How Sex Offender Registries Impact Kids

One of the most useful things the media can do is educate. Teen Vogue just posted an op-ed titled, “How Sex Offender Registries Impact Youth”.

Sex Offender Education is Important

Hopefully, by teaching children that an immature act can have devastating repercussions, it will help prevent youthful lapses in judgment. It also serves to inform children that the myths and misconceptions about who is on the registry are not necessarily true. This way, when they become of voting age, they will help pass laws that are based on facts and can actually do something to prevent sexual assault.

Below is an excerpt:

Ten-year-old Leah pretended to have sex with her younger step-siblings. She said it happened a few times and that she was just acting out scenes from the movies. A couple years later, Leah’s conduct was discovered by law enforcement.

Leah was 12 when she was convicted of criminal sexual conduct in juvenile court and labeled a sex offender. The law required her to remain on the sex offender registry for 25 years. She says she lost jobs and internships as a result. When she was about to enter her freshman year of college, an old friend called her up to tell her she’d seen Leah’s name and photograph on the state’s online public registry. Even though her friend knew the circumstances of Leah’s conviction, it seemed all anyone would see when they searched her name was “sex offender.”

According to the Center on Youth Registration Reform’s estimates, Leah is one of the approximately 200,000 individuals placed on sex offender registries for actions they engaged in before they were 18 years old. Proponents of laws that require children to be placed on sex offender registries argue that providing the public this information will help people keep their families safe from harm. But many believe that including children on registries does much more harm than good.

You can read the full article here: https://www.teenvogue.com/story/how-sex-offender-registries-impact-youth