A new Louisiana law requires sex offenders and child predators to state their criminal status on their Facebook and other social networking page, with the law’s author saying the bill is the first of its kind in the nation. And thus another entry in the saga of absurd laws relating to technology.
To cover themselves, social networking sites have already been removing sex offenders from their sites for years but this law goes the extra step of criminalizing it. Violators of the new law could face imprisonment with hard labor for a term between two and 10 years without parole and a fine up to $1,000. A second conviction carries a maximum penalty of imprisonment with hard labor for a term between five and 20 years without parole and a fine up to $3,000.
This brings up the more fundamental issue of whether a sex offender registry is even a good idea. Some would argue about only the small fraction of offenders who are actually sexual predators whereas the rest are minor offenders (e.g. “romeo and juliet” high school kids). However, the core of the problem with the registry is that it’s simply bad policy the way it is implemented. At the core is that one category of crimes has been singled out for a registry whereas no other criminal has the same sort of publicity via public notice.
If there is to be a registry for criminal acts, all criminals, no matter how minor, must be compelled to be listed. The alternative creates policy and economic distortions in its maintenance and execution. As that famous Georgia law has done:
Registered sex offenders in Georgia are barred from living within 1,000 feet of anywhere children may congregate, such as a school, a park, a library, or a swimming pool … One rule, championed by Georgia’s House majority leader, banned them from living within 1,000 feet of a school bus stop. This proved unworkable. Thomas Brown, the sheriff of DeKalb county near Atlanta, mapped the bus stops in his patch and realised that he would have to evict all 490 of the sex offenders living there. Other than the bottom of a lake or the middle of a forest, there was hardly anywhere in Georgia for them to live legally. In the end Georgia’s courts stepped in and suspended the bus-stop rule, along with another barring sex offenders from volunteering in churches. But most other restrictions remain.
Sex-offender registries are popular. Rape and child molestation are terrible crimes that can traumatise their victims for life. All parents want to protect their children from sexual predators, so politicians can nearly always win votes by promising curbs on them. Those who object can be called soft on child-molesters, a label most politicians would rather avoid. This creates a ratchet effect. Every lawmaker who wants to sound tough on sex offenders has to propose a law tougher than the one enacted by the last politician who wanted to sound tough on sex offenders.
There’s other absurdities with the registry that people rarely stop to think about. Having a sex offender in a neighborhood lowers real estate value. An axe-murdering neighbor, on the other hand, would not — he (or she) isn’t publicly listed. Nor is the chronic DUI violator. Or if there was a man who gained sexual pleasure from stabbing women; the serial stabber isn’t a sexual predator. Who is to say living to a bank robber is any better if he decides to transition to a new career of home invasion and burglary.
The laws have also been shown ineffective at preventing crime. There’s no evidence the registry has had any impact and the residency requirements are a small obstacle to a determined predator. For the honest, hard-working people trying to make it through life and their families, it causes undue obstacles and undue stress on their familial relationships.
While it’s incredibly hard to spend political capital on something this politically popular, a modest start to rectifying the current problems with this policy would be to remove juvenile offenders, minor/non-violent offenders, and blanket residence/employment restrictions should be lifted. As Human Rights Watch also urges the US, the restrictions should be individually assessed and tailored by probation/parole officers — and reevaluated as necessary. If offenders are reviewed and deemed to be rehabilitated or too old to reoffend, they should be removed from the registry.
