Sex Offender Registration in Ohio (and the US)
Misuse of funding and manpower in the war against ‘Sex Offenders’
I was listening to WOSU’s All Sides with Ann Fisher, and this episode was about Ohio’s Sex Offender Registry Law, which once mirrored many other states (Meghan’s Law), but has now been ‘enhanced’ to mirror the more stringent ‘Adam Walsh Act.’
The interesting part of this series of interviews, is that they bring on one legislator (who supports this law), one law enforcement guy (Assistant Chief of Columbus OH‘s county who thinks it’s annoying), and a victim’s right advocate (a lawyer FOR the VICTIMS of sexual abuse who doesn’t like it at all).
This is obviously not only a delicate topic, but an emotionally charged one. However, while it’s easy for legislators to seek reelection, and law enforcement to seek promotion for appearing ‘tough on crime,’ especially when it comes to protecting children, the laws and methods they are using are very much the former (tough), and not much the latter (in any way useful in protecting kids). I am an ardent women’s right advocate, and a financial supporter of RAINN so by no means believe I’m zomg arguing for convicted sex offenders.
The two main tools we’ve become used to after a sex offender serves their time is the limit on how close they can live to various locations (schools), and the sex offender registry where the govt keeps tabs on them, where they live, and notifies every individual household in the communities where they live.
The minor problem with the Adam Walsh Act that law enforcement is charged with implementing any new legislation, regardless if they are given the funding or not. The resources and manpower required to interview each released sex offender (many of them non-violent) multiple times a year is intense, as is the cost of printing and mailing postcards about each individual. I believe all registered sex offenders are already on maps in online databases, so the postcard aspect is a complete redundancy.
The MAIN problem with the Adam Walsh, and Meghan’s Law, is that sex offender registry acts, and those mandatory (arbitrary) residence restrictions, do not protect children.
The grand majority of sexual crimes are not random or committed by strangers, it happens when a parent trusts their child to the wrong individual, a close family member, babysitter, or teacher/priest. Violent sex offenders (serial rapists) are less common and are flagged as such. In either case, incarceration and rehabilitation make them far less likely to re-offend, and again the vast majority don’t.
So when it comes to protecting children and women, the most effective way to do so is rehabilitation. But that doesn’t give the community much peace of mind, does it? It would if legislators and law enforcement actually supported it. By focusing on registration over rehabilitation, we’re releasing people more likely to re-offend, and simply laying the burden of protecting people on the citizens themselves. It’s disgusting, and that’s should be what makes people think twice. This is not just the message they are sending to the community, but that’s ‘the plan.’
That being said, most sex offenders are caught, and most don’t re-offend even now, but even less would if the monetary and legislative focus was on rehabilitation and counseling, rather than peace of mind gimmicks like postcards, 90-day-registration-for-life, and forcing all offenders together in ghettos with little chance of upward mobility. Successful members of society do not re-offend, but legislators would rather keep them out-of-sight, out-of-mind, which only reinforces the frustrations that cause people to re-offend anyway–all to appear tough-on-crime, and protect-the-children.
This is a gross misuse of funding and manpower that doesn’t protect women or children. This doesn’t even get into how many on those registries were teenagers convicted for consensual sex with teenagers, or those convicted for public indecency, and other sexual feux pas that would make a person a 3rd class citizen for life. A waste of that precious taxpayer money, all to protect no one, all for politics.









