I disagree strongly with the sex offender registry in general, and with Georgia’s extra-harsh (compared to federal standards) registry in particular.

Let’s start with a little sum-up of the law.

In Georgia, all convicted sex offenders are required to notify their local sheriff where they are living. This information is made public. You can even search for sex offenders near you, if you’d like one more thing to freak out about (what, swine flu wasn’t enough).

Convicted sex offenders are not permitted to live within 1,000 feet of a church, school, day care, playground, or other area where children congregate. In November, 2007, the Georgia State Supreme Court ruled that the 1,000 foot residency restriction was unconstitutional. (Link) State legislators vowed to re-write it so as to pass constitutional muster. I have been unable to find the current state of the law, therefore it is possible that the residency requirements mentioned in this post are out of date. If anybody knows the Georgia code section that contains the residency requirements (note: not the registration requirements, which are §42-1-12), please leave it in the comments and I will update the post accordingly.

Registration is for life, regardless of the nature of the crime. Technically, one can petition a judge to be removed 10 years after one’s release, but realistically, the process is difficult, and I have not been able to find records of anyone pulling it off. Failing to register an address can result in a felony conviction, carrying a sentence of 30 years.

What could be wrong with a law that’s intended to let us know where sex offenders are? Let’s see…

After Prison, Few Places for Sex Offenders to Live
The crime that placed Mr. Noles, now 31 years old, in Georgia’s database of sex offenders was having sex in August 1996 with his girlfriend. He was then 17, while she was 14. Both said the sex was consensual, and they later wed. But state law at the time said it was statutory rape for either an adult or a minor to have sex with someone under the age of 16.

He thought he paid his debt to society. But under a 2006 Georgia law, Mr. Noles and nearly every person convicted of any of dozens of crimes considered sex offenses must be listed on a publicly available database. They must keep police notified of their address at all times and can never reside or work near any banned area.

The “dozens of crimes” that can get you onto the sex offender registry include things even more benign than the statutory rape described above. A person found urinating in public is charged with public indecency. Guess what? Public indecency is a sex crime. So, pee in public, get placed on the sex offender registry for the rest of your life. Sound like a good law to you? Just in case you under-estimate the number of people who get swept up in this net, the state estimates that 65% of offenders on the registry are “Level One,” which means they pose little threat. Unfortunately, the law makes no accommodation for this distinction.

Sex offender statute becomes tormentor – Atlanta Journal Constitution
In 2005, Norton and his family were ordered to leave his in-laws’ house because a school was nearby. They moved to a trailer park where they spent $1,500 to render the mobile home safe for their young children, only to be required to move again because there was a swing set within 1,000 feet.

The Nortons then found a home in Austell, where they lived for 10 months before being told to leave because it was too close to a school bus stop. When they couldn’t find another home, the family was forced to split. Norton went to a motel, while his wife and children returned to her parents’ house. Then Norton had to uproot himself again when a church was built near the motel. The reunited family has since found a rental home that complies with all the prohibitions. But officials now want to boot Norton from his church, citing a ban in state law on sex offenders serving as church volunteers.

This case is just one example of people on the registry being forced to relocate again and again. If at any point, a banned place opens up within 1,000 feet of the offender’s place of residence, the offender must move. This has resulted in some offenders becoming homeless—the thinking, I suppose, being that as long as you’re going to be effectively transient, you might as well not have a lot of shit to pack up and move. But it could be worse! Georgia’s law originally made it a felony for a person on the registry to be homeless! That provision was thrown out by the state Supreme Court.

Another provision that was thrown out by the court was the provision allowing the state to force home-owning offenders to sell their home if a prohibited place opened up close to the home. This was found to be a violation of the 5th Amendment right to property. Those on the registry still lose their 4th Amendment rights to protection against illegal search and siezure. Law enforcement officials in Georgia can search offenders’ property and person at any time, without probable cause or a warrant. A 2006 Georgia law even requires offenders to turn over their online account passwords.

How do law enforcement officials feel about the registry?

Among the most vocal critics of the laws are police. Some sheriffs say the crackdown on sex offenders forces them to divert substantial resources from investigating active criminals to monitoring and tracking offenders who aren’t threatening. Enforcing the additional restrictions from the 2006 law cost sheriffs’ offices about $5 million in 2007, says the Georgia Sheriffs’ Association.

“Oh, my God, it’s overwhelming,” says Capt. Ronald Applin, who works in the Fulton County sheriff’s warrant-service division that tracks down anyone deemed too close to children for comfort. Monitoring more than 1,500 sex offenders in the state’s most-populous county requires four deputies full time, he says.

So, not even the cops like the registry. Well, at least it prevents crime, right?

It’s not clear whether the laws have had any effect on the frequency of sexual offenses in Georgia. Only 90 of the 15,800 people listed as sex offenders are classified by law-enforcement officials as dangerous “predators,” which the state defines as someone who is at risk of perpetrating a future sexual offense.

Former Polk County Sheriff’s Office Maj. Mike Sullivan says the proximity-based employment and residential restrictions create a false sense of public safety. None of the 78 offenders he was tracking before he retired committed their crimes on victims they lived or worked near, he says. Instead, he worries that the residency laws destabilize past offenders by forcing them to move or lose their jobs and that pushing sex offenders to cluster together in the few livable areas of the state could ultimately encourage illegal behavior.

So, what we have here is a law that imposes onerous, arguably unconstitutioanl, requirements on convicted offenders. It treats the most mild offenders (public urination) the same as the most serious ones (forcible rape of a child), ensuring that most offenders are punished far more harshly than their crime warrants. Even police officers agree that it’s too harsh, and to top all this off, it doesn’t necessarily even have the effect of reducing crime.

What can you do? Look up your state senator and representative at VoteSmart.org. Put your zip code in the search box in the uppper left, then scroll down to the “State Legislative” section. Contact information is available by clicking on the legislator’s name. Write them a short letter summarizing your thoughts on the Georgia sex offender registry, or even better, call their office and tell them what you think.