Federal law and the laws of all 50 states now require adults and some juveniles convicted of specified crimes that involve sexual conduct to register with law enforcement-regardless of whether the crimes involved children. So-called "Megan's Laws" establish public access to registry information, primarily by mandating the creation of online registries that provide a former offender's criminal history, current photograph, current address, and other information such as place of employment. In many states everyone who is required to register is included on the online registry. A growing number of states and municipalities have also prohibited registered offenders from living within a designated distance (typically 500 to 2,500 feet) of places where children gather-for example, schools, playgrounds, and daycare centers.
Human Rights Watch appreciates the sense of concern and urgency that has prompted these laws. They reflect a deep public yearning for safety in a world that seems increasingly threatening. Every child has the right to live free from violence and sexual abuse. Promoting public safety by holding offenders accountable and by instituting effective crime prevention measures is a core governmental obligation.
Unfortunately, our research reveals that sex offender registration, community notification, and residency restriction laws are ill-considered, poorly crafted, and may cause more harm than good:
•The registration laws are overbroad in scope and overlong in duration, requiring people to register who pose no safety risk;
•Under community notification laws, anyone anywhere can access online sex offender registries for purposes that may have nothing to do with public safety. Harassment of and violence against registrants have been the predictable result;
•In many cases, residency restrictions have the effect of banishing registrants from entire urban areas and forcing them to live far from their homes and families.
The evidence is overwhelming, as detailed in this report, that these laws cause great harm to the people subject to them. On the other hand, proponents of these laws are not able to point to convincing evidence of public safety gains from them. Even assuming some public safety benefit, however, the laws can be reformed to reduce their adverse effects without compromising that benefit. Registration laws should be narrowed in scope and duration. Publicly accessible online registries should be eliminated, and community notification should be accomplished solely by law enforcement officials. Blanket residency restrictions should be abolished.
Since the day in 1989, when her son Jacob was kidnapped by a stranger, Patty Wetterling has “been on a journey to find him and to stop this from ever happening to another child, another family.” She and her husband are co-founders of the Jacob Wetterling Foundation, which works to prevent sexual violence against children. When Patty Wetterling speaks out against sex offender laws, we should listen. Here is part of the opening of her op/ed piece “The harm in sex-offender laws“ from this morning’s Sacramento Bee, (Sept. 14, 2007).
I’m worried that we’re focusing so much energy on naming and shaming convicted sex offenders that we’re not doing as much as we should to protect our children from other real threats.
Many states make former offenders register for life, restrict where they can live, and make their details known to the public. And yet the evidence suggests these laws may do more harm than good.
What idiotbill will not acknowledge is that my view on these laws is the view of other very reputable people. He can not dismiss the opposing argument by bashing me, at least not in the company of fair and free thinking people.
This should be too obvious to be denied, and should require no scientific evidence for you to concede that by now it must have happened many, many times.
Idiot vigilantes are perfectly capable of accessing public records, which are no harder to find than the sex offenders list… so I don’t see taking tools away from parents as being a huge defense.
Dude, you get bashed for being the scumbag you are. You share lots of views with lots of reasonable people. Doesn't change the fact that you're a scumbag.
Because all the recidivism rate tells you is that a person who has been charged and convicted with a crime has relapsed, reoffended and been recharged and convicted again.
What it doesn't tell you and what no one can know but the offender is how many instances of criminal behavior were engaged in and not discovered.
So what the recidivism rate does tell you is that the same people are continuing to offend. What it doesn't tell you is whether the same number, more or fewer people are being victimized by the same victimizers-before they are caught again- and it can't-only the offender can know that.
So I'm not saying that there are definitely people who were not abused who would have been - what I'm saying is there's really no way to know and/or measure that aspect of the effectiveness of this registry as a deterrent.
Only the offender can say whether or not this monitoring is curtailing his activities and making him more liable to be caught after fewer offences than s/he was before it was in place.
Shorteyes' objection alone tells me it's a good tool!
OCCOM BILL wrote:This should be too obvious to be denied, and should require no scientific evidence for you to concede that by now it must have happened many, many times.
Actually I think it was so out there that I didn't begin to consider that this is what you are talking about. If you think this is happening it should still have an impact on recidivism rates. It's just not plausible that foiled abuse invariably finds another candidate.
This is just a constructed scenario that can't be proven or disproved and if that is how you think the list is working the fact remains that there is no evidence for it.
Quote:Idiot vigilantes are perfectly capable of accessing public records, which are no harder to find than the sex offenders list… so I don’t see taking tools away from parents as being a huge defense.
This is just not true Bill. The public records don't require them to register their address for life.
But let's just assume it is to show you something about this argument:
If it is just as easy and idiot vigilantes are perfectly capable of doing so, then so are parents. If there's no difference then why are you arguing to keep the list? Can't parents just do the same?
The bottom line is that they simply are not the same thing, and simply do not have the same public exposure.
OCCOM BILL wrote:Shorteyes' objection alone tells me it's a good tool!
I'm nearly certain that you are just kidding, but just in case you aren't see the guilt by association fallacy.
In Maine they give a legal description of what crime was committed but this didn't stop a stupid vigilante from murdering someone who was convicted of consensual sex with his teenage girlfriend when he was 19 after finding his address on the list. Most people don't bother to make the distinctions, if someone is on the list they are on the list and are painted with the same brush as far as most laymen are concerned.
Sorry Robert. I have to call nonsense on you here. Of what must be many thousands of vigilant parents who go out of their way to keep kids out of reach of known sex offenders; some quantity of kids must have been kept out of harms way as a result. Denying something this obvious is just silly.
The overall statistics have more than this one variable... and are largely irrelevant when considering this small segment of kids who may be saved. It is absurd that you'd ask me to prove how many times something didn't happen.
It is not reasonable for you to deny that countless thousands ofextra precautious parents haven't prevented some kids from being harmed.
The biggest difference is pictures... but also the closer to accurate addressing you referred to. This makes a big impact on a parent trying to steer/drive their kids around known potential harm's way. Do you think a lack of same would have a like thwarting affect on the idiot-vigilante?
That doesn't make sense, Robert. Knowing locations and recognizing faces in your neighborhood is very helpful to parents. Lack of same provides virtually no protection from Charley Bronson who can travel to any neighborhood (and will probably be in business longer if he does) and can choose from dozens of candidates in even the smallest towns.
Again your argument may be sound on the macro, but doesn’t stand up to scrutiny in the micro.
That conclusion is simply unreasonable. I don't believe most laymen are picture viewers who ignore the printed word.
Was kidding indeed. For all I know, he likes the Packers and hates the Bears.
That's silly. You first try to make it sound like there's no difference between the public records and the registry, then when I point out that if there is really no difference it makes no sense to argue for the registry you rationalize how the difference is only important to your side of the argument.
This is another measurable claim Bill, but before I go spend tons of time bringing real evidence, as opposed to speculation, I'd like to know if it even matters to you. It'd be pointless to spend the time finding evidence that this increased such vigilantism if you'd just find some unprovable rationalization for why it doesn't matter.
Definitely not worth it. I can't return the favor with equal time spent, because I don't have it... and vigilante justice against known child molesters pales in importance to me to an extent that sickens you. I'm not joking when I suggest the death penalty for repeat offenders or when I suggest Shorteyes take one for the team. The innocence of one child is worth an awful lot violence against known sickos in my book. I’m not suggesting the rule of law shouldn’t apply to the idiot-vigilante; I’m simply stating his plight means little to me compared to that of the innocent child.
Where you apparently view the cyclical nature of these crimes as a reason for leniency; I view it as a compelling reason for far longer sentences, both to keep the victims from the victimizers, AND to teach the victims that the behavior is not okay. **** the perp.
You are apparently stuck in the measurable macro to an extent you've forgotten the thread's author is concerned with her own children more than anything else. This concern is aided by the database that told her there's a 3-pack of likely recidivists living between her home and the YMCA. Put yourself in the parental shoes for a moment, and you might better be able to see things from her perspective.
Or that the false sense of security caused others to be harmed as a result.
You don't like to recognize how little separates yourself from these people. It's no knock on you personally, this is a common trait. Society likes to think that their monsters (of all varieties) are very different from themselves, and that there could be no way they could be the same.
It is a self-serving view of human nature that is not adequate to the complexities of these problems and that is due in large part to wanting to deny the presence of any such ugliness (or potential for such ugliness) in oneself. At some point it becomes more about posturing about one's goodness than solving the problem of their badness.
What idiotbill will not acknowledge is that my view on these laws is the view of other very reputable people. He can not dismiss the opposing argument by bashing me, at least not in the company of fair and free thinking people.
That's my central fear (as I have said frequently before) about the kind of hysteria and dehumanization that so many react to sex offenders with.
