Arkansas state lawmakers filed 11 bills during the first four days of the period for lawmakers to file legislation in advance of the regular session that starts Jan. 9, 2023…
…
Separately, under his House Bill 1004, state Rep. David Ray, R-Maumelle, said the bill would require a complete address on the public sex offender website, and the current statute only requires the street name and block number.
“Arkansas is one of only four states (the others being Maine, Washington, and Vermont) that does not give a complete address for the sex offender,” he said in a written statement. “The same information would be collected for the sex offender’s employer.”
Arkansas registrants, it’s time to show up, stand up and speak up! Write those letters, make those calls, and registrant spouses should speak at the hearings to share how this bill would damage families due to risk of violence.
If you don’t, who will?
Everyone should keep an eye on their state and local laws. What you don’t know can hurt you. We need to maintain vigilance.
Here is how to look for any state’s “sex offender” bills:
https://all4consolaws.org/2021/03/how-you-can-search-for-bills-and-advocacy-groups-in-your-state/
I don’t see how this matters. Meaning when I was on Penn’s Megan’s Law I was preSORNA (conviction before Dec 2012) and for employment the only information that was listed by law on the Penn’s site was the name of the town, state etc. Not the street # and name. BUT, if you looked me up on the national database that listing of me would list the entire employment address, including # of street and street name.
So how is it that it matters what you state’s law is if the Feds can list whatever they want to list. If Penn has it on their database then the Fed site can take it and list it even if the information is not required to be listed publicly on the Penn site?
Email written to the bill’s author:
Congressman Ray:
You have been quoted as saying:
“Unfortunately, Arkansas leads the nation in the number of child sex abuse cases per capita, and we must do something to change that.” (Retrieved from https://www.ktlo.com/2022/11/21/arkansas-lawmakers-begin-pre-filing-bills-ahead-of-coming-legislative-session/)
Assuming the first claim is true, then it is true despite the 25 year existence of the sex offender registry. From a logical standpoint, it can only be concluded that the registry (and its associated obligations and restrictions) does absolutely nothing to deter the offenses it was purportedly enacted to prevent. That in and of itself should not be surprising, in that those convicted for sex crimes are among the least likely recidivists (second only to those convicted for murder) of all criminal classes according to multiple recidivism studies, and those accused in new offenses seldom have prior criminal records and therefore are not on the registry.
But to conclude that Arkansas’ per capita child sex abuse cases are due to its registry not publishing registrant residence and employment addresses is an overly simplistic response to a complicated problem. Despite the same information not published in Maine, Washington, and Vermont (ibid), all three were were ranked 6th, 14th, and 3rd (respectively) as the safest states to raise children by state in USA Today (retrieved https://www.usatoday.com/list/news/50-states/child-safety-by-state/d9de1e39-d9da-48e4-baa6-da2446e82612/); Arkansas was ranked 43rd in the same story.
Accordingly, one would be very hard-pressed to explain exactly how the proposed registry modifications would enhance public safety.
Again from a logical standpoint, it would appear that the unspoken purpose of this bill is to encourage the public to deny residence and employment to those on the sex offender registry. Lacking any recommendation to the public regarding what specifically should be done with the information provided, what other outcome can be expected? And while you might care very little for the registrants themselves, this bill (indeed, the registry as a whole) does not take into account the effects on registrant family members – children included – whose only offense is not disowning their registered member.
No one disputes that child sex abuse is a serious concern that needs to be addressed, but House Bill 1004 is cannot possibly be an effective means to do so. The likely results of its passage would be to flood the court system with constitutional challenges, an increase in registrant homelessness and poverty to their families, and an increase in the state’s prison population, all while doing absolutely nothing to reduce child sex abuse within the state. While I don’t expect you to speak against the registry itself, I would implore you to consider the likely long term effects of House Bill 1004 and other registry modifications sure to come and balance them against blindly proposing and supporting such wasteful efforts merely because it may be politically expedient.
Thank you for receiving and best wishes in your term.
//signed//
Not holding my breath for a response. But I’ve written other legislators when seeing proposals that have later died in committee or something. I’d like to think I made an impact that way, but don’t know for certain.
If Arkansas’ “Regnant Populus” holds any truth why have the states overall birth rates fallen since 1950 but teen birthing rate represents nearly half of babies born in the state. – CDC
This politician may be influenced by those who would gain market advantage from expanding state’s system.net. This means algorithm updates to support both sides of the system. The DDI necessarily denote a binary structure. This equation concerns both upstream infrastructure AND the infrastructure of state’s machine’s ( origin interface). What better way than to have the people update your server set-up ( private contract leased property) by landing a collateral state machine infrastructure contract. Consider the man hours necessary to investigate such an hypothesis. In reality a bank of servers can host any supported aim and just like in the real world “electronic space” has a cost. And naturally then, like farmland those who have, have advantage and leverage over the population. If Gov decides to change service providers the people of Arkansas themselves suffer an opportunity cost. Thus the path of least resistance is established and all to often on the backs of the usual already convicted suspects. That is how guys like William ended up on the bracelet much longer than his records factual terms. Who’s watching the watchers? To prove the watchers dislike being watched just look for vids on the internet. My favorite is the cop meets cop conflicts. Bad boys meet bad boys Which you gonna Do! AudittheAudit@YT:
Do lawmakers have anything else to do besides think of new laws for registrants? I mean really, there is an actual agenda besides us. Isn’t there?
I would LOVE to see a true study and report that would PROVE that this proposed law would prevent ONE incident.
The holidays are a great, easy time to ensure that the Registries are not just worthless, but a lot worse. I always ensure that the Registries never do anything productive with respect to me. Always. But around holidays, I ensure that they are a lot worse than that.
Ever since Halloween Day, I have been all over the place and around thousands of people who don’t have the first clue that I am a PFR. I have been hanging around with random families and children almost all the time. It’s just that time of the year.
In honor of Registry Asshole/Supporter/Terrorist (RAST) Arkansas Rep. David Ray, R-Maumelle, I will definitely be spending this Thanksgiving holiday around people for whom the Registries will do nothing useful.
Also, f*ck RASTs. This Thanksgiving I’m thankful that their Registries always have been, and always will be, a colossal failure. Go ahead and publish whatever information you like. I promise it will be useless and all of Amerika will pay consequences because of it.
Like the “complete” address is going to make a difference.in saving a child’s life. Ha!
And of course they see this as a “loop hole” that needs closing.
The disgusting and outrageous part is OUR safety is being traded for easy political points