Guy Hamilton-Smith writes a guest blog post for the Comparative Penology website, explaining how U.S. sex offender registries promote social isolation and “civil death.” Here is an excerpt: Oscar Wilde, writing from his cell in the Reading Gaol where he was imprisoned for homosexuality at the end of the nineteenth century, observed that “society reservesContinue reading “On America’s Civil Death Penalty: The Sexual Offense Registry”
Tag Archives: abolish registries
Failure to Comply Arrests Reveal Flaws in Sex Offender Registries
In an article at the Appeal, Joshua Vaughn notes that in just one Pennsylvania county, in one year, more than three times as many people on the sex offender registry were charged with failing to comply with registry requirements as were charged with new sex crimes. Hundreds of people every year in Pennsylvania are arrestedContinue reading “Failure to Comply Arrests Reveal Flaws in Sex Offender Registries”
Expert: Crime registries turn people into pariahs with "very little to lose"
Another good article explains why registries are a bad idea. In a column at The Appeal, Jessica Pishko writes that public crime registries — including sex offender registries — do not work and are even harmful, even though they are popular with the public and politicians. While public sex offender registries are now required byContinue reading “Expert: Crime registries turn people into pariahs with "very little to lose"”