The first thing that must be pointed out is that the sex offender registry came about because of the myth that people convicted of sexual related crimes were always going to reoffend. Some of the numbers that were tossed around at the time that the registry was conceived were 60 to 80% would reoffend. The registry was not originally designed to protect anyone, it was simply there to aid law-enforcement so that they would have suspects to look at because of this belief of high reoffense rates. As we now know, that belief is not only a myth, but it is an outright lie. There is no high reoffense rate of any kind for people convicted of a sexually related crime. The studies all show a reconviction rate in the single digits, and many studies show the rates in the fractions of a single-digit (why-are-the-reconviction-rates-so-important). So to start with, because there is no high reoffense rate, there is no compelling reason for the the existence of the sex offender registry at all (other than fear, bias, bigotry and hatred of a class of criminals). Secondly, because of the lack of a high reoffense rate, there is no use for law-enforcement to have this duplication of information that is already available under their normal investigative procedures. This is only wasting time and resources and leads to harassing people who have a low risk to reoffend while making them and their families’ lives miserable.
As for the components of the registry, such as community notification, residence restrictions, job research and housing restrictions, freedom of movement restrictions, freedom to cross state lines restrictions, plus the many other components of the registry that could not exist without the registry’s existence; for a person to say that any one of these components is not punishment shows the uneducated bias of the person speaking or else they have a fiduciary interest in perpetuating these lies.
According to our declaration of independence all men are created equal, and in our Constitution and Bill of Rights it is laid out that all people will be treated equally. It is very apparent that a person who is on the registry is not treated equally with other citizens. This becomes quite obvious when a person who is not a sex offender accidentally is placed upon the registry or one of its components such as having their driver’s license tagged. If there was no disparity between ordinary citizens and registered citizens than they would be treated exactly the same. Quite obviously they are not.
Great article. We need to get this article and this information out there. We need everybody to read this and understand this. We must change the mindset of the public. The public was conditioned to fear those people on the registry without evidence. Articles like this will get people to not fear people on the registry and to understand the registry just promotes confusion and misinformation. Eventually the registry wil be dropped if people know the truth. Thank you for writing this and posting it.
Yes, those are the facts right there.
The THUG Losers have been out TWICE Since ive been off parole… the 1st year I talked to them BRIEFLY… they came back a 2nd year I missed them, Called Janice she told me to IGNORE THEM AND PUT DOWN THE BLINDS and DO NOT TALK TO THEM PERIOD… I asked wont they come back, she said probably NOT… they NEVER CAME BACK BY (last year)… funny the one loser cop took a pic of my CCTV Camera ahah Well a week after that I added a RING doorbell so now ill have DOUBLE VIDEO and ANGLES, and this summer when they come by again…
/IGNORE !
I wont be even acknowledge-ing them again a 2nd year in a row !
(I live in CA)
The registry isn’t needed to stop crime or even to locate perpetrators. It is needed to give law enforcement a reason to incarcerate former offenders, because the FO’s are far more likely to get ensnared in the registry traps than commit another sex crime. They do this to inflate the numbers and sustain the myth of the incurable sexaholic. Law enforcement administrators knows better, but the lie sustains public support, sustaining the lie. Vicious cycle.