UPDATED with commentary from ACSOL Board Member Guy Hamilton-Smith (below)
Inside the sprawling two-story tan and coral stucco building on New York Avenue in Northeast Washington, D.C., is a men’s homeless shelter that once served as a halfway house run by the government.
It’s a place that some 20 registered sex offenders call home — according to the city’s sex offender registry. But at least one-third of them don’t really live there, and D.C. authorities have no idea where they are.
The men are among the more than 25,000 convicted sex offenders and predators across the U.S. who have absconded, their whereabouts unknown to law enforcement or the victims — often children — whom they sexually assaulted or abused, an NPR investigation has found. Tens of thousands of others are out of compliance with sex offender registry laws. Full Article
Related
NPR Eschews Journalism in Favor of Moral Panic – Guy Hamilton-Smith
Normally, I don’t want to be writing this much but an NPR story ran today that I feel comfortable saying is journalistic malpractice. Thus, I’m compelled to say something about it. Here we are.
A piece by Cheryl Thompson ran under the headline of Sex Offender Registries Often Fail Those They Are Designed To Protect. As Stephen Hardwick — an appellate public defender in Ohio — often notes the only people that registries are designed to protect are incumbent politicians. That being the case, I would be extremely surprised indeed if the headline held up under scrutiny. And, strangely enough — it does! Just for reasons that are completely contrary to the reporting. Read the Commentary
Here’s an article. OF COURSE they use worst case scenarios to make their point.
https://www.npr.org/2020/08/25/808229392/sex-offender-registries-often-fail-those-they-are-designed-to-protect
At least they talked to someone with a brain who was able to say:
“The registry really doesn’t work,” [Kelly] Socia says. “It’s a bloated, inefficient system that is incredibly expensive to maintain. I don’t think it really protects anybody.”
I expected NPR to be a lot more balanced than this. I don’t donate to them, and I never will. And it pisses me off that they are partially government funded.
I think this article should be followed up, and I’d love for the author to talk to Janice, Vicky Henry, Miriam Auckerman, etc. The examples in this article are mostly violent, repeat offenders. They make it seem like EVERYONE on the registry is like that. I’m fed up with this crap!
I wrote to NPR. Here’s my response and I suggest people write in.
I am extremely disappointed by Ms. Cheryl Thompson’s article “Sex Offender Registries Often Fail to Those They Are Designed to Protect.”
First off, no sexual abuse or violence is acceptable in the least. There needs to be more accountability for those who commit them. That being said I was one of those people. I have been on the registry for ten years. Since released from jail, I have always complied with the law, payed my restitution, and completed court mandated therapy and continued it on my own time.
The United States Supreme Court Case Smith v Doe 2003, listed the registry as non-punitive. Justice John Roberts said it was no worse than a price club membership. That is essentially what people’s pain and misery, especially victims lives, boil down to: A Costco card. It is incorrigible.
Millard v Rankin 2016 came to the conclusion that the registry was ineffective and bloated, before being overturned. Doe v Snyder 2018 has also ruled portions of the registry as punishment.
The registry is ineffective policy, as well as associated parts. It forces the compliant to register addresses, cars, work, schools, height weight, fingerprints for life, as well as their partners and children’s information. Meanwhile the most dangerous offenders can simply walk away. I would have rather paid restitution to my victim for the rest of my existence; at least it has the propensity to do something good.
I hope that NPR follows up this article with another investigative article. I do applaud that the article laid out how there is little incentive for people to register save for jail, which contributes to the United States bloated incarceration rate. Moreover, I am glad that you focused on how even victims of sexual abuse find this ineffective.
Sincerely,
We’re in serious trouble when left-leaning NPR makes ALL sex offenders out to be the “common enemy” that everyone loves to hate and disparage. They predictably coddle victim interviewees as though we’re supposed to feel sorry for their “struggles.” Then allow them to whine about how the registry doesn’t give them the psychological comfort they thought it would.
Did they actually think that an unconstitutional, intellectually dishonest law was going to prevent the same thing from happening to someone else???
The issue here is that the things that make the registry ineffective will not be evaluated and improved upon. There will be no empirical evaluation or regressive evaluation to determine what might be effective.
They will simply push for more compliance more requirements, with the intent to incarcerate those who served their time.
While the article was poorly written in how it presented the registry overall by highlighting the worst of the worst multi-time offenders, it did have a few points that highlighted how useless the registry is as well. The black man who “absconded” when he failed to register remained at the same address since his last registration. The fact that the local PD apparently not even once took a half hour to visit his last known whereabouts to try and find him, shows how much law enforcement “relies” on the registry to keep the community safe.
A system built on fear mongering will never do what it was intended. The only person that raped and murdered Megan Kanka was her killer. The only person who kidnapped Jacob Whetterling was the guy who committed the crime. The only person that murdered Adam Walsh (if he’s actually dead) is his killer. The only person that can keep your family safe is you. If one can’t do that than good luck having the government take care of you when disaster strikes. For those who have endured sexual abuse you can heal and be at peace. Only rage, revenge and being forced to be a forever victim prevents them from that goal. A system designed on bias is doomed to fail!!
The author’s two professional email addresses can be found at this URL: https://www.ire.org/archives/board_member/cheryl-w-thompson
Maybe if she’s given the other side or rest of the story, she may do so. Courtesy and politeness are the words of the day in writing.
I plan to write the author.
Sex Offense Registries do make common sense. But they aren’t acceptable.
It is reasonable to believe that if Robert Maurer were listed on the Hit Lists, that would have helped prevent future victims. It’s reasonable to believe that, but it’s a fantasy. The fact is that if Maurer were listed, perhaps he would not have molested person X, but he would have molested person Y. I expect that in nearly every case, the best the Registries can do is “relocate” a sex crime. Who would believe that is useful?
Further, if Maurer were listed, he would be a lot more motivated to commit crimes. He would also be a lot more likely to commit crimes, including sex crimes. How much more likely? I personally think that multiplier is huge, at least 10x. Maybe much higher than that.
I also think that people whose children are most likely to be molested are people who are not actually protecting their children at all. They include people who read the Hit Lists and think that helps them. And ignore everything else.
People who will read the Hit Lists and use them appropriately, are exactly the people who don’t need the Hit Lists. Another way to put it is that people who are actually protecting their children don’t need the Hit Lists. Those who aren’t will never be helped by the Hit Lists.
A person who would read the Hit Lists and “need” to tell Maurer to be homeless and go live in the woods is the exact same person who is not protecting their children. It is their children who will be molested – either by a person not listed, by far the most likely, or by someone who is and they don’t know it.
I don’t have any sympathy for harassers like Kristen Trogler either. Perhaps if she wasn’t a harasser, I might. Millions of us have been victims of crimes, some surely worse than what she suffered. I don’t get to look on a big government Hit List and find my past perpetrators either. Why should she? And what business would I or she have to do that anyway? The Hit Lists aren’t for her entertainment, they are supposedly to prevent future crimes, which has nothing to do with her.
Yet, despite my past, I’m not a drug addict like her. Everyone fights anxiety, depression, etc. Life is rough. She should try to live on the Hit Lists. Also, there are millions of sufferers just like her who have no sex abuse in their past. I guess most of those drug addicts don’t have excuses as good as hers. For most people, Trogler’s lifestyle is a choice. Not all, but most.
Excellent commentary, Guy. Thank you so much for sharing this. I hope NPR gets an earful over this!
NPR is doing an audio report on this and it’s slightly better. They had a snipped of an LE agent saying the registry doesn’t actually keep anyone safe and they just have to do it as a matter of law. They further said that the registry used to be just an LE tool meant for help LE in investigating local cases. So I guess that’s a bit more positive?
I just moved from Los Angeles to another California city and registered in the new city. Do I need to notify the LAPD that I left the area?