Recently there has been major concern over youth being placed on the sex offender registry and a number of articles, not to mention some legislative attempts at change (such as Nebraska legislative bill 689), have been put forth to remove young people from the registry. The reason for this move is pointed out in articles such as ( http://jjie.org/2018/01/08/young-sex-offenders-shouldnt-have-to-register-its-ineffective-and-hurts-everyone-around-them/ ). The problem with articles such as these is they do not take into account the even more innocent victims of the sex offender registry, the children and families of adults that are on the registry. The same amount of damage that happens to these young people that they are attempting to help by removing them from the registry is happening to the adults as well as their families and their children. This is because, let’s face it, the registry is on its face and in actuality is punishment.
Whereas our legislators have chosen a politically disfavored group and chose to heap all kinds of extra rules, requirements and restrictions, which are in fact punishments on that group. Even though this group has the lowest re-offense rate of any criminal class, that is less than 1%. This in direct violation of our Republic’s Constitution. The registry laws violates the 14th amendment equal protection and due process, the fourth amendments right to privacy, and of course Art. I § 9, cl. 3 that reads “No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.” Art. I § 10, cl. 1 adds “No state shall … pass any bill of attainder… Because of the recent focus on the attempt to remove young people from the damages of the registry, I think it is time that I republish the below article from over a year ago. (Note: The 752,000 number that is used in the article is no longer valid, it is now closer to 900,000 and that means that the number of children affected is greater than the article reflects)
Government Sanctioned Cruelty to over half a Million American Children.
As strange as it may seem there are many disfranchise or second-class citizens in the United States and many of those American citizens have children that look to them for not only food and shelter, but emotional and moral support. At the present time government sanctions are undermining a group of second-class citizens ability not only to provide the emotional support, but the food and shelter as well.
As an immediate family of three (2 teenagers) and then an extended family of 17. You can say our close family have insider knowledge of what it is like to help support a family member on the registry. Our entire family has been harassed from local law enforcement, media, School Administrators and Teachers, Child protective services and of course neighbors and all because we are a family that wants to help and support one individual family member that has been placed on the registry. We are a lot of innocent people who have not done anything wrong or ever broke a law who are being, have been and will continue to be terribly affected by something advertised by law makers as just an administrative action. And we are just one family and there are 899,000 more people with family going through the same nightmare. Yes indeed. Our family would greatly appreciate anything anyone can do to change these laws and the horrible punishment it causes upon innocent supporting family members as well as the registrant.