In the United States, anyone convicted of a sex offense is punished with two criminal sentences. The first is the one they serve in prison. The second begins when the first ends, and they are forced to enroll in a Sex Offender Registry (SOR).
SOR restrictions aren’t one-size-fits-all, because there isn’t just one registry—there are many. They exist at federal, state and municipal levels, creating a nightmarish tangle of legal requirements under which people can be prosecuted for violating SOR restrictions that don’t even exist in the jurisdiction where they live.
Everywhere else in the world, law enforcement keeps SOR confidential. The US is the only country that publishes them for anyone to see. In addition to the registered person’s mug shot and conviction, SOR often disclose the address of their home, work or school—while making it nearly impossible for many to access housing, employment and education in the first place.
The first state to create an SOR was California, in 1947. But Washington State was the first to make its SOR public, in 1990, and others hastened to follow. The rationale behind publishing SOR was that it was about prevention, not punishment—that parents and guardians needed access to that information in order to protect their children from violent sexual predators in their communities.
As often happens in the criminal-legal system, things designed for one purpose are soon being used for another. Today, people can be required to register on SOR for convictions that were neither violent nor sex-related at all. Often, the people targeted this way are from the same communities as those at the center of harm reduction.
Many people on SOR are there because they’re trans; engage in sex work; use drugs; living with HIV; living in poverty.
Though not on an SOR myself, over the course of the nearly 30 years I’ve spent incarcerated I’ve seen how, over and over, this system is weaponized against the most vulnerable and disenfranchised. It’s true that some people on SOR are violent pedophiles. But whether or not that is useful for public safety, it is also true that many people on SOR are there because they’re trans; engage in sex work; use drugs; live with HIV; or live in poverty.
Many states require people without an address to re-register with local law enforcement every 30 days. “A transient shall … also list the places where he or she sleeps, eats, works, frequents and engages in leisure activities,” states California law.
Kansas has expanded its registry to include people convicted of drug charges, including comparatively minor ones like possession.