Everyone who is reasonable admits (nowadays) that homosexuality is not a disease, nor should the LGBTQIA+ community be treated as irredeemable. However, there is a growing population of people, starting as low as age 7, that the law and society have decided to treat the way it used to treat the LGBT folks: “Sex Offenders.”
The Sex Offender Registry (SOR) laws are one of the last bastions of righteous indignation and medieval bigotry. It seems that, despite studies and statistics to the contrary, SOR folks are thought to be highly dangerous and at high-risk for recidivism. They are forced into highly dangerous housing situations (due to distance restrictions); they are subject to severe employment restrictions; they are subject to forced public exposure of their identities — often leading to increased exposure to assault and murder. They are subject to arrest simply for walking, unaware, through a restricted area, and when arrested, subject to revocation of what limited personal freedoms they do have because their probations are cancelled.
Even if they survive to the end of their registration period, they must jump through labyrinthine hoops in the court systems to be released — if it is even allowed in a given state. Furthermore, the DAs can demand all sorts of extraneous requirements and paperwork, delaying any action and, thus, denying any justice.
Note: there is no requirement that a person placed into the SOR jungle actually is a sex offender. Public urination or snapping the backstrap of the tank-top of the little girl next door can be enough to earn one a one-way ticket onto the SOR. Some poor 16-year olds, falsely accused of incest, and faced with a threat of 30 years in prison without parole or some other outrageous plea “bargain” from a DA (and inadequate counsel) may feel themselves forced to accept a guilty plea rather than attempt to prove a negative.
It is long past time to bring the law and the courts up-to-date with the reality of what is happening in the SOR system. Slowly, some gains are being made. The recent Packingham decision by the SCOTUS recognized that SOR folks should be able to communicate on modern social media (such as Facebook) without being subject to violation for non-predatory behavior.
Now, no one is claiming that offenders should not be monitored, but that the draconian restrictions they are under should be no more onerous than the restrictions regular criminals are forced to deal with. But it is way too easy for the politicians and elected law enforcement officials to whip up a frenzy over the presence of sex offenders in our midst. I am surprised that the pseudo-president has not claimed that all the immigrants are sex offenders — oh wait, I think “rapists” covers that.
Do yourselves and the community a favor and learn the real studies and statistics about SOR laws. The National Association for Rational Sex Offense Laws is at: narsol.org