The Sex Offender Registry: Vengeful, unconstitutional and due for full repeal
The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that at least 95 percent of all state prisoners will be released from prison at some point. However, convicted sex-offenders almost exclusively face the vengeful, additional punishment of registration under the Sex Offender Registry and Notification Act (SORNA).
Generally, under SORNA, an individual who is required to register as a sex offender must register at least once a year; report any change of address within as little as three days; produce vehicle information, a recent photograph and a DNA sample; and abide by stringent residency restrictions, which can force individuals out of urban areas, away from family and into unemployment.
SORNA violates our nation’s founding documents by singling out a specific category of offenders for unfair, unconstitutional punishment. While the Department of Justice cites public safety as its rationale for continuing to enforce the overreaching requirements of SORNA, the program has metastasized, defacing some of our most treasured rights: the right to due process, the right to be free from double jeopardy and the right to avoid cruel and unusual punishment.
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Everything to do with the registry is like spending resources and time on a car on its last leg. We as registrants have been held accountable for our past; but forever stained because of it. I’m tired of politicians using registrants to pass laws that don’t solve anything, except creating chaos on problems that wouldn’t exist if they left things alone. Politicians should be held accountable for their actions by getting voted out of office and being hit in the pocketbook.