“I didn’t wanna play that game anymore”: Actor reflects on target’s death in new “Predator” documentary

The story of Bill Conradt is one of the darkest chapters in the history of the show To Catch a Predator. Conradt was an assistant district attorney in Texas who became the target of a sting operation in 2006. Instead of falling for the bait, he never showed up at the decoy house. That should have been the end of

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Why Sex Offender “Clustering” Happens, and Why Anti-Clustering Laws Make it Worse

For years, legislators have enacted Sex Offender Residency Restrictions (SORRs), prohibiting people on the registry from living within 1,000, 2,000, or even 2,500 feet of places where children congregate, such as schools, parks, playgrounds and daycares. These laws sound simple in theory, but in practice they leave only tiny slivers of land available for housing. The result is predictable: registrants

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The Sex Offender Registry Shouldn’t Mean We’re Unwelcome at Church

In the Bible Belt, there’s basically a church on every corner—especially here in Nashville. It feels like there should be so many options to choose from if you want to join a faith community. But the church doors are often closed to people on the sex offender registry, including myself. Sex offender registries are designed so that society treats you

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When a person in federal custody dies under murky circumstances, the public deserves clarity.

Last week, a 31 year old man convicted of child exploitation in Michigan — was found “unresponsive” at USP Coleman II, the same Florida prison where Larry Nassar was stabbed multiple times in 2023. The Bureau of Prisons issued a short statement: he was taken to a hospital, pronounced dead, and the FBI was notified. No cause of death was

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Florida’s Animal Cruelty Registry Exposes a Dangerous Legal Lie

Florida’s new Dexter’s Law does more than crack down on animal cruelty. It exposes a decades-long hypocrisy at the heart of American registry laws. For years, courts have upheld sex offender registries by declaring them “civil regulation, not punishment.” That phrase has been the magic shield allowing states to apply registries retroactively without violating the Constitution’s ban on ex post

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The Michigan GOP Accidentally Told the Truth About the Sex Offender Registry

Every so often, a politician says the quiet part out loud. This week, Michigan Republicans did exactly that. While crowing about their latest culture-war gimmick — the so-called “Anticorruption of Public Morals Act” — Rep. Josh Schriver proudly declared that anyone who distributes pornography should be thrown on the sex offender registry. In his words, this is a tool to

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