Scarlet letters: In a new essay Guy Hamilton-Smith opens with a wide view of this punishment-crazed country and then comes in for a close-up look at 21st century scarlet letters. The number of people forced to sign the sex offense registry continues to climb and is now close to 900,000. Evidence mounts that registries do not improve public safety or reduce recidivism but cause much damage to the lives of registrants and their kin. Meanwhile lawmakers are pressing for even tougher registration laws and are enacting new registries for non-sex offenses! Pushing back these draconian laws is a huge fight that will take lots of people. Those on the registry are struggling to raise their voices. Who will help them? Hamilton-Smith raises a rarely discussed but important issue, the role of criminal justice reformers in battling the registry. Have a look at his remarkable essay published by In Justice Today. –Bill Dobbs, The Dobbs Wire
In Justice Today | Dec. 12, 2017
Sex Registries as Modern-Day Witch Pyres: Why Criminal Justice Reform Advocates Need to Address the Treatment of People on the Sex Offender Registry
By Guy Hamilton-Smith
Excerpts: More than any other nation on the planet, we rely on incarceration as the fix for our social ills. America’s unprecedented prison boom spawned advocates who work tirelessly to put the police state toothpaste back into the tube. For the first time since the data was tracked, state and federal prison populations declined in 2014, albeit slightly, from historic highs.
Yet amidst this wave of reform, one group of people continue to languish in the collective “harsher is better” mindset: sex offenders. If America has a civil death penalty, putting people on the sex offender registry is it. In a recent experiment, when individuals were given the choice between being labeled a child molester or dying, most chose death.
The numbers of those currently on the registry are staggering, and continue to increase each year. Absent seismic shifts in criminal justice policy, the trend will likely continue. As with witches, the modern-day sex offender largely a creature of our own creation, acting as a sort of repository for many of our collective moral anxiety around sex.
While a baked-in ick factor often turns many erstwhile warriors into silent observers, awareness and informed response is badly needed from those within the criminal justice community. Reformers urgently need to draw public attention to the cruel and unnecessarily harsh treatment afforded to sex offenders within the justice system. MORE:
Don’t waste your time or your breath. The deep state police state is firmly in place and they now have 900,000 suckers/victims to use as an example of full and complete government control over any group of people they deem necessary to want to isolate and control. Pretty soon, it’ll be all of us. The police and bureaucracies and all these stupid f**king “task forces” that entrap people in their little sting operations are getting militarized and more powerful by the day to the point where NONE of us even stand a chance. And it continues to boggle my mind that we actually think that we can win this “game” by using their own court system that THEY ESTABLISHED and rigged in their favor to be used against them to gain our rights back. It’s like a mouse who’s caught dead on in a mouse trap, and thinks he can use that same mouse trap to gain his freedom. Forget it people. We allowed the government to get so big and out of control and now we’re paying the price for it. It’s over. GAME….OVER. Live with the fact that you’re going to be registered and controlled for life. No amount of activism, whining, complaining, rioting, lawsuiting, motion filing, lawyering, whatever, is gonna over turn or change any of this sh*t. We’re screwed for life. Just deal with it. Or go jump off a bridge. Those are our only two choices. Fighting back is only going to cause the powers that be to laugh at us and think our efforts are….”cute”. Until we understand that hundreds of years ago, ostracized and oppressed people groups would’ve either defied the unfair laws against them and refused to follow them, or just outright riot (see Braveheart) then any other measley effort on our part is just a waste of time. Imagine if all 900,000 of us got unified in one accord and refused to follow the ridiculous laws made against us. That would be something to behold. And if a group was willing to start that effort, I’d join it. But until then, I’m telling you, nothing else will work. We will be laughed at and further criticized.
Right now, I feel much the same: got denied boarding a flight to Manila to visit my wife and family for Christmas – I’m back working in the not-so-great-state of Texas temporarily (where they never let the truth get in the way of a conviction and a good hanging) – and am now realizing while I lived over there from 2012 to 2016 laws were enacted and I had no idea (until I walked away from DFW last week) how bad it had gotten. Now cannot see my wife or family and she can’t come here. If the haters loathe us so much in the U.S., why do they work so hard at not letting us just leave?
My friend, this one is on Manila. They passed the laws that keep you out. Granted the US has not done anything to disprove the misinformation but this is bigger than just the US. At 60+ years of age I was turned away in Costa Rica with my bride of almost 40 years and we spent the night on the floor of the airport. I cannot imagine the heart ache you must feel over your situation. At least someone save you the cost of the flight and the humiliation of sleeping on the airport floor
Try to get a visa. There are individuals who specialize in this.
Would a visa really help?
Thanks, Doyle Mc. . . sorry to hear of your misfortune, too. God help us all.
We are not in a position to raise our voices and organize publicly in the same way as other groups for sure retaliation againt us our spouses and even our children we are the best target for political gain and t.v. rating. Everyone knows the best opponent is one that can’t fight back.
You can educate ignorance but there is no cure for stupid and especially stubborn stupid. Politicians would rather spend more tax dollars that promote laws they craft so as to appear tough on crime or at the very least vote for those others write so as not to appear soft on crime, than they would to be intellectually honest and just admit the registration laws seemed like a good idea at the time but in reality they just did not accomplish the intended goal. The facts are out there and they truth is the laws have caused more damage to innocents (family and friends) and the punishment does not in most cases fit the crime. Watch Colorado closely
They can continue this Making laws because that have decided that sex offender can never vote again
Like to know when that law came into affect
that pretty much leaves no one to vote for them… but of course.
vote against them i meant to say…
Some states allow felons to vote. Check it out and consider a move if this is that important to you. There is incremental movement being made and someday this nonsense will collapse on itself.
Texas allows felons to vote, I believe once they are off parole and have successfully completed their obligation.