Friday, November 17, 2006

The Sex Offender Homelessness Problem & the New Class of State Slave

From Corey Yung at Sex Crimes yesterday -- A Maryland court was forced to confront the issue of how homeless sex offenders can comply with the requirements of that state's registry requirements. Their answer? Homeless sex offenders are exempt:

Sex offenders who are homeless are exempt from laws requiring them to register a change of address with state officials, Maryland’s high court ruled Wednesday. The Maryland Court of Appeals said in a pair of unanimous rulings that it would be impossible for the homeless to comply with provisions of the state sex offender registry.

Corey Yung (Sex Crimes) wonders how this problem is addressed in the probation context and credits eAdvocate for letting him know about this case. For more on this topic, and how restrictions do not actually protect children and society, and developments from the states of KS, UT, IA, WA go blog at Sex Crimes.

Let's really make the world safer and not just say we are. Registries and restrictions in Z's view create an entirely new and growing underclass, branded and shamed, unable to pursue careers, upon whom a disproportionate share of a scarce budget must be spent on policing and registering, and investigating and administering.

After several years of results, the statistics are coming in and beginning to show how completely useless this “feel good” solution has been.

The real solution should be to construct solid re-entry and reintegration community-based programs, and not on segregation, policing and fingerprinting, in essence creating state and federal catalogs of sex offenders. That's how communities should get involved, and that's how communities can become engaged in true prevention as well. That's not perverted.

That's called helping your neighbor.

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