Rethinking Sex Offender Registration and Residency Legislation
Sex offender registration laws provide the illusion of safety while satisfying society's unfortunate urge to continue punishing offenders who have already paid their debt to society, but growing evidence suggests that the laws are actually counterproductive.
Laws requiring widespread public notification of past crimes and restricting where such sex offenders can live have not been shown to reduce the number of new sex crimes, the report says, but rather shun former sex offenders and may be driving them underground.
A new report by Human Rights Watch examines registration laws and their legislative cousins, residency restriction laws. From an HRW summary:
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