself by turning her crime into an advantage to help those in need, yet the Puritan society still view her as a “naughty bagger.” (Hawthorne 78)

    Read More

More about Sex Offenders In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter

Open Document