2011 New Plan To Be Implemented in Sex Offender Monitoring
1) Survey every single sex offender on the planet. Have to survey sex offenders on probation and county jails. What do I mean by a survey ? We need to find out if being on the sex offender registry has caused that person to lose jobs, be prevented from jobs, and not be able to turn their life around. If we can show that it does, then we can make it come to an end.
2) We need to get our own data on how many sex offenders are re-offending? Without statistics, our arguments are unsupported. By re-offending I don’t mean getting re-arrested on the ability of somebody to follow the ten million rules that have placed on them upon their release. I mean not getting into trouble for a real reason, like robbing a bank or something. If a person gets in trouble because he was unable to register because he was homeless, doesn’t count as re-offending.
3) We need to get our data on how many people are becoming homeless as a result of the new laws.
4) Once we have this data we can do something with it. Basically you can argue that these new laws just force people to become homeless, unemployed, and unable to function in society any longer. Maybe even go further, and argue that the laws make people resistant to getting help because they feel helpless and can’t feel that there is anything anyone can do to make their life worth something again.
5) Maybe we can show that the new laws don’t protect anyone but just prevent new criminals from starting over because they don’t feel that anyone will allow them to be successful again. I basically mean that the person will feel that he is shunned or excluded from every organization or functional group that will make him feel welcome and home again. It’s possible that the new laws have prevented people from starting their lives over again because the doors have been shut in their face too many times by too many different people.
6) Maybe we can show that sex offenders are actually human beings with feelings that need to be loved and respected like all human beings and the current business prevents them from being accepted by anyone.
Need to get the data first from all walks of life. The data has to be genuine, verifiable, and documented.
7) We have to show that sex offenders are being singled out like a scapegoat, and that this all has to change. A person who commits a sexual offense is no different from a robber, arsonist, embezzler, con-artist, etc. And that to pass laws which only punish persons of this type of crime is discriminatory. We have to show that the laws passed do more harm than good. That they don’t actually prevent crimes and that all they do is prevent ex-felons from living decent lives again. Maybe someone can argue that if you prevent a person from getting work and being included in any organizations that he was a member of before his arrest that in essence all you will be doing is making him a permanent criminal. And you will not have achieved your goal of reducing crime but actually increasing crime by taking borderline people who can do both good and bad and making them do only bad by removing everything good from them. No different than raising kids and instead of rewarding the kids when they are good, you just punish them all the time when they are bad. It’s no different. You can never achieve good results with negative reinforcement. It only reinforces the bad behavior but doesn’t encourage the good behavior. The only way you can encourage the good behavior is by reinforcing it. But if all you do is punish the bad behavior and ignore the good behavior the child or young adult will adopt behavior that is bad so he can get reinforcement since he won’ t get reinforcement from the good behavior. It’s the same with sex offenders. If you have bad expectations about people being able to get better, they won’t try. But if you have good expectations, they will work hard at trying to achieve the results you want from them. You have to reward the good, as opposed to punishing the bad. So how do we set up a system that works like this?
1) You only put people on the sex offender registry for ten years. Why ten years? Because any longer than that and the people on it won’t feel like they have any incentive for getting better because there is no reward for them if they achieve what you want from them. So we change the sex offender registry to ten years and if people on it are good for ten years then we give them a chance to get off of it so they can blend back into society and live normal lives. But don’t they already have that in place in some states? No they actually don’t because in NH you have to apply to the board of governors to get off the registration after 15 years and waste money on a psychologist to testify to them that you are really worth it. I just think that’s a lot of work for someone to do who has been struggling to make a living for fifteen years prior to that time frame. I think the laws should be modified so that the person automatically gets off the registration upon his tenth anniversary.
2) You eliminate the public registry because the only people who need to know that a person is convicted of a sexual offense is the police department. They have the technology to solve crimes even if they are the only people who know who the actual sex offenders are. They don’t need public notification to solve crimes. So we push that the sex offender registry is made for only 10 yrs for 1st offense and that while a person is on it they only have to register for ten years.
3) And the only people who know they are on it is law enforcement.
4) We also ask that a person’s criminal record gets wiped out after ten years. Why ten years? Same argument as before. If a person feels that he has a chance to be successful, he will make all efforts to be a good citizen, whereas if he feels that no matter what he does, he will never wind up with anything he will just give up and break the law and become a career criminal.
5) We ask that in addition to making the registration ten years for single offenses and the information kept private (meaning only law-enforcement have it). And that at the end of the ten year period that person gets off registration, has his records sealed, and starts his life over for good.
6) In addition to that we do away with the public notification of signs when a level 3 sex offender moves to a new area. We also do away with any type of residency restrictions. We also ask that they do away with any laws that prevent sex offenders from joining YMCAs or churches where they live. These are just stupid laws that make it harder if not impossible for a person to feel accepted by his community again. In addition to that we ask that sex offenders not be excluded from dating sites on the internet because once again nobody is actually being protected, you are just making it harder for that person to resume a normal life again once he has learned his lesson and become a model citizen.
7) I would suggest we try to have “America’s Most Wanted” taken off the air because it just engenders hatred against a certain targeted group of individuals which I believe is counter-productive to enabling people to be successful once they leave prison or probation or parole.
8) We need to show that the efforts taken by lawmakers is counter-productive. They are not achieving the results they want because they are not allowing people to lead normal lives again. They are reinforcing the bad behaviors rather than encouraging the good behaviors so the people exhibit bad behaviors more often to get the wrong reinforcement.
9) Lastly we need to show that by taking away from new criminals any chance for success in life after prison that he will become what they don’t want – a career criminal. But if they allow a person to be successful, be loved, and be encouraged not discouraged from leading a normal life than they will actually be able to stop crime and make people model citizens by giving them a chance to believe in themselves and try to do better. This can only be achieved by getting rid of all the public notification laws and allowing a one-time criminal change his life and become a good citizen again and blend back into society. You can’t enable a person to do this by telling them he can’t live next door to you or he can’t work here. Or he can’t exercise at my gym. This is not how civilized people make other civilized people feel. I would suggest that they do away with the sex offender term and classify criminals as criminals and not call anyone sex offenders anymore. Just get rid of the whole name labeling thing in the first place.
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