Reform Sex Offender Laws Now!

Our Statement is based on a call by a group of concerned Americans, including educators, health workers, and community activists, originally issued in Boston in 1999. For more information, please read our Introduction. We urge others to join in this campaign by becoming a public signatory.

As part of the effort to support the happiness, well-being and freedom of children, we are committed to protect society and its children from the dangers of sexual harm. We are also committed to preserve civil liberty and genuine criminal justice. We believe many aspects of the current approach to sex offenders seriously undermine justice and make our society less compatible with the welfare of young people. These include state and national sex offender registries as currently structured, life-time civil commitment statutes for sex offenders after completing prison sentences, and the public shaming of anyone accused of illegal sexual activity. We support carefully limited laws that target harmful acts, not whole classes of people, and which rehabilitate rather than vindictively punish and shame offenders. We assert that only by supporting justice for all people can we maintain a safe society.

We speak out against the mounting panic which vaguely defines sexual dangers and ostracizes and scapegoats a wide range of people who have been labeled "sex offenders."

There are now Sex Offender Registries in every state and at the Federal level.1 Most people convicted of any illegal sexual act or of owning, making, or selling illegal erotic material are required to submit to state and/or federal registries for classification. Those classified as "predators," as dangerous offenders, or as offenders against children must register frequently, often for life, with police or registry officials and must submit personal information including a photograph, residential address, employment, telephone, and email. This information is then made public; that is, it is posted on the Internet, published in newspapers, or noted on billboards or flyers distributed in the neighborhood. Often, such public notification includes persons whose alleged crimes are labeled violent but where no force or violence occurred.2 In some jurisdictions, public notification includes those accused of possessing a single photograph of a naked child, accused of public urination,3 or accused of "unwanted affection" involving persons under eighteen.

There are now about 750,000 persons --adults and children-- who are identified as sex offenders, either in prison, on parole, registered, or being sought as unregistered,4 and upwards of two million family members living with the consequences of the sex offender registries.

In many states and nationally, registration and classification is required of persons under eighteen, including children as young as eleven years old,5 and including minors convicted of consensual sex with other minors.6 They, too, are sometimes subject to public posting of their photographs, addresses, and other personal information.7

Many places severely limit the residence, travel, and work of sex offenders and place them under constant surveillance.

Many states and municipalities forbid sex offenders to live in certain areas near schools or day care centers8 and otherwise limit the travel of sex offenders within states and across state lines.9 Registered sex offenders are often required to wear ankle bracelets with global positioning units that trace their every move.10 Some jurisdictions have considered mandatory implantation of electronic chips into the bodies of offenders for similar surveillance.11 In some states, the residential limits are so severe that sex offenders have great difficulty finding housing. Some towns and cities make it virtually impossible for registered sex offenders to live there.12

"Sex offender" now refers to a class of people virtually without rights and whom it is difficult to defend as citizens deserving respect.

Almost all notion of rehabilitation and reintegration into society has been discarded for sex offenders. The term "sex offender" includes an extremely wide range of people who have been judged guilty of behaviors from bad taste to serious abuse,13 yet public hysteria has reached the point that all persons so labeled are demonized, whatever the specific circumstances. In the public mind (and sometimes in the statements of public officials), every sex offender is a person considered to have committed heinous crimes.

Confused concepts of pedophilia and the dangers posed by strangers causes exaggerated alarm.

Perhaps the key to this panic about sex offenders is that they are often assumed to have raped children. That is, "sex offender" is often equated with a violent "pedophile." The term pedophile itself has become a stereotype of a person who violently rapes young children. In fact, the vast majority of persons attracted to children are not violent.14 Though a pedophile is defined medically as a person primarily attracted to children under puberty (about 12),15 it is confounded with anyone ever attracted, however minimally, to any "minor" or person under the age of consent, which has been set in federal sex laws at eighteen.16 Although a great many sex offenders were never convicted of crimes that had anything to do with children or older juveniles,17 hysteria about defending children from pedophiles has broadened to a wider hysteria about all sex offenders, which is fanned by sensationalist media. Repeated research studies firmly establish that most sexual violation of children is by family members, not strangers.18 Recidivism rates for sex offenders against children have also been shown in these studies to be quite low.19

Sexual harm to children must be combated, but we must also fight other severe forms of harm to children.

While sexual violence is monopolizing our attention, we often forget about other very serious forms of harm to children and young people.20 It is important to speak out against sexual harm, which has often remained hidden and denied within families and communities. However, non-sexual violence within families is also extremely prevalent,21 poses a serious threat to many children, and is often ignored. Poverty, malnutrition, ethnic discrimination, poor education, and inadequate health care traumatize millions of young people in our affluent nation. Yet there is little national commitment to halt these sometimes deadly and pervasive forms of harm to children. Instead, our attention is riveted by any case involving sex while other forms of harm are largely disregarded.

Even as we speak of older and older youth as children in need of protection, younger and younger children are treated as adults when accused of sex offenses.

If convicted, they are often forced to comply with the same public registries and life-time commitment as adults.22 If considered a "victim," the child’s identity is protected. If a "perpetrator," the same child will be publicly exposed. Teens and children may now be criminalized and forced to register for activities considered experimentation or play since the dawn of history and in most cultures.23

Demonizing any class of people as devoid of humanity and beyond redemption is wrong.

Any law is wrong that permanently takes away the rights or liberty of offenders, whether by life-time incarceration by civil commitment after sentences or by public registry, shaming, and limitation of residence. Demonization is destructive even when applied to truly violent offenders. Those who commit sexually violent crimes do not come out of a vacuum. They come out of our communities and families. To view dangerous offenders as totally ‘other’ than us prevents us from getting at the roots of such crimes. Permanent stigmatization not only makes impossible re-integration into society of those who are rehabilitated, but also it signals a breakdown in civil society.24

Demonizing sex offenders has many other negative effects on society. As used to be the case for homosexuals, sex offenders can now be called "perverts," "deviants," and "perps" by the news media. This breaks down civil discourse and poisons it with pejorative speech. Reporting laws now turn doctors, social workers, and therapists into agents of the state, as they are required to report anyone mentioning past, present, or possible "abuse" in previously confidential settings.25 This discourages people in need of counseling for sexual problems from seeking out professional help.26

Extreme measures now include abolition of statutes of limitation, retroactive registration, life-time incarceration without parole, and even the death penalty.

Most states and the federal government have abolished or are considering abolishing statutes of limitation.27 Retroactive registries seem to violate the Constitutional rubric against ex post facto laws.28 Several courts have ruled this not to be the case because registration is not viewed as a punishment. Yet public registration, including shaming, humiliates and endangers those who are labeled and whose photographs and addresses are made public. This is a severe form of further punishment for offenders who have completed their sentences. Six states attempted to institute the death penalty for nonviolent sex offenses involving children until it was struck down by the Supreme Court.29 Mainstream legal scholars are debating whether pedophiles should receive death or life-time incarceration in camps.30 Red flags raised about all this by human rights advocates attract little attention.31 Unfortunately, this is quite similar in nature to previous panics aimed at other groups.

These assaults on civil liberties have befallen us because few have been willing to risk being seen as ‘soft on child molesters’ or on sex offenders generally.

It is now the case, that almost no politician - liberal or conservative - dares oppose any measure against sex offenders, however extreme.32 We hold that civil liberties are indivisible. As soon as one class of people is scapegoated and separated from "decent citizens" in terms of rights, other classes of offenders - such as drug dealers and users, political dissidents, or "dead-beat dads" - may be similarly deprived of all rights. However much we oppose specific, perceived wrong-doings, or even threats to society such as terrorist attacks, in a free society we cannot allow such deterioration of due process. We argue that these trends in sex offender laws have breached our legal system in an extremely serious way. Repressive state powers cannot be neatly applied only to ‘bad’ people. They threaten us all.

It is possible to make society and our children safe without eroding due process and civil liberties.

Canada and some other countries have registration requirements for genuinely violent sex criminals after their release from prison, but they do not allow public notification or publishing of offenders’ photographs and personal information. They also severely limit civil commitment after sentences to persons judged to be a real and extreme threat to society, and they assure that such commitment is temporary and regularly reviewed.

Therefore, we call for the immediate reform of America’s sex offender laws,33especially the state and Federal sex offender registries and the life-time civil commitment laws.We support the following immediate actions:

1. Abolish all provisions of state and Federal sex offender registries that publicly shame offenders. There should be no internet or other public posting of the identity, photograph, address, workplace or personal information of any offender, nor should this information be available to the public at police stations or registry offices. In cases of genuinely violent sex crimes, especially against young children, and with a specific finding of a likelihood to re-offend, registration may be required, but information will be shared only among police officials, or if a court rules it appropriate, with institutions serving children or others who might be vulnerable to abuse. Strong penalties should be levied against police or others privy to the registration information who violate the privacy of the offenders.
2. Abolish all life-time civil commitment for sex offenders³⁴ who have completed prison sentences and/or parole and probation. In cases of violent offenses and specific findings of a likelihood to re-offend, carefully constructed court hearings, with medical advice and full due process, should determine if the person may be further incarcerated, and then only for a short time and with regular review. The ultimate goal of all measures aimed at sex offenders should be their return to the community when they are not likely to re-offend.
3. Stop public vilification and demonization of sex offenders. Oppose the use in the media or by public officials of obviously pejorative language with regard to offenders. Label only actually violent acts as violent crimes - define violence simply and logically as a physical attack or threat that causes real harm.³⁵ Use of the term "pedophile" should be extremely limited and accurate.³⁶ Children should be defined as persons under the age of puberty.
4. De-criminalize all consensual sexual activities among teenagers.³⁷ Stop all required sex offender registration for minors.³⁸
5. Abolish all laws that provide the death penalty* or life in prison without parole for sex offenders.
6. Support broad sex education to promote a healthy society.
7. Provide accurate information and support valid research about sex offender characteristics³⁹ and recidivism rates.⁴⁰
8. Help sex offenders re-enter society by abolishing measures which make it difficult for them to find a place to live⁴¹ and a decent job.⁴² Encourage support groups for sex offenders, including help with finding housing, employment, and effective treatment, before their release and afterward.