Sex Offender Registration Doesn’t Help Victims, Hurts Young Offenders
Jason is like many others who struggle to lead a healthy adult life because of a juvenile adjudication based on unsurprising adolescent behavior. States across the country place children as young as 8 years old on sex offender registries for conduct that is otherwise developmentally normal.
Required by federal law, this label imposes barriers on young people’s access to education, employment and safe housing. It can devastate them psychologically with little benefit to the community.
Youth sex offender registration costs the public over $3 billion a year. Rather than investing in preventive programming and victims’ services, resources are routinely allocated to a carceral and punitive response. Meanwhile, research-backed social programming and community needs remain largely underfunded.
For example, in 2017 California spent $140 million to register and monitor 3,500 youth registrants. Yet that same year, the budget for prevention programs and victims’ services was only $46,000.
In addition to the high cost of registration, sex offender registries do not advance the public safety goals for which they were created. Only 3% to 5% of youth who commit sexual offenses are likely to reoffend, showing that registration wastes resources on individuals who pose little to no risk of future harm.
Please God, do away with the registry for minor offences. Please let there be a ‘case by case’ common sense approach to this horrible legislation that keeps anyone from ever being free of a mistake made and not continued. This is so big…. We need your help.
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We’ve had the federal laws forcing public registries for over a quarter century. They’ve had all this time for registry reform. When will you and other mere reformers understand the registry is FUBAR? There’s NO saving this bloat, useless government blacklist.
There’s a reason I refer to the registry as a hydra. You cut one part off and two new parts appear.
ABOLISHMENT, not merely reform, is the ONLY solution.
This Megan’s Law, and stuff around it, is a violation of Gods Law, and shall be dealt with by God.
The day of his wrath is almost here.
Amen
Not only hurting youth but adults family sibling etc my word what do young kids really do to get on it teenage have hormones from both as for sitting on some one face that’s the parents to correct them to let them know its wrong how many people have to be beaten even if not on register but share a vehicle house apt etc just kill everyone that’s what it coming down to.