NC: Sex offender registry notifies neighbors of criminal conviction

Including inmates, 616 registered sex offenders live in New Hanover, Brunswick and Pender counties, but opinions vary among legal professionals about whether the registry protects the community or if the punishment goes too far. Full Article

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So so article, with the typical camps arguing for and against. The one statement that makes least sense to me is: “The only way to prevent sexual assault is to place responsibility on the perpetrator.” Umm, if someone is a perpetrator, it’s kind of late to try to prevent anything. And unless/until they become a perpetrator, they’re not on your wonderful registry.

Oehrlein said sexual crime is “one of the most underreported crimes” and that victims don’t come forward for a variety of reasons,…” If the crime is not reported how do they there was a crime? Is Oehrlein peeping through windows? If victims are not coming forward it could be because of the registry.

AJ Your truthful statement shows just how stupid the people running this scheme are. Or is it these people are smart? Because this thing they created, while it does not do what it set out to do, it does pay thousands of civil servant workers very well. And they will fight to keep it going strong. What is in their closets?

Well pender and new hanover both have prisons. Pender is medium custody with about 800 inmates. I would guess roughly 300 or so are registered based on people I know who were there. An extreme lowball estimate would be 200, no less. New Hanover has a minimum custody prison of around 400 or 500. I would say no more than 100 are registered maybe less. Thst leaves about 200 and I imagine a good chunk of those (40 or 50) are probably in jail on various infractions likely registry related ftr etc across the 3 counties. That leaves about 150 in 3 counties that are actually “free”. Those numbers listed cant possibly be right. Pender has only around 100? They send all people convicted of sex crimes to at least medium custody in nc and you have to work your way to minimum. Unless you have a long time like over 6 or 7 years you probably will never get to minimum custody. Pender county is probably in the top 5 of destinations where people with sex crimes are sent after conviction/processing.

Im sure the larger total number number of 600+ is there to generate interest/fear/panic. If they had used actual numbers like 150 or 200 registrants who are living in communities across 3 counties that would not seem as threatening nor would there be a need to report on this.

To be fair not everything in this article is bad, but the one thing about responsibility that AJ referred to threw me off as well.

Turner from the rape crisis center stated…”the registry can be an effective way to hold these criminals accountable if they don’t receive much jail time”. There! that statement alone emphasizes the registry is indeed punitive!

The article stated this:
============================
Emily Turner, supervisor of the Rape Crisis Center of Coastal Horizons Center, said the requirement to register is not too strict. The registry can be an effective way to hold these criminals accountable if they don’t receive much jail time.
============================

Ummm… what? What the judge gives is what is called punishment. So this registration scheme is extra punishment b/c “you” don’t feel the person got punished enough?!

Did she realize what she said?! Do the states and judiciary realize how people see the registry? It’s beyond the “regulatory purpose” as people refer to it as “punishment”. That’s now called double jeopardy.

Also, the article is showing all the registrants to all. Isn’t this just another way of putting one on the stockade again?!

This is punishment and the sex offender registry of notification has gone out of control due to vigilantism, and reactionists that are drawing attention to let the public know there’s a sex offender in their presence just to create confusion and fear. The public notification was never a good idea in the beginning because people will take and misuse the information for exploitation and harassment or use the system of notification as a target kill list and what these vigilantes, and reactionists are doing is no less evil than a registrant that already paid his/her due to society for the crimes they committed.