Sex Offender Registry

[Gravekeeper]

Doesn't one's felony history come up in background checks with or without a registry? Where I live one must consent to a background check before any job that involves children.

Yes, someone wouldn't be able to apply for such a job if they were on a law enforcement only registry. As the whole point is that local law enforcement can keep a close eye on them.

What data do you get this from? I'd agree that registries are ineffective, but I have a hard time believing they increase the reoffender rate.

Its not that surprising if you think about it.

If you keep punishing someone for something they have already paid the price for you don't exactly give them any motivation to avoid re-offending in the future. You create a situation where they're stigmatized and have nothing to lose.

And its specifically publicly available registries. A registry not accessible to the public reduces rates. But one that is publicly accessible has the opposite effect.

[BlaqueKatt]

No, I had not realized that it wasn't a real thing. I'm glad to hear that. I don't know that I think things like indecent exposure ought to be on the list either.

Most of them require more than a single offence, or exposure to a minor, Michigan requires fondling in addition to exposure to be a registerable offence.

[Shangri-laschild]

Doesn't one's felony history come up in background checks with or without a registry? Where I live one must consent to a background check before any job that involves children. Not only sexual assault, but any kind of violent crime would come up during the check and likely disqualify someone from that line of work.

It depends. The employee we had trouble with offended as a minor. As a result if I remember correctly, he didn't show up on the standard list but he did have restrictions in place? Police have access to that information which is how we coincidentally came across it. And also not all jobs/job locations that sex offenders are restricted from are jobs that involve interacting with a child.

[BrenDAnn]

I have to agree with the OP on this one. The offender registry is, at its core, a decent idea, but it's gone terribly awry. I have a cousin who, essentially, was railroaded into charges and jail time, and a spot on the registry. He was at the time in his upper teen years, and his mom had just remarried. The man she married had young children, between the ages of let's say 5 and 10. One of these children was a little girl of around age 5 or so. I remember her being at one family reunion and that was it. This little girl was of the type that, as innocent children do, would run around fluffing and lifting her skirt if she had one on. Cue little girl accusing my cousin of looking at her under said skirt. My cousin never touched this girl, let alone looked at her. Thanks to the little girl's father, and a new at the time county attorney trying to look like a hot shot, my completely innocent cousin was sent to jail/juvie, and put on the registry. Needless to say, his mother divorced the girl's father shortly thereafter. I've been skeptical of the registry, and the way "sex offenders" are accused, ever since.

[Cia]

I think there should be levels to SOR, say 1 through 10, with 10 being statutory rape and 1 being pedophiles and serial rapists. Only the top two levels would be accessible to the public.

There would be rules set in place for men and women who have sex w/ minors who lied about their ages. This way both parties would be punished equally and you wouldn't have judges incarcerating people for their own agendas.

Serial statutory rapists would work their way up the levels. Teens having sex w/ their underage boy/girlfriends would not be treated as fiends. People would be able to get off the lists and/or have their records expunged after completing jail, probation, community service and etc w/ no restrictions after they are off the lists.

A teen having sex w/ their underage girl/boyfriend should not be treated the same in the courtroom as a pedophile. And minors lying about their ages should be held accountable.

[KabeRinnaul]

Except that doesn't solve the problems caused by public registries in the first place, nor the fact that we refuse to recognize issues like pedophilia as a disease rather than "some people are just evil".

If we must have lists, they should be available only to law enforcement, and problems flagged in background checks.

Better yet, in addition to prison time (or in place of, for minor offenses), start handing out probation with mandatory counseling. They're not on a registry, just probation (which can include restrictions on living arrangements, if need be), and they're removed pending a positive psychological analysis. For severe issues with a possibility of reoffense, again, background checks.

[Gravekeeper]

I think there should be levels to SOR, say 1 through 10, with 10 being statutory rape and 1 being pedophiles and serial rapists. Only the top two levels would be accessible to the public.

What Kabe said. Its the public knowledge of their crime that leads to an increased chance of re-offence. Like I mentioned before the US is the only country with a publicly accessible sex offender registry. On top of the federal registry most states also have their own separate registry laws. Which are often based on NIMBY rather than facts or reason.

The Canadian system for example is only accessible by law enforcement and you can only be placed on it for a major or violent sex crime. Not for having your weiner out at the park. A judge can also remove someone from it if the judge feels the person is no longer a threat or risk.

[Shangri-laschild]

Better yet, in addition to prison time (or in place of, for minor offenses), start handing out probation with mandatory counseling.

I think this would be beneficial for most criminals really. Maybe not always mandatory counseling but some kind of classes to teach skills or give them resources, things like that. Some places do have the list as a sometimes temporary thing. Illinois laws requires sex offenders to register for 10 years unless they get labeled a sexual predator. I'd be fine with the idea of people having an option to request being removed no matter what and I don't know that it needs to be 10 years though.

I find it very odd that it has murderers on the list even when there is no sexual aspect to the crime, unless I'm reading those requirements wrong. And it's bullshit that at least here, people have to pay to register on the list. I also think some of the living rules are wrong. If someone buys a house and has been living there for years, why should they have to move because someone wants to build a school in their radius which is the case unless you have lived there since before 2000 in Illinois. And least here, if you put up a sign in your yard advertising day care, your house becomes one of those protected areas where sex offenders can't live within a certain radius of it. The status of the daycare doesn't have to be proven and it doesn't have to be certified.

The Canadian system for example is only accessible by law enforcement and you can only be placed on it for a major or violent sex crime.

The sex offender registry isn't the only way to find out that information, at least in some places. Where I live, all the court records are on the county clerk's website. If someone was convicted of a crime, it's going to be on there to find out just from looking up. It's just general information like when everyone met or motions for bail or things like that but people can then easily do a FOIA request to get the rest of the information. And really unless they put exemptions on it which they aren't likely to be willing to do, someone could just do a FOIA request for local sex offenders too. While I agree that the registry puts more of a spot light on it, I just wanted to point out that it isn't the only way that people are identified.

I don't think the list should be gotten rid of, partly just because of things like background checks and the restrictions that sex offenders have. I do however see your point about not having it as publicly accessible and as I said, I'd be fine with it being temporary under certain requirements.

The entire idea of the registry is absurd when you think about it. Its not done for any other type of crime despite the fact there are other crimes you would really want to know about.

It turns out this is not entirely true to some extent in some places. Illinois has the Murderer and Violent Offender Against Youth Registry which requires anyone who committed a violent crime against a minor or who committed first degree murder to register though the fact that the faqs are a mess and seem to be copied and pasted and horribly edited from the sex offender faqs. Some to the point of only answering the question as far as how it applies to sex offenders which is a problem. I'm not saying it magically make the sex offender registry ok. If anything it proves that if people are put on lists, it will make it harder for them to move on because of the strong obsession people have with knowing all of this and treating people a certain way as a result.

[Gravekeeper]

The sex offender registry isn't the only way to find out that information, at least in some places. Where I live, all the court records are on the county clerk's website.

Well, yes, but that's kind of a moot point since I'm referring to Canada's system which is not publicly accessible vs the US system which is. So a FOIA request doesn't exactly work on us. We do have a similar thing to FOIA, but you can't use it to request any records that contain any kind of personal information about individuals other than yourself. You would not be able to request such a list.

There are similar laws in place regarding media publications. You can't three ring circus a court case up here like you can in the US. You'd be charged with contempt of court. We would have had Nancy Grace arrested, for example. >.>

It turns out this is not entirely true to some extent in some places.

Well, the States are such a random and maddening patchwork of legal systems you can find an example of round about anything you can think of if you look hard enough. That's half the problem with the sex offender registry in the US to begin with. Each State has its own registry laws on top of the Federal ones with varying degrees of insanity.

[BlaqueKatt]

The sex offender registry isn't the only way to find out that information, at least in some places. Where I live, all the court records are on the county clerk's website. If someone was convicted of a crime, it's going to be on there to find out just from looking up.

I don't much like that for reasons explained below:

If anything it proves that if people are put on lists, it will make it harder for them to move on because of the strong obsession people have with knowing all of this and treating people a certain way as a result.

In my previous state you had to agree that you were not going to use the information to harass anyone and doing so was a felony, didn't stop several of my coworkers at the time from doing just that with every new person hired. One actually went so far that one of the harassed filed a restraining order and also had the person criminally charged because she would look for sex offenders and accuse them of sexual harassment, it backfired when she accused one that *she* had sexually harassed in front of witnesses, then she found his name on the list *after* he had reported her and his witnesses had given statements, she also accused a gay man on the list(he was on for having had a relationship with a 14 year-old when he was 17 in high school), when she was told he was gay, and found out why he was on the list she started harassing him by putting photos from flyers featuring kids on his desk at night, and "finding them" when she came in, trying to say he was violating his probation (which he was already off of).

I do wonder if a small percent of re-offence of listed people are from similar situations.

[Shangri-laschild]

Well, yes, but that's kind of a moot point since I'm referring to Canada's system which is not publicly accessible vs the US system which is.

Ah, I meant it as a comment on how it would come into effect if the US did what Canada does and didn't make the public.

So a FOIA request doesn't exactly work on us. We do have a similar thing to FOIA, but you can't use it to request any records that contain any kind of personal information about individuals other than yourself. You would not be able to request such a list.

That sounds like a much better setup. I think FOIA gets used much too often as an excuse for nosiness and the mindset that seems to be so common of the right to know everything.

There are similar laws in place regarding media publications. You can't three ring circus a court case up here like you can in the US. You'd be charged with contempt of court. We would have had Nancy Grace arrested, for example. >.>

That too sounds nice because again, not everything needs to be blasted out to everyone. Some information can be harmful to release right away or do more damage than good. There seems to be a misconception here sometimes that there is no middle ground between completely free press and utter lockdown of media only being able to post what the government wants them to.

Each State has its own registry laws on top of the Federal ones with varying degrees of insanity.

It would definitely be nice if it was more uniform.

In my previous state you had to agree that you were not going to use the information to harass anyone and doing so was a felony, didn't stop several of my coworkers at the time from doing just that with every new person hired.

Sadly, people like that are going to find ways to be assholes to people no matter what. I wish there was less tolerance for people like that because it makes it easier for them to keep harassing people. I have mixed feelings about the public information. On the one hand it was very helpful when I found out a guy I was involved with had been charged with a domestic before (yes sometimes there is more to the story but in this case that wasn't what this was) and I was very glad to find out when I did. On the other hand people shouldn't be attacked for their past and it's not necessarily other people's business. Outside of whether it should be public or not, I think people caught doing things like what your bad coworkers did should have either stronger sentencing or something especially when it's a case of making false accusations to harass someone.

[Shangri-laschild]

Today I found out some of the issues on the mental health side of things. The subject came up when our old RSO (registered sex offender) officer was in because of a current trail going on. There is mental health treatment available for those who have the urges and need help. However at least here, to get them into that facility, the criminal charges have to be dropped and the case has to be handled civilly to get them labeled sexually dangerous though I think I'm remembering the term wrong. It's different than the label sexual predator. If that doesn't work however, the criminal charges can not be reapplied so it isn't a route that's used as much unless they are fairly confident it will work. It also involves the victims or victim's family agreeing to it. And that really only covers the people who have gotten caught doing something and are getting charged and not the people who have discovered urges and want help up front. It's something though I wish there was a better way of doing it and it still needs a lot of work.