Review of “Among the Sex Offenders” (2014)

Moving picture, 58 minutes

Louis Theroux (cast).

Seen in 2018.

California law governing “290s”, convicted sex offenders. In one part of the story, an area is designated a park just because a park is considered a place where children will congregate, for the purposes of a law that forbids sex offenders from living near any such place.

A good illustration of the extreme moral polarization and paranoia of contemporary US society. Everybody gets to treat these people like shit for the rest of their lives, and everybody does, including other sex offenders. So they want to die and fantasize about self-castration to be free. The offenders certainly seem very unpleasant but the vilification is punitive, not preventive.

entry in unreviewed series moving picture non-fiction