At approximately 8:20 p.m. on Monday, October 22nd, University of Utah college student Lauren McCluskey, 21, was found shot to death inside a car parked on campus. Only a short time before, the star track-and-field athlete had been on the phone with her mother, Jill McCluskey, who reported hearing her daughter’s last words.
“Suddenly, I heard her yell, ‘No, no, no!’ I thought she might have been in a car accident,” Jill McCluskey said in a statement to press. “That was the last I heard from her.” …
Rowland’s status as a registered sex offender has been highlighted in media coverage of the case, raising questions about how it could have helped prevent this murder. But the case actually underscores how ineffective offense-based registries are at crime prevention, a criticism made by groups like Human Rights Watch and the ACLU, amongst many others. Critics say that sex offender registries fail to make communities safer, and serve primarily as a lifetime punishment that unfairly imposes restrictions on a broad spectrum of people. Full Article
UNBELIEVABLE! THIS is exactly what I am talking about. These registries are USELESS.
PLEASE leave a comment on the Rolling Stone page at the bottom. Let your voices be heard.
Damn made it into the Rolling Stone on how ineffective it actually is and how it’s more of a lifetime punishment than a crime prevention tool.
This also should have highlighted that him being on the registry actually had nothing to do with his actions, although the registry may have been the cause of their breakup and then the murder suicide
Another excellent article about the uselessness and unfairness of the registry published in a relatively well-read magazine. This is a good trend.
I posted the following comment at the article:
One thing that we can say for certain is that the $EX Offender Registries ($ORs) likely contributed to this crime being committed. Lauren McCluskey could very well be alive today if it were not for the worse-than-merely-worthless $ORs.
The $ORs do not protect anyone. But I can tell you for sure that they do a very good job of TRANSFORMING the people who are listed on them, and very often their entire families and many, many friends, into people who know that most people who live in the U.S. are simply not good people. “People” who support the $ORs are people for whom good people should have little concern. THAT is one thing that the $ORs do extremely well. They kill empathy and any obligation to be a good citizen.
The $ORs also make the people who are listed on them want to retaliate and harm people. You can believe that or not, but I guarantee you it is a fact.
If the $ORs were ONLY used as it was originally lied that they would be used (to “inform” people, in case everyone forgot), AND all of the other Registries that must exist also existed (e.g. a Gun Offender Registry), then, maybe, maybe, possibly, conceivably, the $ORs MIGHT be acceptable to Americans. But as the $ORs exist, that will literally never be possible.
The $ORs are a problem that will be difficult to destroy. Politicians love them and have no care for the true effects. Most people who support the Registries are too stupid and lazy to know the true effects and too hateful and pathetic to care. So we all need to simply enjoy the hate and division and embrace it. Unfortunately for Ms. McCluskey and the rest to come.
The registry clearly caused this violent tragedy. This man had serious issues beyond sexual preoccupation. He had multiple felonies, a lengthy criminal history, and was on probation from his most recent stint of many periods of incarceration. So where was probation? How was he engaging in so many violations of his parole and no probation officer was aware of it? I’ll tell you why, the PO was busy doing paper work and making home visits and filing documents on his of her overflowing caseload of people on the registry who are not a threat to anyone. They have decent people on their case load who made a one time mistake but are now are homeless, can’t find employment, have no medical insurance, who are in crisis because they feel unwanted because they are. People like me who had a one time non-contact offense over a decade ago and am just trying to get my life back together, yet the PO has to come over and approve the place I want to live, He wants to meet the woman I am trying to date, He needs to look in my refrigerator to see what I’m buying, meanwhile this very dangerous man is harassing and stalking and killing a woman, but he doesn’t know because he is trying to monitor 150 people who were once employed, devoted, family men but are now pariahs thanks to this registry. This is the result of the failed SORNA.
An example of the registry doing more harm than good. He was dumped by his girl when she found out and he had nothing to lose, exactly as many studies found.
Rolling Stone posted a followup, talking about the timeline of this crime:
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/lauren-mccluskey-melvin-rowland-murder-university-utah-police-747894/
The good news is that nowhere in all the hindsight did anyone suggest the registry could have prevented this offense. Just the opposite, really. The bad news is that Rowland was apparently very manipulative and will likely be held up as a typical SO by pro-registry types.
Did anyone else have trouble posting on the article. I tried twice and it’s nowhere to be seen. Still listed on my Disqus profile as pending.