Not in custody? Hardly!
Across the country, jurisdictions impose extraordinary restrictions on individuals subject to sex-offender registration that go well beyond supervision, surveillance, or merely “being on a list.” A striking example: in Chatham County, Georgia, the county sheriff announced that this year all level 3 sex offenders must report to jail on Halloween night for three hours. The public justification: “for the safety of trick-or-treaters.” Yet at the same time, decades of empirical research show there is no increase in sex offences or abductions on Halloween.
What Chatham’s policy illustrates is the blunt use of registrant-status to impose custodial constraints—regardless of anything the individual has done, regardless of current risk, and without reasonable suspicion of any crime being committed. Being told to “report to jail for three hours” and subject to law-enforcement monitoring during that time is, by definition, custody. The person isn’t free to go about their life. They can’t choose to go out for dinner or stay in bed and watch TV. They are under compulsion to attend, remain for a set period, under supervision, in law-enforcement space!
This raises profound constitutional questions, especially in light of the recent appellate decision in Clements (11th Cir. July 2025). In that case, the court confronted whether the cumulative effect of Florida’s lifetime registration, reporting, and residency restrictions might render a person “in custody” for purposes of federal habeas corpus jurisdiction. The court held that while the registration and reporting requirements had not been found sufficient on their own, the question of whether residency restrictions might tip the scale required further record development.
Aside from the legal issue present here, from a policy standpoint, the premises underlying these “Halloween report-in” mandates are shaky. Research analyzing tens of thousands of non-familial sexual offences among children found no statistically significant increase on Halloween. Yet we see counties devoting resources to mandatory incarceration, curfews, and heightened monitoring of registrants when the danger is not shown to exist.
The 11th Circuit in Clements signaled that we are approaching the limit of how far these post-conviction controls can go without becoming tantamount to custody. FAC is proud to be assisting in the Clements case. We need to stop punishment that extends beyond the sentence and subjecting free persons to a custodial setting without the protections that would attach.
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My question is, do those who had an adult victim only still have to be banned from Halloween? Not asking for me because I did not do Halloween anyway, just curious if it is only for those with an underaged victim. If they are banned as well, that right there would prove it has nothing to do with safety, but punishment.
Check your local ordinance(s) and let us know.
Very similar of some counties in Florida when there is a hurricane, the only shelter for those on the registry is to report to the county lockup. Guess what, I would rather be taken out by the hurricane than to ever step foot in a jail ever until I die. I have ridden out some of the fiercest storms in Florida’s history while on the registry and if I have to, I will go down with the ship.
Even when I was on probation, I was not told to go to the jail during a hurricane. And even though I do not participate in Halloween, if they forced me to report to the jail, well “Fill in the blank” because I am not going. It is bad enough myself and others have reported issues with treatment when in the hospital because our chart has “Sexual offender” listed in our records.