Key takeaways from the national webinar from Safe & Just Michigan on Thursday, May 28:
- If you want to prevent and reduce sexual violence, abolish sex offense registries.
- Sex offense registries don’t work — it’s been proven that they make communities more dangerous.
- Politicians are afraid of the politics around this issue and their cowardice prevents them from acting. Thus, politicians participate in ongoing violence against people on registries.
- The system does nothing to prevent or reduce sexual violence.
You may view the entire webinar here.
The panelists were:
- Miriam Aukerman, one of the country’s most talented litigators against sex offense registration laws, co-counsel on a landmark 6th Circuit case (Does v. Snyder) and now fighting tenaciously to get that decision implemented.
- Judith Levine, co-author of the newly published, The Feminist and The Sex Offender, and an elegant, clarion voice on matters of sexual civil liberties and justice; her 2002 book, Harmful to Minors, stands as a classic in the field.
- Vincent Schiraldi, a leading national advocate for cutting back probation and parole, a former NYC probation commissioner, and currently co-anchoring EXiT (Executives Transforming Parole and Probation), a bold new campaign to overhaul community supervision.
- Josh Hoe, a prominent criminal justice advocate, podcast host, and policy analyst for Safe & Just Michigan will moderate the discussion.
Let’s put to rest once and for all the lie that the rate of recidivism is a good reason for a registry. The “high recidivism” argument is a plain, proven lie.
