• If only there was a word for this type of behavior…
• What is a Man?
• Hope for the Future
• A Dedication
• Atlas Blogged
• US Automakers: Rising to the Challenger?
• Global Warming and Eating Storm Crows
• Yet Another Republican Not Voting for McCain
• ReadableLaws
• Music Genome Project
• Another Great Goal
• Rick Nash, Simply Amazing
• Sports Quotables This Week
• A New Law or Smarter Parents?
• Professional Grade Football

• February 2008
• January 2008
• November 2007
• October 2007
• September 2007
• August 2007
• July 2007
• June 2007
• May 2007
• April 2007
• March 2007
• February 2007
• January 2007
• December 2006
• November 2006
• October 2006
• September 2006
• August 2006
• July 2006
• June 2006
• May 2006
• April 2006
• March 2006
• February 2006
• January 2006
• December 2005
• November 2005
• October 2005
• September 2005
• August 2005
• July 2005
• June 2005

« Insomnia-Induced Ruminating | Main | Redeployments and Drawdowns »

Opposing the Sex Offender Registry

Proposals to take away the privacy of ordinary citizens don't usually go over very well. But it's a different matter if we are talking about convicted sex offenders, in which case many people feel it's a no-brainer that their punishment doesn't end when their prison time has been served. After all, if the guy moving in across the street has spent the last decade or two locked up for raping preschoolers, you want to know.

To hell with common sense. Kip, Esquire makes the argument that such a registry is a bad idea. And it's not just one of those wispy libertarian arguments about how government is evil - this post has some meat to it. I direct readers to it, here, and I hope to get some feedback. Oh, sure, you could post your comments on Kip's blog, since he's the one making the argument here. Go ahead. I'll see it there.

Of course, I am infuriated (but not surprised) to see people being caught up in this registry who ought not to be. But the part I found most interesting was this::

The dual canards: that "sex offenders have greater recidivism rates" (the Department of Justice says the opposite is true), and that "child molesters prey on the community" (they overwhelmingly tend, in fact, to prey on children they have proximate access to, such as stepchildren), have both been discredited.

Somehow, I don't expect these facts to dominate the evolution of these registries.

Now, I am no legal expert, but I find it intriguing that Kip has argued in the past that there is no legal basis for what he calls redlining (and I call banishment) - see here and here. I confess that I don't see how banishing a criminal is significantly different (from the POV of the community) from locking him up. The purpose of each is to remove the threat from the community. Either action infringes upon the freedoms of the criminal. Is one really so much more defensible than the other? I suppose it opens up some interesting questions - for example, as Kip once asked, is there, or should there be, a fundamental right to live where one chooses, even for convicted child molesters?

Clearly there are already limitations on an individual's right to live where one chooses: cost, zoning regulations, Kelo, citizenship (sorry)... why not a conviction for a serious crime?

You know... like raping preschoolers?

Update: June 26 at high noon
I'd like to direct readers to an article called Zoning Cartman from almost a year ago on PrawfsBlog.

Consider this question from the comment section:

Why should the right to live where you choose be subject to less regulation (i.e., protected with closer judicial scrutiny) than the right to work where and how you want? In this case, for example, would any court bat an eye if a government entity refused to hire someone because of a prior sex offense conviction?

There are several other comments that are very interesting, including:
bw | Aug 4, 2005 3:23:17 PM
Will Baude | Aug 4, 2005 10:41:09 PM
Anthony | Aug 23, 2005 2:04:47 AM