{"id":166182,"date":"2010-01-11T11:53:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-11T16:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:criminaljustice.change.org:\/\/b37098698179adaf0c9e5d06bc99a525"},"modified":"2010-01-11T11:53:00","modified_gmt":"2010-01-11T16:53:00","slug":"going-the-other-way-south-dakota-could-shrink-sex-offender-registry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/166182","title":{"rendered":"Going the Other Way: South Dakota Could Shrink Sex Offender Registry"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"I wrote last week about a misguided new law in Nebraska<\/a> that has expanded the state\u2019s sex offender registry by publishing the name and information of everyone convicted of a \u201c sexual offense\u201d in the state — from relatively minor convictions like indecent exposure and statutory rape to serious crimes like sexual assault.<\/p>\n

A proposal in South Dakota could take that state in the other direction: removing people from the list after 10 years if they were convicted of less-serious offenses. An article in the Sioux Falls Argus Leader<\/a> presents Tacy Chrispen\u2019s son as an example of the desperate need for this kind of reform. He was a high school senior when he was convicted of statutory rape for having consensual sex with his 15-year-old girlfriend. Under current law, he\u2019ll spend the rest of his life on the registry.<\/p>\n

Putting someone like him on the registry for life just isn\u2019t helpful. Not only does it throw an undeserved wrench in his life, but it also dilutes any possible impact the registry might have on public safety.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Several commenters to the Nebraska post<\/a> last week questioned whether any sex offense should be considered minor. They\u2019re right that victims of rape and molestation will live with the effects for their entire lives and that some sex offenders truly are dangerous and should be monitored. But when we try to use the registry for both shame and monitoring, we only succeed in shaming. The statutory rape above is an example of the kind of minor conviction that shouldn\u2019t be punished for life.<\/p>\n

As sex offender registries have grown, and the public outcry for punishment of these crimes with it, the average age of convicted sex offenders has dropped steadily in recent years — partly through enforcement of the type of “Romeo and Juliet” statutory rape cases described above. This devastating post<\/a>, showing the mugshots of children on sex offender registries across the country, demonstrates that many people who perhaps should be considered victims themselves are further victimized when they\u2019re included for life on a registry that does no one any good.<\/p>\n

I hope the proposed South Dakota law gains traction and we begin to see a move toward responsible, rational sex offender registries across the country.<\/p>\n

Via Sex Offender Issues<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wrote last week about a misguided new law in Nebraska that has expanded the state\u2019s sex offender registry by publishing the name and information of everyone convicted of a \u201c sexual offense\u201d in the state — from relatively minor convictions like indecent exposure and statutory rape to serious crimes like sexual assault. A proposal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-166182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166182\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}