Emily Horowitz is a member of the ACSOL Board of Directors and was a Speaker at the 2018 ACSOL Conference.
Last week, Anthony Weiner was released from federal prison to a Bronx halfway house after serving 21 months for sending sexually-explicit messages to a 15-year-old girl. Next, like approximately 4.5 million others on probation/parole, he’ll spend 3 years on supervised release.
Supervised release is no cakewalk; while on it, one is subject to unannounced visits and random searches, needs approval for travel and housing, and must regularly report to probation (in New York, reporting can take hours, resulting in missed work). Each year, more than 600,000 people leave prison and face a web of re-entry challenges — first probation/parole, which often act like a “tripwire” by creating barriers rather than supports for re-entry, with infractions like late curfews, moving violations, or missed phone calls from officers resulting in penalties or more prison. In Weiner’s case, he’ll also pay a $10,000 fine.
Most significantly, Weiner is also now about to become one of the more than 900,000 Americans on sex offense registries for the rest of his life (only Level 1 offenders in New York are removed after 20 years). We’ve spent decades now adding people to these lists without thinking hard about whether the ostracism it engineers is effective or humane.
So what will this mean for Weiner, and for us?
His address and personal information will always be public, and communities may be notified when he moves in. He’ll have to register in other states if he travels (if he travels to Florida for five days or longer, he’ll also be on their registry for life; many other states have similar rules). While on probation, Weiner may face residency restrictions as well as other regulations regarding contact with children, including his son.
[More Opinion] It’s the peer effect, stupid: What makes schools like Stuyvesant great? It’s not test-based admission, but a broader culture of excellence »
If he moves, he’ll have to notify police there and be on that registry. Other numerous lifetime restrictions in New York include reporting annually to the state sex offender office, notifying them within 10 days of moving, reporting yearly for updated photos, and providing all Internet screen names and email accounts.
When is enough enough?
Weiner isn’t the most sympathetic of registrants. This is the problem with the registry, everyone is treated the same. What critics of the registry beed to do is heavily publicize, political-neutral, sympathetic victims of the registries. The women with her two children from Oklahoma is a perfect example.
Its tough to feel compassion for Weiner but I remember when this happened and the president called him aa pervert. Why do people feel the need to judge someone who has fallen?
We discussed this here when he was sentenced about his stature and what could happen. Foley got away, Hastert is medically gone for all intents and purposes, but Weiner has the opportunity to experience it firsthand and maybe use it for change. Not saying he will, maybe he won’t even garner the sympathy of the masses, but he does have a child and ex-wife he has to work with during this time.
Someone like Weiner doesn’t deserve any sympathy as he was one of the many politicians that pushed for the very laws he’ll now suffer under. He’s literally getting a taste of his own medicine.
This reporter did a great Job writing this!!
Maybe I missed it but it seem like she forgot the part where if he moved out of NY he would still have to register in NY for the rest of his life as well
Gwen, I agree with you and I disagree with AO:
I don’t like Anthony Weiner, and if he did push for the same laws that he is now being punished under, then you can bet now that he has had a big wake up call about how unjust they can be. I can tell you that I would probably have much different views of these laws had I not suffered under them, so let’s not be vengeful like the very people are who use these laws to punish us for life. Anthony Weiner needs a chance for redemption as much as any of us. Justice is supposed to be blind, so we shouldn’t hold his prior folly against him after he has paid the price for his actions. Also, we all know it does affect our families. It damages them ans for those of us who know our victims still it damages them because they don’t feel like they can move past something defining them and owning them if we also can’t move past actions in our deep past that have defined and still own us.
Thats what happens when you throw stones at the glass house! Florida is 3 days to register btw.
I have a different take on Weiner. His continual poor behavior hurts us. It feeds the believe sex offenders reoffend. I don’t judge him for falling but my thoughts to anyone who reoffends is how can you be so selfish?
A very well written and lucid view through the window.
However, I think what the gravitas of the article is trying to show is the role that a RC under Federal Supervision must endure is that of the serving of “Two-Masters” each with particular and onerous-often conflicting rules.
Mr. Weiner faces two very powerful forces. The first being that (according to the article) he is on the Reg for LIFE. That alone, is phenomenally overwhelming for anyone. Granted, Mr. Weiner may have preserved some financial and social resources to assist him in his return from the half-way house. But, I doubt many are going to be rolling out a red carpet for him. His actions destroyed his career, family, reputation and so much more. IMHO, I think it was HE who was predated upon. However, that’s a different argument.
The second force he faces is that of Federal Supervised Release. There is no wiggle room here. For the next three years if he “farts” the wrong way, it’s a callback into court where the rules of a SR revocation hearing basically have one guilty even before the case gets heard. It’s a much lower threshold to get sent back to the Feds for a Violation than one can possibly imagine. Here, the domain of evidence is based on “more likely than not” (to simplify).
Thus, Mr. Weiner will face a withering double-tap of compliancy and restrictions which will infiltrate his life in ways he cannot even contemplate. And let’s add into that what will be mandatory SO “Treatment” by some local outfit all the more happy to have a “celebrity” and break him down even further.
So, for this once influential and in some circles respected career politician, those days are DONE. Lifetime Registration will be the no doubt undoing of him. Unless one has faced/continues to face the Registration nightmare, I doubt there can be an understanding by Mr. Weiner yet at all. I do feel for the man. I understand what he will be facing. I have been through it myself. I lost everyone and everything. 19 years later I am still struggling to get even 10% of it back. But each day I gain a little more and a little more.
In closure, I can’t give Mr. Weiner a “pass”. What I can do, if he were sitting next to me right now is to look him dead in the eyes and say: Hang on, you thought prison changed your life, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet”. Also to say to him that yes, one can have a life and he is lucky he is “home”. Fight the good fight. Use whatever remaining and forthcoming clout to CHANGE THE LAWS. Finally, I would say: “welcome to what has been OUR nightmare”. Now do something about it Mr. Weiner, for all of us.
IN MY AMERICAN OPINION.
The “cruelty” at its base resolves from the conflict between man and database.
The sex offender registration regime literally compels by Law a citizen to maintain state’s database machine. The states machine is the people’s property and the regime plain indentured servitude to the property. Always was but never argued. Nice.