Dr. Alissa Ackerman is a professor of criminal justice at California State University, Fullerton, and co-founder of Ampersands Restorative Justice. Ackerman studies every aspect of sexual abuse and the criminal justice policies used after it occurs.
Being a rape survivor, Ackerman advocates for restorative justice for sex crimes where there is a likelihood of not sexually re-offending. But she acknowledges that restorative justice will never be the right option in every case.
Ackerman is a proponent of abolishing the sex offense registry because people are being added to the various state registries for things that the registry was never intended for. This is an opinion shared with the woman who helped to jumpstart the U. S. Congress into first forming the registry, Patty Wetterling. (Sex-offender registries: How the Wetterling abduction changed the country, by Madeleine Baran and Jennifer Vogel, 2016)
Because of Ackerman’s position on restorative justice for persons who have committed a sex crime, she is accused of being a “sex offender lover” and a “rape apologist;” yet Ackerman only follows the research.
Excellent. Most registrants didn’t qualify even after 25 years due to excluding categories, I wonder if that or those provisions are still in place when I judge decides based on this ruling ?
This is one of the reasons I don’t watch Fox spews….I mean news. Like many other media agencies, they crop, dissect, and pick what they think will create the biggest detonation and fallout from what they design to hopefully be ‘bombshell articles.’ Get racial nuances involved along with associating it to a political party and you have a bona fide hornet’s nest primed to be stirred up by public reaction and up goes the amount of mouse clicks on the article and up goes the fury and hate. It’s no wonder so many americans are fille with rage all the while our media content creators and their owners are laughing all the way to the bank and it’s all at the expense of the public’s gullibility for believing what they say.
What most people don’t realize is that being forced to register is far worse than segregation in ’60s. Hell, we’re not even allowed on the bus, train, cruise-ship or airplane without stressing about being kicked off any second. We don’t even have our own drinking fountain. Blacks in the ’60s didn’t have to give the government “two weeks advance notice” just to board an airplane. So yes, the registry is socially acceptable oppression in the eyes of the public.
[Moderator’s note: Readers may experience stress at the prospect of removal from a bus, train, or domestic flight on the basis of registration status. Fortunately, we are unaware of an incident in which this has happened].
Molesting a child is far worst than being born Black! The excuses sex offenders come up with in attempt to justify their abhorrent behavior is a laugh.
@NLB…
The excuses people come up with to avoid facts is laughable. Would you agree?
Come on Lauren. The guy is not making excuses for his behavior. He was wrongly associating the plight of blacks during one of the worst times in our history with what registrants endure, which is not trivial.
I would be all for the registry if it actually protected the public, but it does not. These people have paid for their crimes and should be encouraged to reintegrate into society and resume reasonably normal lives, not treated as throwaway humans. Recidivism for sex crimes is lower than any other genre of crime, except homicide. Particularly with children, abuse comes from those close to and trusted by the child. We are watching the wrong people.
“Fortunately, we are unaware of an incident in which this has happened”
Yes, but it’s still a form of emotional distress as an indirect result of these clearly punitive laws. When laws are passed on the rational basis tenet, but the legislative intent is constantly defended in favor of “legitimate interest,” what you have left is a barely legal law held together with biased emotional rationalization of perceived safety and not the real world merits of it.
Hmm, I do agree with some points but I’m concerned. Between this article that boils it down to racism and so called white privilege and the other article I think last week where women want to be removed from the registry. I feel that the only people that will remain on the registry are going to be only white,straight males. I’m not trying to start an argument on race or any of that. But the women fighting to be removed from the registry shown on this site and actually reading the article is concerning. The registry impacts all races and genders, it’s harmful to anyone on it and anyone associated to someone on it. Our world now is so broken and divided and so filled with hate.
I can see your point but also remember this was Fox News. There was some “clever” editing. If you’ll notice how many times they put the word rapist just outside of the quoted statements as though she actually said rapists in particular should be removed from the registry. It’s a shell game of an article.