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In today’s society there are few groups of people reviled more than sexual predators, I understand from anecdotal stories that in prisons sexual predators, especially of children, are often harmed and harassed by the other convicts. Few would hesitate to label them “sinners,” and rightfully so, as such crimes are especially heinous and damaging to their victims.

A recent Newsweek article talks about Ron Book and his daughter Lauren who was sexually and physically abused by a nannie for years before divulging what evils were being perpetrated upon her. Ron spent years channelling his anger into lobbying for tighter laws, such as increased prison time for sexual convicts who contact their victims, and HIV testing of convicts if victims request it.

One particular ordinance he got passed prevented sexual ex-convicts from living 2500 ft from schools, daycares, etc. This made much of the city inaccessible at night (as this restriction was only during evening/nighttime hours) to these ex-convicts, driving them to the next city, until the next city passed a similar ordinance, which drove them from one city to the next as such ordinances were passed.

The video below shows a shanty town that many of these ex-convicts in Florida have created beneath a freeway because there is no where else for them to live.

Now, I will be checking the sex offender list if we have to a nannie/babysitter, or place Ben in daycare. I’m grateful I have access to those records. But to drive these people out and away, when our penal system says they have paid their debt to society to both unChristian and dangerous. As the article states:

“This very-well-intended policy is making the public less safe,” says Susan Brown-McBride, chair of the California Sex Offender Management Board. It “destabilizes [offenders] by making them homeless.”

“If an offender ends up with no residence, that shouldn’t make any of us feel safer,” says Patty Wetterling, whose son’s abduction prompted the creation of the first federal sex-offender registry in 1994. “What they need is stability, support, counseling, and treatment.”

The New Testament says:

15 And it came to pass, that, as Jesus sat at meat in his house, many publicans and sinners sat also together with Jesus and his disciples: for there were many, and they followed him.
16 And when the scribes and Pharisees saw him eat with ^apublicans and sinners, they said unto his disciples, How is it that he eateth and drinketh with publicans and sinners?
17 When Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, They that are ^awhole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

Perhaps we need to take Christ at his word when he suggests there is something to be gained by ministering to sinners. It makes not just Christian-sense, but, as it was stated in the article, social-safety sense to minister to these people. If we let our revenge and anger blind us we will punish ourselves by making our society less safe rather than guiding these souls into healing and growth.

As an LDS missionary we tracted into a man who confided in us was convicted decades before as a sexual predator. He couldn’t read and lived in poverty. He told us he wanted a clean start to his life. My father sent him the Book or Mormon on cassette and he listened to it.

After he was interviewed for baptism by another missionary, the mission president talked to me on the phone. He said, “How many years do we make this man wait before he gets to start again? Does he have to wait 20 years? 30 years? 40 years? I think he deserves another chance, Elder Thatcher, don’t you?”

I know my words right now might be very different if I had been the victim of sexual abuse, but after meeting, teaching, and baptizing this man (who, by the way, I hear is one of the only people still active from the ranks of those I saw baptized) I can’t help but wonder how many souls are lost and communities are made less safe because we refuse to minister to the sinners among us.