First, they came for the sex offenders

Inmates convicted of offenses such as consensual sex with a minor (statutory rape) or possession of child pornography (which can be pictures of teenagers under eighteen) may serve terms longer than those who have assaulted or even killed a child. At the end of their sentences, sex offenders may be locked up in psychiatric civil commitment, based on psychologists' inconsistent and unscientific predictions of future offense, with no certain date of release. There are currently more than 705,000 people on sex offender registries in the United States, with more added weekly. These registrants include everyone from sadistic rapists to people who have urinated twice on a tree; the information on the registries makes it hard to distinguish one from the other. [...]

Roger Lancaster was moved to write Sex Panic when his friend, a gay teacher, was entangled in a false accusation of sexual abuse. One item of evidence: he invited Lancaster, who is also gay, along on a school trip. I sometimes think the panic will end only when every American knows someone whose life has been destroyed by it. Perhaps this book will hasten that day. With reasoned urgency and stirring intelligence Sex Panic makes palpable the injury this hysteria is inflicting, not only on people accused of sex crimes, but on democracy and freedom themselves.

source: Article 'First, They Came for the Sex Offenders' by Judith Levine; monthlyreview.org/2012/02/01/first-they-came-for-the-sex-offenders; Monthly Review; Volume 63, Issue 9; February 2012