This has been a weird week for those accused of being child predators.

This topic started off in Pierre with a really sketchy report, that didn't tell the public anything at all...

Local mother Danyel Doolittle heard about the incident like many people around Pierre — a chain e-mail forwarded around the community claiming a man exposed himself this week to two children at Rawlins Library and then followed them to the Oahe YMCA. And like many people, Doolittle was scared by the prospect of that happening to her children.

“I know the perverts are out there,” Doolittle said. “But to actually have something like that happen in a public space where we consider our kids to be safe — that’s terrifying.”

Pierre police said they are investigating the matter and aren’t yet certain what actually occurred. They are looking for a man pictured in a still frame taken from a security camera attached to the chain e-mail. Assistant Police Chief Elton Blemaster said police aren’t yet ready to say if a crime had been committed.

“We just need some more information,” Blemaster said. “We’re looking for the one gentleman who can provide it for us. If we knew who the person was and we saw a definite crime on camera, a warrant would have probably already been issued or at least in the works.”

and..

Though the chain e-mail says the photo is being circulated at the request of the police, Blemaster said the e-mail and image were not generated by anyone at the police department. He said he does not know how the original sender got the image.

Read it here in the Capitol Journal.  In case you're wondering what was in the chain e-mail....  (I'm blotting out the names and identifying information, since I have no idea whether or not it has any basis in fact..)

-----Original Message-----
From: (REDACTED)
Sent: Tuesday, August 25, 2009 2:23 PM
To:
Subject: Picture

Hello Everyone

I am attaching a picture of a man who was fondling himself in front of my niece and nephew and the Pierre Library and proceeded to follow them to the YMCA, the police ask my sister to pass the pictures around to see if someone might know him. Please let me know by emailing back. Please forward the attachment to others so that they may be warned and possibly someone might recognize him! We need to get this out there in case he is still around Pierre or South Dakota for that matter. Please if someone recognizes him please contact the Pierre Police Department @ 605-773-7410.

The parent in me has a specific gut reaction to accusations of someone fondling themself, milling around the library, and following kids to the YMCA next door, which houses the largest after-school program in the city. Of course, the rational person in me scratches my head that someone took it upon themselves to get this kind of footage and start shipping it around to half the town in Pierre.

What if it's not true? What if there's a plausible explanation?  Has someone now been branded that actually might be without guilt? Troubling questions in light of e-mail vigilantism.

But then there's the other side of the coin.  The horrendous story that came out of the news yesterday:

An 11-year-old California girl kidnapped in 1991 while waiting for a school bus has been found alive, and a convicted sex offender is accused of raping and fathering two children with her while he and his wife held her captive in their backyard.

Despite the shocking revelations, the discovery of Jaycee Lee Dugard brought sudden relief to her family 18 years after their young girl disappeared.

Dugard had been kept with the two girls, ages 11 and 15, in a series of tents and sheds hidden behind the Antioch, Calif., home of Phillip and Nancy Garrido, the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office said Thursday at a news conference. The couple has been arrested on several charges stemming from the discovery.

Dugard and her two daughters are "in good health, but living in a backyard for the past 18 years does take its toll," Undersheriff Fred Kollar said.

Read that here at Foxnews.com.  My immediate reaction is that this is one of those cases which causes people to consider life in prison too light of a sentence for the type of monsters that would commit such a crime.

In light of this type of story, the reaction from a few parents in Pierre is more than understandable.  Because anyone who hurts, or has designs on sexually abusing a child needs to be removed and segregated from society.

In fact, South Dakota legislators are talking about the topic of sex offenders over the legislative interim. Why? Because right now, we have a one size fits all approach. It's very topical, as just week, KELO reported on it:

Senator Gene Abdallah is the chairman of the committee looking at the changes. Abdallah says some of the offenders on the sex offender registry don't deserve to be on it their entire life.

"We've had examples of 16 and 18 year olds dating, and he's considered an adult at 18, and she's not, and something happens and he gets on the sex offender registry and is on there for life," Abdallah said.

Abdallah doesn't want to call it weakening the laws, he says he is still in favor of keeping some of the most serious offenders on the registry for life.

Read that here.

And Abdallah is right. South Dakota is placing people on the registry who 40 or 50 years ago would have been marched to the church by extremely unhappy parents because a high school couple got pregnant. In 2009, we live in more enlightened times, which means now that a high school sweetheart gets reported to the police, and they can be labeled a sex offender.

While they might be 2-3 years apart in age, they might have been in the same high school class, or one, possibly two grades apart. A situation that many parents might not find offense to while they're dating. They might have found it "darling" or "romantic." But then the kids get into things best left to adults (who themselves are known to exercise poor judgment) and now formerly encouraging parents are calling the state's attorney.

Which makes it that much more difficult for that man-child who is now a parent to support his progeny, since he's likely been jailed, and on the registry. Even worse, the law is going to be applied inconsistently, based mainly on whether a parent is mad enough to report it.

The incidents this week simply highlight the fact that one size does not fit all.  We spend time, effort and money policing and prosecuting high school romances in the same manner we treat child predators. Instead of selectively prosecuting stupidity, we need to divert them to counseling, education (and possibly job training), and go after true predators with vigor and the full force of the law.

High school romances resulting in a pregnancy and those who attack and kidnap and kill children for sexual gratification are opposite extremes on the spectrum, and our legislators need to figure out a logical place to draw the line between folly and criminal conduct.

In the case that arose yesterday, we find that the pervert who captured the child 18 years ago was a convicted sex offender. He was a parolee who was under supervision most, if not the entire time this happened. Sexual predators who prey on children have such an incredibly high rate of recidivism society has more than ample cause to track them and their movements, and to ensure that they never have the chance  for it to happen again. THAT's where our resources should be devoted.

Not to policing high school romances.