In one Pennsylvania county, more than three times as many people on the registry were charged in 2016 with failing to follow registry requirements than were charged with a new sexual offense
In January 2015, Franklin Barrick packed his bags and moved out of his home near Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, leaving his wife behind. For most, the end of a marriage would bring divorce proceedings in civil court, but for Barrick it yielded felony criminal charges.
Why?
Because Barrick is on the sex offender registry. In 2007, he was arrested for having sexual conversations via internet chat programs and sending sexual images to a person who he thought was a 13-year-old girl but turned out to be agents with the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office. As a registrant, Barrick must alert police when he changes his residence, purchases a new vehicle, attends school, or even opens a Facebook account.
So when Barrick failed to alert authorities after he left his wife, he was charged by Pennsylvania State Police with felony failure to comply with sex offender registry requirements. In April 2015, he was taken into police custody and held for nearly 200 days in Franklin County Jail on $60,000 cash bail set by the judge.
Later, Barrick pleaded guilty to two counts of felony conduct relating to sexual offenders—failure to notify—and was sentenced to 11 to 23 months’ confinement plus 21 years’ probation. He was also ordered by pay more than $2,000 in fines and fees.
Hundreds of people every year in Pennsylvania are arrested and face incarceration for failing to comply with sex offender registry requirements. People on the registry are required to provide their address, work information, information about vehicles they drive, social media accounts, and other personal information, as well as regularly have their photograph taken by police. When any of that information changes, police must be notified within three days. The Appeal identified nearly 900 criminal cases where a defendant was charged with failure to comply with sex offender registry requirements in Pennsylvania in 2016 alone.
But sex offender registry laws do not increase public safety, says Chrysanthi Leon, associate professor of sociology and criminal justice at the University of Delaware. “We’re really creating a false sense of security for ourselves when we convince ourselves that by detecting and naming and then further surveilling this small group of people will solve any problems,” Leon told The Appeal. Leon said most charged sexual offenses are committed by first-time sexual offenders and not by people who are on the registry.
just changed vehicles and have 48 hours to update information so day off work and a 50 mile round trip what a bunch of bull shit!
It’s called low hanging fruit. Why go out and solve real crimes when you can simply charge a criminal over and over and over again!
The United States Constitution means nothing anymore.
On the other hand, the man knew of his duty under this horrible law to report a residency change, but he ignored it. Stupidity like that actually feeds into the public’s idea that sex offenders are dangerous, and won’t obey the law. I will do whatever they want in order to avoid going back to prison.
Those responsible for making all the regulations for the sor know full well they don’t do any good. There only purpose in there minds is to punish them because they look upon them as scum that needs to be beaten plain and simple.They feel superior to them.
Its all too much. Saw my family member this weekend. RSO. Offense at age 17. Paid his dues. Cant find a place to live, job, girlfriend. So many rules. Hes decided to kill himself. He said the time is near. Even as a Christian, I couldn’t find any reason for him to live. All I can do is cry
Sarah , tell him don’t give up. Things we can’t see are happening they change things like the weather storming one day better the next. We never know what the next day will bring. So don’t give up according to how things are today. You can help.
Thank you David. It’s so uplifting to hear encouragement from Gerald and yourself. You’ve been there and survived.
Sarah, sometimes all you can do is keep praying. I was very close to suicide many times the past 3 years as well, but God saw me through. Life isn’t perfect, but I’m getting by. One person can change his life. Pray for that person to show up soon.
Thank you Gerald. That means a lot. I guess I should have said all I can do is cry and I pray and pray.
I still say the important challenge not being raised is whether or not it violates the 8th amendment to make failure to register a felony. Failure to register requires no Mens Rea and relgistration “imposes no restraint” and is “not punishment.”
How do you punish someone for not being punished?
I know everyone wants to fight the registry on Ex Post Facto grounds, or Double Jeopardy, but I think the real victory will be in deciding if it is appropriate to imprison someone for not committing a crime with intent, but for failing to maintain a regulatory requirement.
How many sex offenders commit new crimes while improperly registered verses how many people are hurt or killed by suspended, revoked, or unlicensed drivers?
My registration has almost identical requirements as maintaining a driver’s license, but the penalty for improperly maintaining one is exponentially different than the other while the actual effect is skewed the other way.
Once failure to register becomes a misdemeanor you’re going to see the whole dynamic change. It will become a county problem with sentences served at the county level at the counties expense. Registration will become very unpopular when it’s coming out of your neighbors pocketbook instead of the state coffers.
I got a failure to comply in 07 because I moved and reported my new address to the sheriff’s department 2 weeks before I moved and again after., but because I didn’t change my address on my license I received a year and a day in prison.
Exactly. This is a licensing structure. The monetary cost has no bearing, i.e. the free salt water fishing license for residents from years ago.
Those subject to the law must obtain a license to reside.
One can always choose not to fish…
I said something like this a few months ago about 8th amendent grounds.If the sex offender registry not punishment then why is there criminal charges attached to it? This a pure case of Deliberate Indifference the registry expose people to unneccessary hardships. exposing addresses to public who can take revenge on sex offenders. like scam offers,beating,and even death. It destroys families and causing mental and medical problems. The law makers knowing that it causes harm to the sex offenders and their families with reckless regard!The courts know this they just need the right case!!!
How long are knowledge-less bureaucrats going to “ride this horse”?
Captain,
Sir, They are going to “ride this horse” well after they have beaten it to death.
What I am beginning to figure out is that the law makers, police, jails, bureaucrats dont care about “us”, whether we are sex-offenders, or drunks out driving and killing people.
They have turned this, by law, into a money making machine.
COS supervision
Probation fees
Taking off time to register
Community Service.
Changing your license, registration
County/State payment of funds to jails to house you (remember YOU have to pay for your own medical, ect)
It only be-hoofs them to KEEP you “under supervision”. If you are “free” they try everything they can to jam you up to put you back into the system, where they can start all over again extorting money from you for made up, unconstitutional laws and vague Bull $h!t they try to pass as law.
Its not about you or me— its about $$$$$
I know where you are coming from. That’s the conclusion I came to quite a while back when I was notified I had to pay $360 a month to be monitored here in Florida. No one, and I mean no one, including the leader of the SORT, can understand why I am still on probation. Florida refuses to make a recommendation of release and my lawyer in Florida is waiting for a court date in Virginia to force the issue. It comes down to the fact that Florida makes no money on someone who is no longer on probation and probation will do whatever it can get away with to protect that revenue flow…justice be damned.
Capt Charles Munsey Jr. makes a great point here. The simple fact that the registration and monitoring FORCES us to pay money does make it punishment, just as no one who has had to pay a traffic ticket would deny that they were punished, even though they didn’t have to go to jail.
“all I have to say is they dont really care about us”
Michael Jackson
They dont care about you, as evident by the beatings and deaths in the GEO run prisons.
They got your “butt” to EXTORT money out of you, for as long as they can—- and a few months more.