The Appeal: What Is The Purpose of Sex Offense Registries?
Two days ago, the Union-Recorder in Georgia published a bizarre editorial. The editorial board noted that the state’s sex offender registry system drives people into homelessness and deprived them of counseling and employment opportunities, but laments this fact only insofar as it allows registrants to “fly under the radar” and makes them “more difficult to track.” Georgia’s registry system, according to the authors, “places too much trust in the honor system” because requiring people to self-register “places too much confidence” in the registrant. They acknowledge that there are “strong penalties” for failing to register, including life in prison, but these apparently don’t go far enough, as some people with convictions could “choose to live on the fringes of the law.”
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I’m the only person who has commented at the actual unionrecorder.com article. Most people don’t care. They’ll let Nanny Big Government (NBG) run wild and create as many “laws” as they possible can.
We need to vote out NBG boot lickers and vote in people who will shrink NBG to 1,000th of its size.
I posted some time after you did. Always glad to see your postings out there.
The punitive nature of the registry may be cause for sex crimes going unreported. If 90% of sex crimes are in families and among those known to the victim and the effects of the sex offender registry also punishes the victim indirectly why would victims report abuse to only receive another form of abuse? So the nature of the registry might be the very reason for NOT reporting sex crimes!
You are absolutely right, Robert Curtis. Within families, the one accused is often the bread winner of the family. What law enforcement puts the alleged victim through, the loss of income from the bread winner who is now incarcerated, and the possibility of the alleged victim having to now live with other family members or in the foster care system can often have far worse emotional scars for the child than anything that the adult did to him/her. This is why so many families do not want to report it. If all this effort and money put into incarceration, probation rules that are far worse than the probation rules for other crimes, and the punitive/shaming registry were instead put into trying to fix the “problem” within the family (if it is indeed fixable), society would be so much better off — particularly the child.
A report of half-truths and tired, diminished lies disguised as reality.
My issue with these types of articles is the use of the term “sexual violence” and moreover sexual “assault”. That word “assault” makes the incidents sound like blatant rapes when they are in fact not.
Examples of non-assaults are post pubescent teenager affairs with older people. I for one, had my first affair with a woman who was in her 20’s when I was 15 (legal age in my home state is 16). But I was NOT “raped” or “assaulted”. In fact, I was the one who pressured her until she caved and gave in.
Elvis Presley was 24 to Priscilla’s mere 14. He ended up marrying her. Not going on a spree of teenage sex romps.
If we need to have a title for the general statute for these types of “offenses”, it should be “Sexual Misconduct” not “assault”.
The word assault is too heavy and, as I said above, makes the incident sound like a violent rape situation.
When you get into a bar fight, that’s “assault”. Not a consensual (albeit illegal) affair with a teenager.
Not to mention those teens who LIE about their ages. Much like Traci Lords did in order to get into the porn industry.
Someone like a lawyer or other type of spokesperson who is well versed in these sex offender issues needs to/should mention it in the way I just described it.
Perhaps a “sexual misconduct” issue can be an unregisterable offense unless the person repeats it (recidivism). Anyone agree? I think it makes more sense than to put people like this on a registry that was initially started due to a 7 yr old being kidnapped, raped and murdered.
I agree im an SO because i worked as a jail deputy and had contact with a female adult inmate that wasnt intercourse but since inmates cant consent is was a sex offense.
I agree. When I first started hearing the phrase sexual assault, I thought they were referring to a full blown forced rape. The public, just as I did, thinks of a violent and dangerous act.
Years ago, it would have been a rape. Someone changed the rules on us but failed to tell us the rules were changed.
Also look at the male runner who gently swatted the female reporter on her derriere. He is charged with sexual battery. It is only because the lady made such a fuss about it. She said she was hit hard and it emotionally upset her. I watched the video several times, and she never even flinched physically, so she could not have been hit that hard. Yes, something needs to be done to get this guy to understand he cannot go around doing things like that, but sexual battery is an overkill.
More scare mongering in an election year where they have nothing to offer.
Registery is so out of hand they put people on with no victim from officers doing internet sex sting which these people are talking to adult which when go on site have to be over 18 when officers do arrest they put on arrest sheet on bottom of 2 sheets that they conducting a sex sting to target the suspects plu has no one under age 18 no violence assult no domestic voilence assult so they make up their own rules as in tampa-st petersburg paper aug 8 2014
It was kind of hard to read your post, but I get the gist of what you’re saying. I was one of those sex sting “victims” and the only thing they charged me with was “traveling to meet a minor.” OK, so where’s the minor I was traveling to meet? The reality was, I was actually talking to a 43 year old detective, who amazingly, is sitting in Federal prison in Indiana right now for molesting three 8 year old boys. Amazing that my case can still stand after that. He was the only one conversing with me in that sting. He used a picture of one of his ADULT female colleagues too. Such a sham. Good article. But good articles won’t change anything. It might reach a few people, but the majority of the public are still too brainwashed by whatever politicians and lawmakers tell them that they won’t listen to reason. “Conservatives” always blame liberals for not listening to the facts. But when it comes to RSOs, NO ONE wants to listen to the facts on either side! And I’m sick and tired of hearing about “prison reform” efforts, because we get left out of it every single time. So stop telling me about how wonderful Kim Kardashian is with her prison reform movement. It leaves us out every time. No one cares about us or our “rights”. Well, except groups like FAC and RSOL .
I just wanted to post some comments that I wrote for something else. But I think they are relevant here. This is what I wrote:
The Registries aren’t going anywhere soon. We must keep fighting them on every front, including in the courts of course, but I feel the destruction of the Registries can only be accomplished by countering the lying propaganda campaign that is run by Nanny Big Government and the Registry Nazis (RNs). I feel the way to do that is with a constant, consistent PR campaign.
That why I think “branding” is so important. I feel like the anti-RN campaign/war should adopt some terminology and use it all the time. Media will get used to seeing it. Then it will be spread. Once everyone is used to it, people might start to change their minds.
I think we should fight exactly as politics is done these days. There is no reason to be nice. Nice doesn’t win. There is no need to try to make our opponents “understand”, hear our stories, have “compassion”, or any of the rest of that. That’s been going on for over 2 decades and it is not going to work. Facts are not very important. Repetition is.
We need slogans, branding, mottos, memes, etc. Without that, I’ve seen over and over and over where someone will write something very well reasoned and great and very few people are even interested enough to read it. Like 1% of people will. Everyone else just skips it and forgets it. There needs to be something inflammatory that people remember. Something that people see over and over again and burns into their minds that only losers think Registries and big government are PC.
I’ve been wanting to do all of that for years now. But I’ve been very busy leading a productive, successful, and great life. It would be very, very easy for me to just ignore the Registries nearly completely. But should I? I’ve got a ton of projects going on right now. Perhaps I’ll do something early’ish next year?
The symbol I’ve wanted to create for years is an inverted U.S. flag that is super-imposed with a large swastika. Then there would be writing on the white strips (at least). Perhaps start with:
We can all continue to write “one offs” that nearly everyone ignores. Or we can brand the fight against RNs.
Will Allen has a great idea and it should be developed at leadership levels of NARSOL and all the state affiliates. My God, People! We’re TENS OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE VICTIMIZED here, including families, friends and loved ones of folks placed on the registries, most of them for non-violent, non-contact offenses; yet they are lumped in with serious offenders and all are legally and metaphorically burned at the stake. Their “crime” can be bumped up artificially and unconstitutionally to a more serious offense if their charge and conviction was picked up in another state. That is the current situation in Illinois to discourage those coming in from another state where they were originally convicted. Lifetime criminal supervision and lifetime registration are handed out like Halloween bon bons to ANYONE convicted of ANY sort of sexual offense, How is this POSSIBLE when legislators routinely ignore the constitution they have sworn to uphold and defend. IMPEACHMENT is much on the wind these days and should be applied to far more than just the president. ANY legislator who signed off on these barbarous laws should be thrown out of office.
Unfortunately, the judges do not always follow the law, but go on gut instinct, personal feelings or their idea of how the law should read.
Similar to when a judge goes out of the guide lines of sentencing and gives someone 100 life sentences. That is an impossible sentence but is done to send a message of how they personally feel about that person.
On the flip side of things, whenever I have been a victim of a crime, law enforcement doesn’t even seem to want to take a report until I report them. Then no follow up as those reports are put in the “Dead files of history “.