Texas sex offender registry investigation
As presented by NBC News4 San Antonio
Bruce Cameron, a sex offender treatment provider, says some registered persons have told him that doing prison was easy, but being on the registry is a life sentence. He is in favor of deregulating registered persons who are low risk. That way resources for law enforcement could be freed up to monitor only those who truly belong on the list. This is what would help to keep the communities safer.
Unfortunately, the sheriff interviewed is skeptical of a registrant’s ability to change. I have thousands of people forced to register in Florida that I would like for him to meet, many with an offense that was years/decades ago.
The sheriff is concerned with the underreporting of sex crimes. There is some research showing that is true in some cases (but not all) before the arrest, but after the sentence is completed, I can find no such research. As always, the sheriff offered no research to back up his statements.
Reporter Mariah Medina was fair in her representation of both sides of this issue.
Mariah Medina’s email address: mamedina@sbgtv.com
What is this about under reported crimes? Petty theft is under reported too as well as a host of other crimes no doubt. Drunk driving I would bet is the most not reported crime. What does that have to do with anything?
The “under reported” excuse is a fear mongering tactic that unfortunately works. What I want to know is this; If a crime is not reported, then how can anyone make the claim that it’s “under reported”?
Is he looking within his own office first to find those incidences that are under-reported and in direct violation of the law, their oath, and the ethics they are supposed to follow? Asking for the citizens who pay his salary.
The problem is, if your charges were from 30 years ago, and never had so much as a litter charge since, based on how serious your charges were, they may try and say you are a lifetime risk and the reason you haven’t offended was due to the registry working and keeping you in check.
That theory is bunk because any of us could re-offend with or without the registry. However, most of us pretty much learned our lessons when we got arrested, humiliated in court, went to prison, house arrest and or probation, then thrown on a retro-active for life registry.
I pretty much think only less than 1% are stupid enough to screw up their lives even worse than they did the first time. A second time could result in lifetime prison or now in some states, execution.
They never offer any research to back up their statements because there isn’t any. All the research shows that the US Supreme Courts original ruling allowing the infringement of Persons Forced to Register constitutional rights was based on a 66% recidivism rate that has never existed in the history of the US and is 10 times greater than the truth. Yet here we are with court systems doing everythying they can to keep this unconstitutional law in place along with a USCS who refuses to hear any cases associated with the SORNA mess it created.