Nebraska’s hate-mongering public-shaming sex offender website is inaccurate, unreliable and useless for public safety. This is documented.
Nebraskans Unafraid has documented:
- More than 130 incorrect addresses (with more possibly coming in);
- Multiple instances of people accused of failing to make their required check-ins at the sheriff’s office when in fact they did check in but the sheriff did not properly document the visit;
- The state incorrectly labels everyone on the registry as dangerous. Nebraska trashed its useful risk-assessment system with the unconstitutionally retroactive change under LB 285 of 2009. What we know for sure is that research shows the reoffense rate for sex offenders is extremely low (less than 1 percent) so the vast majority of people listed in the registry are not dangerous.
Those are only the errors documented so far. You can’t be sure that the person you see on that registry actually lives at that address. You can’t tell if that person is dangerous (and chances are he is not). How many other errors are there? Are the offenses listed incorrect? What about other details? Does this or that person belong there? Can you trust any of it? At this point, the answer is “no.”
Nebraskans Unafraid has a standing invitation to anyone who can document that any registry anywhere helped solve or prevent a crime. Lacking documentation, we can only conclude that the registry is a totally useless public safety tool.
But it never was about public safety.
The 2009 Nebraska change was not in the interest of public safety. It was in the interest of a state official who used it to boost his chances of election to the U.S. Senate. Fortunately, he failed.
The registry is all about money.
When the sheriff or other law enforcement shows up at your door for their home-invasive visits, they are documenting numbers that will garner them grant money. Your tax dollars are going down the toilet. These agencies have an interest in a bloated registry — the higher the numbers, the more money for them to grub.
In addition, technical registry violations (i.e., vehicle reporting and travel reporting, as well as those willfully undocumented check-ins) ensure a supply of prisoners for the prison-industrial complex. They’re talking about building more prison space and using a private contractor. This will be a further waste of your tax dollars, which will be dumped into someone else’s pocket.
And your town will not be one iota safer as a result.