Last Modified: 14 Oct 2012 11:56
Pariahs among us: Sex offender laws in the 21st century
"Charlotte Silver is a journalist based in San Francisco and the West Bank, Palestine. She is a graduate of Stanford University.
Stringent sex offender laws in the United States destroy lives and do little to mitigate repeat offences.
Sex offenders are often required to be tracked by a GPS bracelet and prohibited from living in certain areas
Maybe it is not so surprising that all we can think to do with a subject we are simultaneously obsessed with and repulsed by is publicise it at every opportunity.
Sex crimes: The only kind of offence in the United States that compels all convicted perpetrators to register their name, address, date of birth, fingerprints and a photograph on a public website.
And what constitutes a sex crime? The breadth of this damning classification is alarming and includes public urination, consensual teen sex, sale of sex and exposure of genitals (including in the case of children) - as well as violent rape.
One poignant example of the irrationality and senseless devastation of overreaching sex offender laws is the story of Evan B, as told by Lara Geer Farley. When Evan was in high school he was arrested for exposing himself to a group of his female peers. A court sentenced him to four months in prison, but after he was released he was obliged to register as a sex offender. The stigma drove Evan to drop out of school, leave his home in Salina, Oklahoma and move to Tulsa, where the arduous requirements associated with his sex offender status meant that he could not maintain employment. A month before he should have turned 20, Evan shot and killed himself."
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/10/2012101474052331874.html
The Adam Walsh Act: The Scarlet Letter of the Twenty-First Century
http://washburnlaw.edu/wlj/47-2/articles/geerfarley-lara.pdf
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