There are more than 900,000 people on the sex offenders registry and growing, but studies show that the sex offender registries do not reduce recidivism and prevent sex crimes and laws restricting where offenders can find housing and employment make it almost impossible for many on the registry to reintegrate into society, ostracizing them and essentially creating a life sentence for those who have already paid for their crimes and in some cases, first time offenders.
Guy Hamilton-Smith, a legal fellow for the Sex Offense Litigation and Policy Resource Center at the Mitchell Hamline School of Law, joined The Takeaway to talk about sex offender registries. Listen to the Full Interview
Note: Guy Hamilton-Smith was a Speaker at the 2019 ACSOL Conference
Interesting that even in an evenhanded interview like this one on NPR, the host when talking about someone she knows being victimized and desiring retribution so clearly just assumes the registry is part of someone’s punishment. The nuance of collateral consequences, while WE talk about it a lot, is entirely lost in this conversation because it’s completely non-intuitive. Even with well educated journalists.
Kudos to Guy. Thanks for being a good spokesperson.
Who takes the worst of their flock and advertises it to the rest of the world? Good for short term political gain but bad for the bottom line. This no rancher or farmer in their right mind would do so. A destructive moronic public policy plain and simple.
We’ll never be in the clear or have true peace thanks to the rabble-rousing lawmakers who believe they’re appeasing the “will of the people.” We’re a product and unwarranted fear is the commodity they’re exploiting. Until that cycle is thwarted, I don’t see an off ramp – besides death.
LAND OF THE FREE !!
I t is not the database itself. It is their USE & misuses by government actors ( and private firms)I point to.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/more-sports/former-buckeye-lake-police-chief-charged-with-misusing-database/ar-AAEwJGh?ocid=AMZN
I know everyone is infatuated with bells and whistles. Love makes you blind. SOR is unconstitutional precisely by rendering human subservient ( just a bit) to machine.
That is were it starts ( subservience to some) but the notion will grow and expand.
One may not dispute a state’s sovereign right to maintain a database of convicted bad actors.
One may however confront the accuracy, efficacy and intent underlying it’s promulgation.
Affirmative disability and restraint IS AND ALWAYS WAS going to be imposed by it, because that was the underlying protracted intent. In Fact without having the SOR databases no enforcement of residence restriction could be imposed at all. The purpose exposed- the clearest proof. Speech and peaceful assembly are being affected by TOS. Public opinion is almost entirely formed by what big media advances as TRUTH.
A truth is human sex offenders are indentured, not to a prisons maintenance, but to a machines maintenance that works anti-liberty in their day to day lives. Invisible electronic bars used to impose affirmative restraint.
Firms and GOV is already using them for nefarious purposes, or to gain political advantages.
Google, FB and the rest are manipulating what the people see, read.
CR,
Registry – an official record – fine.
This ” registry” is not just an official record. It goes way beyond!
1) Voter registry – so you may vote ( or not)
2) SOR databases – so registrants may not. Period!
Huge difference between promoting liberty and working anti liberty.
states could have opted to build individual pages of offenders ( as the SOR does now)
But demanded registrants interface and update their pages themselves ( like FB does by individuals volition) instead of hiring SOR agents to do so. However IF that option had been selected the registrant would have been necessarily required ” to show up in person ” when updating. Yes The updates could occur from inside a home, via PC, but still qualify as ” in person reporting. “
AJ, CR, New Person, Will Allen.
Who collects data points without intend to use it for presentation of some side-by-side else why bother collecting in the first place. Some states refer to it properly. State X’s database of child molesters and kidnappers.
The sex offender registry term is a misnomer used to distort underlying intent and appear less big brotherish. It is far more than a list, log, or merely an official list. It goes way beyond that, far beyond in that registrants are indentured to the upkeep of other information ( not conviction). To have a list of official log of those convicted , no problem, to demand personal information not attainable by LE without warrant is untenable constitutionally.
@FTR
Agent, SOR want email addresses from registrants with no intent to communicate with registrants via email? Answer Yes.
Agent the SOR collection demand of email addresses are for purposes other than or outside emails normal use?
Answer Yes.
What other purposes Agent?