{"id":1927,"date":"2019-12-14T15:45:39","date_gmt":"2019-12-14T21:45:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/?p=1927"},"modified":"2019-12-14T15:45:39","modified_gmt":"2019-12-14T21:45:39","slug":"the-appeal-what-is-the-purpose-of-sex-offense-registries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/2019\/12\/14\/the-appeal-what-is-the-purpose-of-sex-offense-registries\/","title":{"rendered":"The Appeal: What Is The Purpose of Sex Offense Registries?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Sarah Lustbader | December 10th, 2019<\/p>\n

Two days ago, the Union-Recorder in Georgia published a bizarre editorial. The editorial board noted that the state\u2019s sex offender registry system drives people into homelessness and deprived them of counseling and employment opportunities, but laments this fact only insofar as it allows registrants to \u201cfly under the radar\u201d and makes them \u201cmore difficult to track.\u201d Georgia\u2019s registry system, according to the authors, \u201cplaces too much trust in the honor system\u201d because requiring people to self-register \u201cplaces too much confidence\u201d in the registrant. They acknowledge that there are \u201cstrong penalties\u201d for failing to register, including life in prison, but these apparently don\u2019t go far enough, as some people with convictions could \u201cchoose to live on the fringes of the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a society we have determined that in the case of convicted sexual offenders, the potential danger to the general public, and especially children, outweighs their rights to resume a normal life after the debt to society is paid,\u201d the editorial board writes, but \u201cdespite all the concerns we have about civil liberties and individual rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, we simply have to know where these offenders are and what threat they pose to a community.\u201d The authors propose no solutions. And, more to the point, they betray a fundamental ignorance of the fact that no empirical evidence shows that registries actually protect anyone. Some evidence indicates they make us less safe.<\/p>\n

Sex offender registries weren\u2019t designed to punish people, Dara Lind wrote for Vox in 2016. \u201cThe registry was designed for \u2018sexual predators\u2019 who repeatedly preyed on children (at least according to the fears of 1990s policymakers). The purpose was supposed to be not punishment but prevention. The theory: \u2018Sexual predators\u2019 were unable or unwilling to control their urges, and the government could not do enough to keep them away from children, so the job of avoiding \u2018sexual predators\u2019 needed to fall to parents.\u201d But now, 20 years later, \u201cthe focus on sex crimes has shifted from sexual abuse of children to sexual assault and rape. The idea that criminals can\u2019t control their behavior has been replaced by attention to the cultural and institutional failures that allow rapes to happen and go unpunished.\u201d As a preventive tool, it hasn\u2019t worked, Lind writes. \u201cInstead, it\u2019s caught up thousands of people in a tightly woven net of legal sanctions and social stigma. Registered sex offenders are constrained by where, with whom, and how they can live\u2014then further constrained by harassment or shunning from neighbors and prejudice from employers.\u201d<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read at The Appeal<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Sarah Lustbader | December 10th, 2019 Two days ago, the Union-Recorder in Georgia published a bizarre editorial. The editorial board noted that the state\u2019s sex offender registry system drives people into homelessness and deprived them of counseling and employment opportunities, but laments this fact only insofar as it allows registrants to \u201cfly under the … <\/p>\n

The Appeal: What Is The Purpose of Sex Offense Registries?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":836,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,11],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1927","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-notes","7":"category-sorn-news","8":"entry"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/836"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1927\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}