Why the U.S. Marshals Spend Millions on Sex-Offense Registrant Sweeps

Source: theappeal.org 7/8/22

The real aim of these operations might be to boost support for cops.

Gary, a 62-year-old on Texas’s sex-offender registry, dates the problems with his neighbors to a visit by police in 2018. After a successful real estate career he lives in a relatively safe neighborhood outside Dallas, identifies as a conservative, and has friends on the police force. He’s donated to police charities, once giving $10,000 to the family of an officer killed on duty, he tells The Appeal.

He was convicted of child pornography possession in 2007, spent five years in prison and 10 years on probation, and hasn’t reoffended since, state records show. “It’s very serious,” he said of his offense. “It’s wrong. I take responsibility.” (Gary isn’t his real name, which he asked to have withheld to protect his company and family.)

That day four years ago, a team of local officers and U.S. Marshals showed up at his home in full tactical gear and a tactical vehicle with the Marshals’ logo, he says. They were checking the addresses of those on the registry. Gary showed them his license and they left—the whole thing took perhaps five minutes.

Since 2006, the federal government has funneled millions into sometimes-massive operations to verify the addresses of those on sex-offender registries. It’s hard to tell how often these happen–the Marshals Service didn’t respond to multiple requests from The Appeal about how many operations they ran in the latest fiscal year. But a look at how authorities talk about the operations–and the flattering press coverage they generate–indicates their importance in selling the public on more police. Worse, studies show they likely do nothing to improve public safety or make incidents of sexual violence less likely.

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If not on probation and not on parole, are we required to cooperate with the Marshals to prove we live where we say we live?

What federal statute or federal regulation requires the Marshals to take this action and what federal statute or federal regulation requires we cooperate when not on probation or parole?

I am ignorant on this topic and also curious. All I know is where I live in Texas there is no Texas statute and no Texas agency regulation requiring law enforcement to make and for citizens to cooperate with home compliance/address verification when not on probation or parole.

What a waste of taxpayer money. And thank you to anyone who knows the answers to my questions.

😳😲 “Studies in Minnesota, New Jersey, and South Carolina failed to find any significant differences in recidivism between registration-compliant and noncompliant sex offenders, according to a March 2017 report from the U.S. Department of Justice. Indeed, a meta-analysis of 25 years of findings released last fall…. …concluded that sex offender registration and notification laws themselves ‘demonstrate no effect on recidivism.’

Who knew??!! 🤷🏻‍♂️🤔
Oh, of course, DOJ and numerous researchers knew. 🙄😒

My greatest recommendation to fellow registrants:
🔹Do not play their foolish games.
🔹Do not answer the door when they come knocking.
🔹Stand down. Do not engage.

A very fair assessment of what the Registry is about: MONEY. Take that away and watch politicians and police scurry away like cockroaches to greener pastures for easy money.

The U.S. Marshals are offering cash rewards for information directly leading to the arrest of sex offenders who are non-compliant.”*
🙄Good grief.😒

*Iowa: Fugitive sex offenders rounded up in statewide sweep

NV: Two dozen arrested following recent sex offender verification operation (1.3% of harassed Registrants were arrested.)

U.S. Marshals again. 🤮

(Seriously, they’re as bad as the Uvalde and Highland Park shooters the way they focus on “soft, easy targets.” Clearly, they’re afraid of something if they keep showing up in their finest combat regalia. Just sayin’, 🐔💩.)

Do we know if the Feds are involved in “compliance checks” in California? I believe they are but can’t immediately recall. I’m wondering what discretion the local police or the state has in determining or authorizing their movements within their jurisdictions. Arguably, feds can claim jurisdiction everywhere but I’m curious what the practical limitations are. One assumes that the feds are going to be interacting first with the locals about a particular registrant and I assume that these are multi-agency taskforces.

The database and the police state are hand in hand. Each need good marketing to maintain their position.

From the article:

“Much of the debate in the run-up to the Adam Walsh Act was grounded in myth. In 2005, Florida Rep. Mark Foley, a Republican, sponsored the bill that would become Title I of the Adam Walsh law. “There is a 90 percent likelihood of recidivism for sexual crimes against children,” he said on the House floor that year. “Ninety percent … that is their record.” (In 2006 he resigned for sending sexually explicit instant messages to underage Congressional pages.)”

LOL.

I’ll share my 2012 SoCal LA experience here. It was the first compliance check ludicrous spectacle I had experienced since registration started nearly 10 years prior. I wasn’t even aware of these performative spectacles at the time, so I answered my front door one Monday morning. Outside were 5-6 LEOs, some LAPD and some seemingly federal (LAPD wore uniforms, the others were covered in war gear one might don in frontline Afghanistan during wartime). They said something like “Compliance check, can we come in please?”

[The backdrop here was my registrable offense was a misdemeanor and I had been off probation for 5+ years. And the misdemeanor conviction had been set aside 5 years prior. None of this mattered or moderated their aggressive, full bore intrusion.]

Being naive at the time and also startled by warlike soldiers at my door, I allowed them to come in. They quickly put a document in my face and told me I should sign it. My naivety and confusion at the time clouded my judgment, so I signed their document which I believed granted them search permissions. So as I have wartime soldiers standing in my kitchen, I gave an LAPD officer both of my laptops. I travelled a lot and had thousands of travel pictures in my iPhoto app. The LAPD officer searching my laptops had some type of USB plugin that likely pulled all images into one viewing window. I remember him crowing with excitement that “he’s got thousands of pictures in here.” But as the minutes went by, I watched his face intently as he poured through the images, 100.00% of which were normal, appropriate travel and personal photos. He eventually became agitated as he realized his big “find” was completely innocuous.

After 30+ minutes all crowded into my apartment, they realized I had nothing illegal of any kind in my computers or around my home. I clearly recall them thanking me for my cooperation and clambering out my door. The officer who had checked my laptops was visibly angry and I never forgot that. Typical LEO who finds citizen innocence irritating and annoying. That part pisses me off to this day.

It was a troubling interaction with a silver lining. I spun up my knowledge about what happened and learned I didn’t have to even participate in these LEO spectacles at all.

I will also share that the LAPD (westside area) DO perform compliance checks every 1-2 years, though I believe the 2012 incident was the only one w/ these other soldier-like people accompanying them. I thought that being named as a Tier 1 registrant might make a difference but it has not. Within a few months of my annual this year, they came to my door. This time, I decided to receive them and sure enough, they tried to make it a mini-spectacle. The woman was talking loudly about “registration” and “compliance” in the hallway of my complex. As I am not publicly listed, she was walking right up to the line of betraying my privacy. Had she done so, I would have spent savings to hire counsel to file an official complaint against her. I think they do this as an intimidation tactic and it is totally unacceptable and must be stopped.

Better to simply not participate in their spectacle at all, grab the card they leave, and call them back at your convenience sometime thereafter. But these compliance checks are an abuse of law enforcement against registrants. PC 290 authorizes nothing on this. They treat everyone like an SVP regardless of individual circumstances. When you’re a hammer, everything looks to you like a nail. Compliance checks must be confronted by the registrant community. They are a flagrant abuse by law enforcement against us. It’s unacceptable.

scumbag marshals DO show up here in cali… I had a Sheriff office thug and also a “DHS MARSHALL” on his vest show up at my ring doorbell about a month ago, I was alsoeep it was like 7AMish… They called my roomate (also registrant) talked to him said they talked to neighbors and they verified. ( I checked also my many CCTV cams … they DID) and left told roomate they arent coming back…. Im waiting for em to show at a decent time to tell em I dont answer ?’s and to GTFO of here they are already on PRIVATE Property that starts at the road and im about 100′ from there….

the scumbag marshals DO show up here in cali… I had a Sheriff office thug and also a “DHS MARSHALL” on his vest show up at my ring doorbell about a month ago, I was alsoeep it was like 7AMish… They called my roomate (also registrant) talked to him said they talked to neighbors and they verified. ( I checked also my many CCTV cams … they DID) and left told roomate they arent coming back…. Im waiting for em to show at a decent time to tell em I dont answer ?’s and to GTFO of here they are already on PRIVATE Property that starts at the road and im about 100′ from there….

No offense to the subject of the article, but he’s a Bootlicker. Why in the hell would he donate $10,000 to “police charities,” when the police have repeatedly violated his rights?

It’s no secret that more and more people dislike police and “law enforcement” nowadays, notwithstanding their liken to associate themselves with the “Blue Line” Gang, in desecrating the American flag with a blue line across the middle, while also continuing to uphold “sex offender” laws, as well as other laws that make no sense, while the billionaires and corrupt politicians run free. Meanwhile, I’d say 80%+ of them probably stand behind the Orange Leader, whose Attorney General wrote a draconic amendment to the Adam Walsh Act, and who does not seem to care about democratic elections, as they march full speed toward pure fascism.

There’s a reason why America now has about one million registered sex offenders, as well as a prison population bigger than China, North Korea, and Russia. By Bootlicking to the police, they have made it possible so that America is the biggest hypocrites on the face of the earth, nothing is to be gained except a hope that they can be “bribed” into being easy on him. They won’t. The police, law enforcement, and “government” are all wolves with no hearts.

America is broke. Broken. And quite frankly, the way many of us were thrown into cages for years, labeled for life, then thrown to the gutter to fend for ourselves in a ruined economy, I could give two shit at this point.

Also, I took down the American flag that we have flown on our porch for many years this 4th of July. No sense in “celebrating” a country that has one million “registered sex offenders” and a bigger prison population than China, North Korea, and Russia. America is hypocrisy at its worse. All these “law enforcement” officers and police built their “success” off of the backs of less fortunate people. Looking further back, look at how America is built on deceiving Native Americans, through the guise of Thanksgiving, in stealing their lands, wherein Native Americans cooked and provided for early Americans, only to have their lands stolen from them after providing them with hospitality.

Or how Blacks were tricked onto slave ships, to be carted off to “America,” wherein they were slaved to work plantations. How California once was Mexico, and how these same people stole California from Mexico. Or how the Chinese were carted off to America, to slave in building the railroads.

These are things that were glossed over in our formal education. But the facts are facts.

How one political party, which is predominately supported by the Blue Line Gang, seems intent to discredit the elections is another reason why I think America is a joke. I won’t even mention the six so-called “Supreme Court Justices,” who turned their back on 50 years of settled Constitutional precedence.

The rationale of “states’ rights” was also the same rationale that the South used to uphold slavery.

Last edited 2 years ago by Angry American

Where was this type of so-called “law enforcement” energy during Uvalde? They have all that military equipment, yet they use it to harass and bully “sex offenders,” 99% of whom are all trying to move forward from their past. Not to mention that there are about one million sex offenders in America now.

Meanwhile, we have children and teachers dying in school shootings. Then to top it off, we have an Orange Clown trying to undermine democratic elections (and an illegitimate “Supreme Court” that just undermined over 50 years’ of women’s rights).

Seems like a bunch of gaslighting by the “government.”

Who is the real enemy of the people again? 🤔

It wasn’t the feds, but the local sheriff pulled a mega-compliance check on me about a month before my probation ended (planned that way, I’m sure). They showed up in three vehicles, about ten officers I think. They held rifles and were dressed like a SWAT team. I opened the front door to see what was going on and four of them told me to step back inside as they came stomping into the house. I was home with my 13 yr old daughter, and they gave her the third degree about where her mother was (she happened to be at a conference in Vancouver, Canada). After the four of them searched all over our house (for what??) and the rest wandered all over our property (it was a two-acre lot on an up-scale cul-de-sac), they finally left without saying anything to me. Of course, all the neighbors were out of their houses observing the spectacle. The ones that asked were apparently told that I was a convicted sex offender on probation. None of the neighbors would talk to me after that. My wife and my brother even went to visit several of them to try and calm them down, but shortly after, a community meeting was held (I wasn’t invited) to discuss what they could do about me (high on their list, apparently was my effect on their property values). I couldn’t really deal with the stress, so within two months, we sold our house and moved out into the sticks (5 acres with only two neighbors within half a mile). I was off probation by then, and nothing remotely close to that ever happened again.

😲 Whoa!! Hold on here!! You expect them to go after actual scary “hard targets” (instead of peaceful, law-abiding PFRs??). Well, Hell!! Someone could get hurt!! 😳

Amid gun violence, US Marshals going after ‘trigger pullers,’ director says – ABC News

Last edited 2 years ago by David ✴️⚜️🔱

Wait a minute David were do you come from with this gun pulling. We are talking about the sex offender and your trigger happy to retaliate on some gun pulling action. if many are looking for some retaliation than that would be a revenge tacit and I want no part in that. Guess it does take two to tango for a peaceful end.

Either sex offenders as a group are a “state’s jurisdiction” or “Federal jurisdiction.” The fact that both levels are engaged + local engagement ( community policing) equates to a republic other than what was laid out under constitution ratification. The far distant federal should have no place in the day to day concerns of individuals. Yet, the federalist influences are always attached to Block Grant dollars and expectations thus inevitably circumventing state authority with decreased self determination. It’s time to call out the feds on that score. Why? Because they ain’t preventing shit! The US border for instance IS a federal issue under the ratified constitution in which impacts sexual attack. Here is an example of immigration outcomes and interpersonal attack collide, and a side dish of of the now infamous U.S.S.C. cite: Dobbs 597. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Wzw1oGV-rvM
This is an ugly story. It shows how fast news of atrocities spread by social media. It is also another example of the people’s federal failures! I think the feds need to focus on something other than sustaining political security for the entrenched parties.

CNN lies:

US Marshals apprehend 13 sex offenders in Iowa wanted for crimes against children

But only “seven had former convictions for ‘crimes against children...’.” The other 6 did not (or it would have been noted!)
Only 3 new criminal cases were charged (apparently none involving children or CNN certainly would have stated that in headlines!!)

So another giant nothingburger! 😠Great job, U.S. Marshals and media copaganda shill, CNN.😒🙄

Oh, but wait, there’s more:

U.S. Marshals and local law enforcement sting sex offenders in Lane County

Oh yes, I most certainly did write to the reporter. And here’s what I said:

“You may want to double-check that last paragraph. You write “….and 153 offenders were found to be non-compliant with sex offender laws“, but I think you mean they were compliant with requirements – otherwise, there would have been many more arrests.

Also, why don’t you state how many registrants were contacted by the law enforcement during their “sting”? (Perhaps that was the number 153 who were contacted and verified to be in compliance??)

Please update you posted article with more accurate information. 

Also, maybe you could ask the U.S. Marshals why they focus so much of their time and attention on soft target like sex offense registrants instead of taking down hard targets such as violent gangs, white nationalist terrorist groups, “lone wolf” mass shooters, etc.  
Why are you giving them so much free press for harassing soft targets when the actual recidivism rate for convicted sex offenders is extremely low, approximately 3% or 4% (as confirmed by USDOJ reports.)?? 
(Maybe you could also ask them why they choose to dress up in their full SWAT battle regalia when they’re making contact with non-violent individuals and basically just confirming paperwork.)

Please do some research of your own and don’t be a shill for the Feds’ “copaganda”.

Thank you for your time and consideration of my message.

See also:
Alliance for Constitutional Sex Offense Laws
https://all4consolaws.org/

Last edited 2 years ago by David 🔱

The federal government has too much power. First they started all this Meagan’s law demanding states have registration. Second if convictions were from state courts it none of the federal governments business to either enforce state registration laws or verify the information. Third these are state issues and should be handled in the state unless state laws violates the constitution. And with that being said in becomes a violation of state rights when the federal government interferes. I speaking largely about the SONAR hearing coming up. I f CA decided that his record is expunged then the federal government has no right to come and tell a state that that person still has to register.