Age makes a difference

Age makes a difference

Columbus Dispatch: Many people rightly fear living near a sex offender, so a new ruling by the Ohio Supreme Court touches an issue that is emotionally and legally thorny: What to do with those who prey on children and are, themselves, still kids.

On one hand, adolescents are not small-scale adults. Their brains still are developing. Youthful, errant behavior might well be more a factor of immature judgment and weak impulse control than an adult’s firmly rooted criminal behavior.

On the other hand, publishing offenders’ names and photographs satisfies the public’s desire to be warned, so that children and other potential victims can be protected.

Ohio’s justices mirrored this split, ruling 5-2 last Tuesday to strike down a lifetime registration-and-notification requirement for the worst juvenile sex offenders.

The court had no quibble with mandatory reporting for adults, but said the juvenile justice system is structured to redeem, cloaking names of offenders to permit them to get treatment and graduate into a lawful adulthood.

The case involved an Athens County juvenile who had admitted to raping his little sister when he was 11 and a younger nephew when he was 15. Along the way, he’d also molested five or six other young girls.

But while adult sexual offenders are the hardest of all criminals to rehabilitate, two experts from the behavioral-health department at Nationwide Children’s Hospital point to national studies that peg the recidivism rate at 7 to 14 percent for juvenile sex offenders who receive proper treatment.

Obviously, the emphasis must be on ensuring that youthful sex offenders receive treatment.