Legislation that would create a statewide violent felony offender registry has been included in the New York State Senate’s one-house budget, state Sen. Michael Nozzolio said Wednesday.
“New York state currently requires all convicted sex offenders to register with the state and it keeps track of those individuals,” he said. “It makes no sense that we do not do the same for those who commit violent felony crimes against our citizens. We cannot continue to put innocent New Yorkers at risk.” Full Article
First the came for the sex offenders, etc.
I don’t think it’s that ridiculous to envision a future where most anyone who has had any kind of a blemish on their record will be on some kind of a registry — all in the name of public safety when what is known about registries is that they do nil to enhance public safety.
The fact is anyone who commits any kind of crime has a publicly-accessible record, right? All we are doing is putting it all on blast so that anyone can google your background and rub it in your face whenever they want.
I know hundreds of thousands of sex offenders are the last place the public wants to get an “I told you so” from, but these unconstitutional chickens are starting to come home to roost.
This is just the next predictable step to the Pied Piper’s tune. I’m hopeful that this is a turning point for awareness that these precedents have gone too far instead of celebrating expanding this flawed practice of making former criminals and their families suffer in perpetuity.
What scares me is knowing the pattern of politicians grandstanding and going overboard in the name of “safety.” Democrats love to show that no one loves to care for victims more than them. Republicans love to show that no one loves to punish criminals more than them. This is the one outlook all politicians share; ironically, it puts them directly in contrast with the one shared oath they all swear: to uphold and defend the Constitution. Bills of attainder with expost facto implications flow into the legal code while they puff out their chests and violate their oaths with pride.
Politicians are one thing, but how do courts uphold these laws? Protecting the rights of the minority again the tyranny of the majority is supposed to be one of their functions. Instead, they defer to the legislative intent and declare these laws as constitutional because they’re supposedly only public safety reglations and not intended to be punitive. Even if that were true, shouldn’t the intent of the law be weighed against the hysterical mindset that drives these laws?
But we all know that registration and restrictions are the real punishments. Only those of us who are forced to endure them for a lifetime, long after our sentences have been served, can fully appreciate how punitive these laws can feel. But EVERYONE knows these are a punishment and that’s why they’re so popular.
The general public, (mis)informed by a media that uses words like offender, predator, molester, rapist, and monster interchangably isn’t concerned about the ‘rights’ of offenders. Our rights are usually referred to as ‘loopholes’ that should be closed as soon as they’re discovered. The public believes that they have a “right” to know who is around their children. While this right is not spelled out in any constitution I’m aware of, it becomes an obligation on an entire group of people to provide and comply. It is a gestapo tactic that has gone way too far for far too long. To often, the argument is framed as “sex offenders have more rights than victims,” but it’s hard to imagine a more falacious argument. Instead, we’re told,”you gave up your right to ( insert any privacy, civil, Constitutional, or human right _ _ here _ _ ) the minute you had sex with a ‘ child ‘.”
Let’s assume for a moment that this is a valid legal argument, but could you please at least enumerate what rights us and our families are expected to forfeit rather than just adding more and more year after year? For your own sakes even; these laws are Trojan horses to the Bill of Rights as the precedents set by these court cases open the door to these new registries and so much more. The evidence does not validate the verdicts.
Politicians love these laws for their resumes, but it is public sentiment that encourages them.while it may be foolish public policy, it would be moronic politics to vote against them. The public knows these are punishments and it makes them happy: the only people they think are hurt by them are people they want to see suffer.
But the hurt extends to the innocent family members of the offender also. While the stigma of being a registered sex offender is a punishment felt by us, often the stain of this scarlet letter upon our addresses stings our innocent spouses and children in much deeper ways. What the children of sex offenders are subjected to is unconscionable and never taken into account. The ostracism, bullying, and subjugation experienced by them is more punitive on them than it is for us. Sadly, the greatest punishment I feel from this is the knowledge of how it will make my kids suffer for the long ago sin of the father. And yet we’re force fed this narrative that we need more of these laws to protect the “most innocent and vulnerable citizens.” I speak for no one but myself, but I know that I’m not going to harm a child, but these laws are going to harm my children.
I know there are those among us who feel vindicated that this curse is spreading to other classes of criminals (who have higher rates of recidivism,but I wouldn’t wish this life on my worst enemy. We should know by now that these laws don’t work and use this to open eyes and change minds before while we March down the path that leads to banishment and internment camps.
Despite the preconceived perception that I’m a sex offender, therefore I have a high probability of offending again, I know otherwise. I’m not a ‘young person’ anymore, I’m a grown man with a wife and kids of my own. Even if the age of consent was lowered to 14, I still wouldn’t sleep with a 14 year old again. But year after year my face on the registry looks older and older and older, only making people think that the crime itself was worse and worse.
This “right” to be informed only allows people to get enough information to extrapolate ideas that only make them more ignorant. This young man (more like dumb old boy) that could hardly grow facial hair is now graying where his hairline isn’t receding. You see my picture and glean I’m a dirty old man.
I don’t have any sexual interest in kids, and sexual violence disgusts me, but even to those of you who wrestle with these desires, “Thank you!” Every time any sex offender crosses the line and acts out, we all have to pay for it, so I’m grateful that the overall recidivism rate is so low, even though no one believes it. Registration and restrictions may be unbearable, but they have not caused the problems that they may have. Again, I question the practicality of laws designed to ” pressure-test” people you don’t think are stable enough to live within a quarter mile of a home day care. Will having a violent offender registry become the self-fulfilling prophecy to continue to justify the constitutionality of these punishments…excuse me…regulations?
Will the ACLU take the case of a serial killer to fight the precedents as I feel they have done with us? We need cases to illustrate the problems with these laws, not cases that illustrate why they were passed in the first place. I’m greatly optimistic about the case before the Ohio state supreme court, although I thought it was argued poorly.
Please continue to live as example of how these laws are flawed, not as an example for why more are needed.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE smartphone
nvmike said “I don’t have any sexual interest in kids, and sexual violence disgusts me, but even to those of you who wrestle with these desires, “Thank you!” Every time any sex offender crosses the line and acts ”
Since 98% of new sex crimes come from non-registrants, it would be 98% of ‘these desires’ being wrestled with by non-registrants, so it would make sense you and all rso’s do not have these desires with 98% certainty.
“out, we all have to pay for it, so I’m grateful that the overall recidivism rate is so low, even though no one believes it. Registration and restrictions may be unbearable, but they have not caused the ”
Very few believe it because the message is being silenced. I wonder how many that get to hear the real statistics on low re-offense rates believe them. I would say a much much higher number than those who don’t believe it because they never heard the real numbers and keep getting lied to. Lying about the re-offense rates of registrants is a cash cow for these desecrators of the US Constitution like John Walsh, Lauren Book, and Lifelock/ID Analytics.
Rso’s have a less than 2% re-offense rate. 98% of new sex crimes come from non-registrants. I don’t think I have ever heard either of these statistics on any Clear Channel station. Not once.
The bullshit is crystal clear.
For all the naysayers and those that think people like this have served their time. Try being a victim or a family member of a victim or victims, there is NO parole, this is life lasting. In my case nothing will bring back my daughter or granddaughter. Had she known this mans history they would both be alive right now. Think about it in that context. Try putting yourself in the shoes of the victim.
Try putting yourself in the shoes of the innocent children who are victimized by these laws that are well intentioned at best, though more often state-sponsored vengeance. Victims should get a say against those who have victimized them, criminally and civilly, in my opinion, but these one-size-fits-all registration schemes DO NOTHING for victims and instead focus on punishing former offenders and their families.
I’m deeply and truly sorry to anyone who has been victimized or lost someone, but this is not the way to fix what had happened. If hurting others makes you feel better, get some help, but don’t call your vendetta a just cause. Aristotle said “Law should be reason without passion,” but what did he know…
It may work to the advantage of registrants in the long run. As this net is cast beyond “society’s most reviled”, there may be the need to apply the constitution – at last.