ACSOL: Legal Scholars to Consider Elimination of Public Registry Next Week
Members of the American Law Institute (ALI), the most important and prestigious organization of legal scholars and prominent attorneys in the nation, will consider a proposal next week that could significantly change the nation’s sex offender laws. The most significant of those changes would be the elimination of public registries in all 50 state. The proposal also includes, but is not limited to, recommendations to abolish all public notification laws as well as most residency restrictions, internet restrictions and GPS location monitoring.
Those who oppose the proposal include journalist William Dobbs because he believes the ALI proposal does not go far enough. Instead of restricting the registry only to law enforcement officials, Dobbs advocates the total elimination of all sex offender registries.
[FAC NOTE: We agree with Dobbs – the registry needs to be abolished in it’s entirety.]
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At least it’s a beginning of discussion. I hope this discussion also includes how there are some many requirements on what you must do or face additional charge of failure to register and the harm of there techinal violations.
The ALI meeting will be on the 7th and the 8th. I have been following it since my offense is CP. A most inportant aspect is that ALI will also change the Model Penal Code to say that only offenses with a violation of Article 213 of the MPC will even be on the registry. Those would strictly sex offenses and not possession of CP. It specifically eliminates posession of CP folks which is a hell of a lot of us. They call this a “sex related offense” not a sex offense. Thus if your a cp offender and a state adopts the new MPC, you will no longer be a RSO at all.
I sure hope that the lawmakers see it at the same eye level as this organization and do indeed abolish these draconians, do nothing but ostracizing laws.
We got to keep fighting and with that, I mean that we need to keep the hope alive that one day, all this crap will be finally he abolished….and with the hope that it will not be replaced with something worse.
Good news. It’s absolutely terrible that politicians have misused this issue to make themselves appear to be tough on crime, and that the registry protects the public, despite evidence to the contrary. All registries do is continue to punish people who made a mistake in the past and served prison time for it, often a great deal of time. The collateral damage done to families of registrants is just unconscionable. Unfortunately, many politicians have no conscience when it comes to advancing their own careers.
Does ALI have any influence in Tallahassee?
None
How about facts and reality?
I like to keep this evidence-based. That way, the facts remain on our side, even where the law is not (yet).
We have volumes of evidence that public registries are ineffective. But where is the evidence that non-public, police registries are ineffective? For the latter, I’m referring to examples such as Canada, UK (mostly), Australia, NZ. What is our most persuasive case against those?
I would say all the same arguments can still be used against private registries because even though you’re neighbors don’t know you’re on it, the police do. And they’ll most likely still come knocking to do “check ups”/verifications. You’ll still have to tell them how many vehicles are parked on your street, what (if any) social media you use, all your passwords, have you still asking permission to go on a vacation and all your itinerary and your passport will still most likely be stamped and you’ll have a hard time going anywhere outside the country. Not to mention the embarrassment that showing a passport with a Sex Offender stamp on it will cause.
So therefore, private registries are NOT any better than public ones.
Maestro
It was said on here in the past, even if registries were banned, the passport issue would still stand. I just saw that on a post recently in here where someone got off the registry but still has passport issues as well as travel bans to certain countries.
Based on charges not the registry.
CherokeeJack,
I got my passport BEFORE the IML went into effect. I was NEVER informed to turn it in for the updated one with the SO stamp. My passport expired the same year that I completed my 10 year registration with the state of CT. I had misplaced the passport and had to get a whole new one. My new passport also does NOT have any SO stamp on it. So I dunno where this info about passports would still be stamped with the offender info if the registry was to disappear or you’re no longer on it.
Mine only had a bar code. No one knew what it was unless you scanned it and then the TSA would see on their screen that you were an offender (ex offender)
I never had anything that someone picking it up would know but the bar code