The Unspeakable Podcast w/Meghan Daum 6/13/2021
One sure way to lose a popularity contest is to fight for the rights of people convicted of a sex offense. But The National Sex Offense Registry, which was established during an era of panic over crime and child danger, has come with a host of unintended consequences. Sociologist Emily Horowitz is one of a handful of academics and researchers who speaking out against the registry, showing how it’s yet another blunt instrument of “tough on crime” 1990s legislation and ultimately does more to ruins lives than to protect kids. Emily spoke with Meghan about what led her to this work and why our assumptions about people labeled as “sexual predators” are often wrong. She also explained some of the reasons why sexual abuse against children, and sexual violence in general, has declined over the last 30 years—for reasons having nothing to do with the registry.
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Good podcast. Definitely worth a listen! 👍🏻
I have just listened to this podcast and was struck by the generous amount of time given to Emily Horowitz, PhD sociologist, who is an advocate for registrants as well as an ACSOL board members, to explain why registries punish individuals on the registry but do not protect the public. It was well worth my time and I recommend everyone listen to this podcast in order to better understand the “big picture” regarding the registry. Kudos to Emily for her good work!
A voice questioning the implications of America’s choice to dive head first into the black hole of the information age. A world where human citizens find themselves indentured servants to government databases for life. A world when humans are subservient to the insatiable machine appetite for consumable personal and private data. A world of applied continuous electronic search and analysis with and by questionable authority. A world after the human attempt to form a more perfect Republic and union of man has been supplanted by the administrative lust for a more perfect union of machine.