This is a follow up post from Sonia Van den Broek. See her original post Looking Myself up on the Registry here.
In the previous blog post, I alluded to the value of the sex offender registry. The best way to understand this value, I believe, is by answering the question “Is the registry effective?” Anything that requires direct police involvement, legal monitoring, and thus taxpayer money deserves to be scrutinized by this question. I propose to you that, far from being effective, the sex offender registry is actually ineffective and harmful – to the community most of all.
To begin, the sex offender registry feeds into the public hysteria surrounding this category of crimes. It calls offenders out into the public eye and strips away basic privacy. It exposes their families and friends to public indignation and undue wrath. The registry, by its very nature, calls the reader to judge a person by her label rather than the severity of the offense, her rehabilitation, and a host of other personal factors. The registry is intended to keep communities safe from sexual predators. Many cities draw a circle, varying from 1,000-2,500 feet, around each park, school, public pool, and other places where children congregate. The offender is not allowed to live within the radius of these places; the registry is supposed to be the method by which police officers enforce this rule.
But notice the quiet confusion of terms: “sexual predator” suddenly becomes “sex offender.” In other words, committing a sex crime earns a person a spot on the registry –regardless of her likelihood of being predatory. Although the two terms are not equal, the registry treats them so. I agree: when someone is a predator, it makes sense to severely limit his movements and living options. (Men are statistically much more likely to be predators than women are, so I use the male pronoun.) However, the majority of sex offenders are not also predators. The registry should make this distinction but does not.
The registry requirement is also simple to flout: some sex offenders either fail to register with the police or register under one address while living at another. Sex offenders face tremendous hurdles in finding housing, especially when renting, and finding a place to stay even without the 1,000-foot rule can be daunting. For many offenders, particularly the more dangerous ones who want to duck police monitoring, breaking this rule is easier than following it.
Many other offenders find themselves homeless. The Julia Tuttle Causeway sex offender colony in Miami, Florida, is perhaps the most publicized account of offenders forced into homelessness because the housing restrictions were so broad. But forcing a person to be homeless causes many, many more problems than it solves. Homelessness often leads to joblessness; it wears down the person’s self-esteem and desire to succeed on probation; it often aggravates, rather than reduces, that person’s mental health issues. Drawing huge circles in order to exclude someone also sends a clear message about the system of justice. No one cares of these offenders succeed in treatment, if they become responsible citizens, or if they turn their lives around. Nothing matters except the punitive nature of exclusion.
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