What illegal behavior is part of your past? Speeding? Underage drinking? Leaving a store with an item you didn’t pay for?
If you got caught, were you punished by a state-run website listing your offense and notifying others where you lived? Probably not. But what if those were your punishments? Would they have stopped your objectionable behavior in the future? Probably not.
Because public humiliation generally doesn’t work as a method of behavior modification. And that’s why Megan’s Law, which requires authorities to notify communities of the whereabouts of sex offenders, is a bad idea. Full Opinion Piece
being on a registry?
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. You’re on the registry because you either were found guilty, pled guilty/no contest, or took an Alford plea to a sexual crime. But nobody – absolutely nobody – deserves the public humiliation and harassment of the public registry.
I feel safer if DUI people got a DUI on their license plates, gang members, murders, and drug dealers, and addicts wearing a shock collar with a bright flashing yellow light on it… Why is it its only sex offenders that makes it on the news with registrations? Why isn’t the gang member and arsonist registry public online?
My comment was not posted; as expected. I suppose they just want to hear hate comments, like “castrate them” and philosophical comments. I do not think I am being too hard, and I know I’m not being hateful. Just cold hard empirical facts with links to empirical studies. Here’s what I wrote.
What you forgot to mention and take into account is the large number of people labeled “sex offender” that never did anything sexual. Empirical evidence clearly shows that the vast majority of people labeled “sex offender” have zero interest in children, and those that do have an attraction to children have a re offense rate of 5/10,000 of 1% per year; another way to put it is the percentage of people on the registry that do not re offend is 99.9995%.
http://sosen.org/2014/01/20/who-really-commits-new-sex-crimes.html
By comparison, 1 in 116 police officers are cited for misconduct, 13% are sex related. Estimates tell us there are 800,000 police officers in the USA; over a six month period that equals 893 sex offenses committed by a police officer. “whats that? Don’t believe me?” Then do your homework and learn the truth. Strangers commit less than 2% of all sex offenses, while police officers commit 3%. The vast majority of sex offenses are committed by people not on the registry and the majority of new sex offenses are committed by someone familiar with the victim.
http://www.ucimc.org/content/national-police-misconduct-statistics-released
My point is that the registry is a pointless, useless, waste of time and money (as empirical evidence proves) and if anyone is willing to wake up they will see that politicians make John Q public think there is a danger and they will protect them, (“just vote for me so I can keep my job and waste your money by giving you a false sense of security while trashing all things in the constitution and Bill of rights that scores upon scores of heroes died died defending”) which is nothing less than a crock.
If Adam Walsh and every other child these laws are named after knew what was being done in their name I’m sure they would not approve. Below is a link to a child’s video describing the hell her life is because of the registry. THE REGISTRY HARMS INNOCENT CHILDREN.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0Z-mMpVWb4
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCprVHSlYyIvXNdcfhJXrvMA
Look up the Nuremberg Laws while your at it. You might be surprised!
“Perhaps they do not wish to hear the truth about police officers?!?!?, I don’t know.
Actually, some states do register other categories of offender. There was even a push for registries for animal abusers recently. This is another strong reason why we must stand up and fight. Once the public has grown to accept such a terrible infringement on one group’s liberties, the government will feel free to take that liberty from others – all in the interest of public safety and the common good, of course!
Because we are a myth in people’s minds. It’s really hard to break a cultural myth. It becomes a religion. So we have to think of a strategy to break with the myth.