In a write-up for the National Crime Prevention Council, where she interned, Nandini complained about the "Eternal Sentence for Juvenile Sex Offenders, "remarking that "Of course, juvenile sex offenders aren’t toddlers, and they generally know what they are doing is wrong. However,
man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them...
a number of things should be considered before we give them a de facto life sentence by listing them on the Internet along with
While one might be inclined to assume that Nandini, like many others, opposes overly pernicious sex offender laws that criminalize consensual sex between two teenagers just one year removed, Nandini goes much further than that.
Citing a rare case involving a fourth grader, Nandini wrote: "Someone like Johnnie, however, (who was referred to by that pseudonym in a New York Times
...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize...
article), may be branded for life. He’s a juvenile sex offender, but he did the crime when he was in fourth grade. That’s the question: would you give a now 14-year old the same "life sentence" that you give a grown man? And if the answer is yes, how would you draw the line between being a teen and being a responsible adult? Can we justify treating a juvenile sex offender as a minor and an adult simultaneously? Perhaps judges should be given discretion in each individual case."
Indeed, Nandini is referring to rapists and people who commit sexual assault.
Nandini argues in her blog that it would be better if we could simply prevent sexual assault in the first place instead of criminalizing offenders. What a concept! Were such a thing possible, laws needn’t exist.