How a Plano legislator’s remarks bred strict sex offender laws

Recent research has challenged long-held assumptions that convicted sex offenders are very likely to commit new sex crimes and questioned how those assumptions were reached in the first place. Prior to that, though, one Texas legislator’s words were particularly influential on sex offender laws across the country. (Italics added for clarity.)

July 1997: State Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, a former schoolteacher and proponent of the state’s strict 1995 Ashley’s Laws for sex offenders, attends a conference in Bellevue, Wash., about sex offender registries. She begins her speech by noting that “putting the modern sex offender into the traditional criminal justice system is usually as successful as keeping a snake in a shoebox.” Full Article

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my god this issue has to be brought before the courts there is no justification for these laws and no rational basis based on the lowest recidivism rates. this lady should be barred from holding any public office and possibly even prosecuted or some kind of legal sanctions for providing false testimony to further her personal agendas.it’s time this goes to SCOTUS…..

This article posted before actually gives better and more detailed reasons behind the mis-information used in Smith V Doe:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2015/08/20/how-a-dubious-statistic-convinced-u-s-courts-to-approve-of-indefinite-detention/

It has both the Plano senator remarks and the fake 80% recidivism explanation.

Maybe if start a government petition and get the needed 100,000 signatures within 30 days they will at least give us some official statement regarding the issue. Tough to get that many though, even with almost 850k of us.

Any state registry is Enron type tactics sham.
Inflate info, manufacture info, deceptive info was criminal for Enron officials onto the public.
What’s the difference when government officials are doing the same with registered..?
The public is getting Enroned .

With all these stats that identify how the registry abuses the lowest re-offense rate of criminals, I doubt nothing will change.

If the courts are lazy enough not to do proper research, then they won’t lift a finger to fix their own mistakes.

This article just saddened my day when you look at the macro aspect – nothing can be done to reverse it and it remains as fact in the judicial system b/c it’s been cited often, especially in the Supreme Court.