Anyone know of groups working to challenge the Sex Offender Registration laws?

[kcmo2481]

Does anyone know of any current proposals or groups working on proposals to change the sex offender registration laws??

[Infinityandbeyond]

Have you posted this in the LASO forum? Its a great question. Hope you get some responses.
My guess is they will get worse not better. But I'd love to be wrong!

[StormChild]

You could start by talking to the ACLU. I know they had planned a test case to challenge the insane new Hallowe'en rules.

Good luck, and let us know what you find!

[dvol]

Contact Donna and Dennis at the Missouri chapter of Reform Sex Offender Laws:

rsolmissouri@yahoo.com

[Infinityandbeyond]

Believe it or not, the State is looking at the registration system right now. They are going toward a 3 tier system and one of the possibilities is for the SO's who fall on the bottem tier, who's crime did not involve a child, they are looking at a 15 year registration instead of lifetime.

Also the Halloween and housing restriction laws are also being looked at. Especially for those SO's (again) who's crime was not against a child.
The Mo. supreme court will hear the Halloween case again on Dec.8 (I believe is the correct date) to hopefully do something about this ridiculous law. Even the Sorna law's dont have this restriction OR the housing restriction, this is a Missouri thing.

WRITE, WRITE, WRITE and keep WRITING your legislators and the Attorney Generals office. And call. This is the only way we can change it. Others are doing this and their voices are being heard but we need for all of us to do the same to see some changes.

The SO registration is a hot topic with the AG's office, we need to stay involved and let them know this is ruining lives, not helping anyone.
I've said it 1000 times and I'll keep saying it...I was a Child Abuse investigator a few years back and 95%, if not all, the Sex Abuse cases were done on a child by a person KNOWN and/or related to that child.
It was NOT stranger danger, it was not the dirty old man down the street, it was "daddy, grandpa, cousin, uncle, a friend of the family, step-dad, mom's boyfriend", etc....occasionally a woman but those were rare. I'm not trying to single out men I'm just saying those were the typical perpetrators involved in these cases.

How do all these restrictions on someone who's crime was not against a child help protect anyone? And even if it was a child, statistics will prove it was someone that child knew.
The Adam Walsh and the handful of cases over the years who created these laws are the exceptions, not the rule.
What's going to hurt us now is the CA case going on right now of the creep who kidnapped her and fathered two children with her in his own back yard. But who's to blame for that? He was already convicted and did time for raping a woman before that happened and was not being closely supervised on Parole. The officers did home checks over how many years and never found this? Come on......

Anyway my point is the only one's that make the news are these types of cases. Not the daily, frequent sexual abuse cases done on a child by a known perp.
Let the feds and state officials who make these laws actually pull the sexual abuse cases hotlined and investigated on a daily basis and see how many are done by someone known to the child and how many were a complete stranger.

Statistics will prove my point.

And last, I spoke to a very nice woman who works in the Mo. SO registration unit in Jeff.City and asked her why there isnt a register for murderers and/or meth manufactures who blow up houses with children in them?
She said that was a very valid question and one they've been asked a lot. She even said she would rather live by many of the SO's on the register than a murderer next door. Her exception was if she had a child in her home and the guy next door was a child molester. My thought on that is, I still wouldnt want a murderer next door.

So, yes all our questions, concerns, fears, anxieties, and feelings of unfairness about these laws are issues that the State is aware of but it really will take all of us working together and writing our legislators and Attorney Gen. office to turn this around.