Other States

WTF!!! Nearly a million dollars for a reporting violation! A recent story out of Arkansas is a perfect case study in how the sex offender registry is designed to work and how it fails taxpayers. According to the news story, two individuals accused of failing to comply with registration requirements were each given bonds of $950,000. Not for a new

The Colorado Supreme Court concluded on Monday that lifetime sex offender registration is not cruel and unusual punishment because it is not “punishment.” At the same time, two members urged lawmakers to heed the advice of the Sex Offender Management Board and adopt a new, more accurate system of measuring a person’s risk of recidivism. Under Colorado law, “sexually violent

This week, headlines out of Michigan highlight yet another proposal aimed at people on the sex offender registry. This time, a sweeping ban on working in any business that “primarily serves minors”. On its face, the pitch sounds simple: keep kids safe. But beneath the rhetoric lies a familiar pattern — one that courts have already rejected, and one that

A newly introduced bill in New York, co-sponsored by Andrew Molitor, is once again pushing a familiar approach: expand the public sex offender registry. This time by including individuals already classified by the state as low risk. Under current law, New York distinguishes between risk levels for a reason. Level 1 individuals are assessed as presenting a low likelihood of

New York City covers about 302.6 square miles in total area. According to New York City government information, there are more than 1,700 parks and recreational sites in the city, there are also about 2,667 playgrounds citywide. Add to that, 2,700–2,900 K-12 schools. That’s roughly 7,167 “places where children congregate”. That’s an average of 23.68 such landmarks per square mile,

OK. If the title sounds familiar, it’s because I “borrowed” it from the landmark study by Hanson, Harris, ET AL. that was titled, “High-risk sex offenders may not be high risk forever”, but it fit here nicely. A case filed earlier this month in Oregon, M.H. v. Board of Parole and Post-Prison Supervision, challenges how the state retroactively classifies individuals