Sex Offender Registries Are Fueling Mass Incarceration — And They Aren’t Helping Survivors
The “sex offense legal regime,” which has developed alongside mass incarceration over the last forty years, has failed.
US sex offender registries now list nearly one million people. Federal, state, and local ordinances prohibit convicted sex offenders from living within a certain distance of schools, parks, day care centers, and other spaces where children might congregate. In places like Miami–Dade County, these restrictions have rendered hundreds of individuals effectively homeless. Only by building and inhabiting makeshift encampments in sparsely populated areas can offenders comply with such residency requirements.
Following the passage of an especially punitive county ordinance — still on the books as of 2020 — a veritable refugee camp of registrants appeared under Miami’s Dolphin Expressway. Facing eviction and possible arrest, residents of the encampment moved to an underpass before encountering similar resistance and decamping in 2014 for an industrial area near Hialeah, a Miami suburb. In the summer of 2018, city and county officials — under pressure from area residents and business owners — applied the same punitive tactics to disband the encampment, once again displacing and dehumanizing its inhabitants. And the cycle remains unbroken: last June, registrants occupying a makeshift “colony” in Miami’s Brownsville neighborhood were forced to vacate.
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I wish these types of articles would be printed in the mainstream.
Excellent article
The facts should be undeniable but false information and claims scream louder than facts and truth . Exaggerations and falsehoods draw more attention than truth every time. The gullible suck it down like sweet wine.
The black live matter movement is succumbing to the same problem. Yes they have a legitimate concern and it’s about time it’s dealt with. But they have to be careful that they don’t try and stretch truth in there endeavors. Police violence is a major problem but black people are not the only ones effected. There were three recent police killings in Kansas City . All unarmed and white one a women the other two men. When the movement heard about it they immediately jumped on it till they found out they were white. They dumped it like a hot potato and so did the news agencies.
What does that tell you? Everyone wants to cover up facts to push there agenda. So the problems just keep on mounting.
Excellent article, thank you for posting it.