Arkansas also keeps people NOT in their communities on the sex offender registry
According to this article, Arkansas also has something “funny” with it’s sex offender registry, We have long been reporting that Florida claims to have over 73,000 people on its sex offender registry, but fewer than half are in the community. MOST, in fact, are not in the community at all; they are incarcerated, deported, not living in Florida or are even dead!
The article states that, of the “16,049 people registered in Arkansas’ sex-offender database,.. more than 3,100 are incarcerated, about 3,400 are now outside the state, and 176 offenders have been deported.”
One must wonder what’s in it for the states to maintain such artificially inflated registration numbers and what public safety benefit is derived from diluting the list with thousands of people who are not even in the community.
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COME TO FLORIDA ON VACATION AND LEAVE A LIFETIME REGISTERED SEX OFFENDER
A registered individual goes to Florida on vacation, does the right thing and registers with the Sheriffs office in the county he is vacationing presuming he’ll only be on the registry during the time he is in Florida. WRONG!
Although he is only required to register in his home State for 10 years and eventually is removed at the end of 10 years, he will be on the Florida sex offender registry for life! That’s because Florida, to inflate their registry count, keeps people on its public sex offender registry after they returned to their home state, moved out of Florida, were deported or even died!
The purpose of “Megan’s Law” is to inform the public of “dangerous” people in their communities. But what purpose does Florida’s registry serve when the individual is no longer in the community and no longer in the state? Only to shame for life!
Worse, Florida is perhaps the only state that allows its registry to be indexed by search engines. Meaning; if you Google your name, your sex offender flyer comes right up. As harmful as this is for registrants in Florida, it’s particularly harmful and unnecessary for a registrant who is no longer in the state, who is not on a publicly indexed registry in their state or who has been removed from the registry in their home state.
Less than half the people on the Florida sex offender registry are living in Florida communities. Less than half!
Individuals on the Florida registry who are no longer in Florida, coordinated in conjunction with the Florida Action Committee, are looking to bring a lawsuit against the State seeking their removal from the Florida registry. If anyone is interested in participating or contributing to the challenge, please contact [email protected].
Under Donation go to Out of State Suit and make a Donation towards the Lawsuit. Anything to get to the Goal to Start this Rolling.
Are these states still getting federal funds to those people? If so, is this not double dipping and illegal?
Not that hard to figure out why states and counties inflate their registries – money. The federal registry probably uses the number of registrants when budgeting. Federal / state grants are probably given out based on the number of registrants. Privatized registries (icrimewatch.net) probably bill based on numbers of registrants as well.
A lot of “probablies” I know, but I can’t access anything to say for sure.
If anyone has an interest (and is willing to do) in a “follow the money” project, please let us know.
I’d love to, but again, don’t know where to start.
I spoke with someone at icrimewatch.net and they confirmed they bill based on number of registrants, but beyond that I wouldn’t know how to ask state actors about their budgeting issues.
The simple reason: someone in power IS MAKING MONEY FROM THIS.
Could it be the states get dollars for each sex offender they manage….or at least each one they have on their list?
Anywhere else it would be called fraud!
I notice that the article also points out the low recidivism rates for sex offenders, and that the laws only make life difficult for them needlessly. Nice to see more and more news articles pointing that out.
I know there’s an affiliate in Arkansas (Time after time) or something. If anyone has the resources to reach out to them and see whether they want to collaborate on a challenge to maintaining people on the registry after they have left the state, please share our info. We’re not generating much interest in our “Out of State” challenge internally, because most are still in Florida and are not impacted. If we can do a more global challenge, it might be more effective.
ALSO, if someone knows or can do quick research on other states that keep you on the registry after you leave it would also be SUPER helpful.
I think Shawn Rolfe’s study had this information.
@ F.A.C Sooooo what are you going to do with the”Out of Challenge”? I have a some free time Who and what are these people to contact? Can you give me a general idea where they located? phone number something to get started
We will continue fundraising until we get there. If we combine efforts with another state, it might get there sooner. There’s nothing more to do.
The FDLE site doesn’t have phone numbers and we would probably be violating telemarketing laws (and pissing off people) if we made unsolicited calls to them.
All that we can do is continue to promote this challenge through any means available. For example; write to news outlets letting them know they are being bamboozled with inflated numbers and that we’re bringing an action to challenge it. Reach out to affiliate organizations in other states (such as Arkansas) and say, “FAC is doing this – you have the same issue in your state, would you like to join forces?” whatever might work is worth a try.
I found the address and phone number to this place. I am going to compose a letter from my email address.
Sent an email to them and you have it as well jg