Rethink juvenile sex offender registration laws
As a school-based therapist in Minneapolis and a probation officer assistant in Anoka County, I urge lawmakers to reevaluate juvenile sex offender registration laws—not just locally, but across Minnesota and the nation.
These laws were intended to protect public safety, but they often cause more harm than good. Youth placed on the registry face lifelong barriers to education, employment, housing, and mental health care—obstacles that can worsen outcomes rather than support rehabilitation.
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The registry definitely needs to be reworked and rethought. How can a justice system be focused on prevention, etc when it’s solely focused on punishment, which is blatantly evident with the registry. Even more so, if you’re starting out on the registry as a juvenile. This issue should and needs to be addressed across the board for all ages. However, it is definitely concerning for a juvenile with so much more life to go and give back to society. However, society seems like they’re judgemental with “knee jerk” emotional reactions, barbaric “grab your torches and pitch forks” type mentality. Which is where legislators are suppose to come in to play and head off that type of vigilante and revenge type of justice. Again, the registry doesn’t show that. The registry is no longer for informational purposes (for law enforcement and concerned citizens) it has morphed into an additional form of punishment that affects nearly every aspect in life in order to have and make a life to move foward to be a responsible and productive citizen in society. The Florida “blanket” registry is absolutely absurd.
There are a couple of glaring problems with registration of juveniles. First is the psychological development issue. Kids don’t have the same maturity and rational thought as adults. The brain isn’t fully developed, so their decision making is not the same at 14 as it is at 40. Especially with intervention, you are not the same person, but being held accountable as if you were.
Second is the practical issue. Registrants’ photos get updated every year or so. Now people look a person up and see a picture of a 40 year old man and a sex offense against a minor and the optics are completely different than if they see a photo of a 14 year old. That makes registration dramatically different than a mug shot. A mug shot gives you better context.
It is more than just physical maturation, but the very fact they don’t have the same experiences in life to know better in some instances. Yes, they can watch and learn, see and know, be told the are old enough to know better, but depending on the topic, they get mixed messages.
A minor can be charged with murder as an adult, but told they don’t know squat about sex until 18. Really? They see enough to know that killing another human is illegal and are taught human reproductive physiology to know how to conceive another human as well as the other instances when it comes to the act of sex or relationships. They are far more knowing under 18 today (and recently) then any other time in human history. What their parents, et al don’t show them, the internet will.
@Tim
Your posts are spot on, as is this one, and are appreciated. Couple points I’d like to clarify to maybe help the optics of the topic as the fight continues.
It is not a justice system but a legal system as justice is subjective where the legal system is filled with everything you describe. I’ve read attys describing it as such to get the layman to understand the reality of the system and the injustices meted from it.
I’d also add that the collateral damage from the registry is punishing where the registry is not punishment, but forced collaboration and acknowledgement of personal data through legislative intent. Society has decided the collateral damage one should receive from it which is what the legal system recognized previously in court case opinions. While the courts have raised their hands in saying they cannot control what the public does with the information, they are complicit in making it available in the first place. I think the thinking needs to be updated to think of the registry in different terms and maybe things will change in court, e.g., the gov’t will bring up the punishment of the registry while no one else has…let them walk into the trap of admitting it (as we have seen by others who espouse it is while thinking it is not).
Keep up the great lines of thought you bring…