Chapter 9        Registration

Registration for sex offenders is unique.  No other crime compels you to register yourself with the police.  Local regulations vary from state to state so with business or personal travel you can find yourself in trouble without knowing it.  The general rule of thumb is that if you spend more than 72 hours in a place outside your registered area, you must register with the police.  If you change your residence, even if it is across the street, or to another apartment in the same complex, you must notify your probation officer and register within 72 hours.  If you move on a Friday morning and wait until Monday morning you'll have violated the terms of your release.  The fact that the police station was closed on the weekend will make no difference.  I've seen this happen. 

When you register, it is the same process as being booked into the jail.  You are photographed and fingerprinted and your new address is recorded.  You don't just walk in and say, "Hey man I've moved." and they type in your new address and off you go.  Now prison has been extended to the outside world.  For you the whole world is a prison and there is no escape.  The fact that so many endure all this without going insane boggles my mind.  Probation violations and registration violations will get you put back into prison quickly.  Probation can be eliminated after a few years.  Registration cannot. 

When you’re first brought into prison your crime is classified as a level one, two or three sex offender.  The various levels determine the conditions of your release.  This varies from state to state and changes every year, which itself makes compliance difficult, because they aren't going to inform you of the changes.  They'll just wait to violate you and send you back to prison.  These rules change so much, so often, even though I would like to talk about them there is little I can say today without being wrong tomorrow.  Changes occur in regard to GPS monitoring (ankle bracelet), the jobs you can have, where you can live etc. That's about all I can say without venturing off into shifting sands.  For example one year ago, level one sex offenders weren’t required to submit to GPS monitoring.  Now all sex offenders do.  Given time it will change again with popular opinion, which is really what this is all about.  This isn't about safety or control, this punishment by popular opinion and the proof is in the fact that the law changes so frequently and in accordance with popular opinion as opposed to any scientific study or rational basis. 

In regard to registration if you're a level two or three sex offender fliers are mailed to your neighbors, which guarantees you'll be moving soon at the least, or windup dead on your front lawn as a result of someone's retaliation and hatred.  There is a 23-year-old man who frequently comes into the Pima county jail, because he has been severely beaten, sometimes almost to the point of death by his friendly neighbors.  This situation is rapidly escalating to the point that there is pressure to change the registration policies, because so many S.O.’s are being killed because of the notification sent to neighbors.  No other form of crime requires lifetime probation and lifetime registration or registration in any shape or form.  The fact that the public is so paranoid about living next to a sex offender is very hard for me to understand because it's so illogical.  The public would rather have stringent controls placed on sex offenders, but not on people that might kill them.  The housing restrictions that are applied to sex offenders indicate the public would rather live next to someone who might kill them, than someone who might have sex with them.  This position doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me. 

Technically lifetime probation and registration are unconstitutional.  The U.S. Constitution states, "Congress shall enact no law creating a class of people."  Most state constitutions have similar statements, making lifetime probation and registration unconstitutional at the state level as well as the federal.  It was this statement in the Constitution that was responsible for the abolishment of the Jim Crow laws of the south, because they created a class of people.  The problem is that no one with the resources has stepped up to the plate to challenge these laws.  This is partly due to the fact that they are so new.  I bring this up with the hope that someone challenges the constitutionality of these laws soon.  The reason why is that creating a class of people, no matter who they are, or what they've done, is no different than forcing people to wear yellow arm bands, with the word JUDEN on them.  Lifetime probation and registration makes American government no different than Nazi Germany and here's the proof: 

"Those who would sacrifice their liberty for a little temporary
security deserve neither liberty or security."
(Benjamin Franklin) 

Yet this is exactly what is happening.  I hope what I just wrote offends the hell out of people.  It’s about time this offended the hell out of somebody! 

Another trick the state does in regard to registration is arrest people on registration sweeps for violation of registration policies when those policies didn't exist at the time their crimes were committed and they were therefore not required to register.  That didn't stop the state from throwing a man I knew in prison.  It took him two a half years to fight his way out.

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