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Originally Posted by wendybeth
I don't see where there is a problem with publishing the information.
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Here are the problems as I see them...
In 2002, the department of justice did a study of the sex offender list in California (which has over 100,000 people on it). They found that almost 50% of the information on the list was inaccurate, a common error being publishing the wrong address of the offender. There have also been numerous instances of vigilantism since the release of these lists became popular. What happens when a wrong address is published and an innocent person is a victim of a vigilante? What about the innocent family members who may live with the offender? They are affected by this as well.
And these lists just don't act as a detterent as I see it. A molester will simply travel to an area where they aren't recognized if they are going to re-offend. If they aren't going to re-offend, there isn't a need for the list.
The other problem is that many of the people that are on the sex offender registry are there for crimes that aren't molestation or rape. Some are, in fact, victimless crimes such as solicitation of prostitution. That can put you on a sex offender list for life in California, where your neighbors can all see. I really don't think that someone who solicits a prostitute should be subjected to having their private information posted on a web site for all to see, for life. I don't see how it makes society safer and I see plenty of ways that this information can be abused.
I'm all for stricter sentencing. I'm even for life imprisonment in many cases. What I'm not for is feel good measures that create more problems than they fix. I'm not for information like this being made public when there is only a 50% chance that it is even correct in the first place. Not when it encourages people to take the law into their own hands.
I actually used to think that these lists were a good idea until I read through a couple of (pretty heated) debates on another board. Since then, I've come to realize that they don't really do anything but give a false sense of security, rather than actually solve any problem.