Echo, I agree with you. I believe that the registry should be made for LE only and that it should only list repeat and/or violent (and I mean truely violent, not categorized as violent) offenders. I also believe the registry should never be lifetime. The Hanson study even shoes that high risk offenders after 18 yrs without reoffending, have a lower chance at reoffending than those with no prior record of sexual offense. The registry should have a max time of 20 yrs.

Independent - I disagree. The number of folks that spend a lifetime in prison or are executed for murder is a very small percentage of actual murders. Some are pled down to a lesser crime but even those that aren't generally get out of prison after some amount of years and go on with their lives.

Advocate,

Yes, you are correct. I never in a million years thought I would ever get off the registry, but here came Mr. Starkey---Bless his soul----who filed a law suit against the state of Oklahoma and I was removed.

But, that was not on the federal level. That was on the state level. Yes, we are making progress on the state level in a few states, which is why I tell everyone to get involved with your state RSOL chapters, as that is where all the changes will be made in the immediate future.

You cannot do much at the federal level since the SCOTUS already ruled that the registry was only a civil regulatory scheme to protect the public in 2003. That is what I meant.

AND ALSO, I was not removed from the registry because the registry was abolished. The registry is still alive and well in Oklahoma and the Oklahoma Supreme Court did not rule the registry was punitive. It only ruled that to apply it retroactively for the registrants who were convicted before 2007 would amount to a punitive effect and then I was removed.

I was only removed after I had served my original registration mandate, which was 10 years. In 2013, after being on the registry for 13 years, they removed me.

So mine was at the state level not the federal level and my removal was as the result of a ruling that they could not make my registration period retroactive.

I am 1000% in favor of getting rid of this damn registry, but IN THE MEANTIME----while we work on its abolition---we can make things easier by chipping away at the restrictions spawned from the registry to make life better for registrants and their families.

rewdiazepam

Oh I know - just the hope is there - someday ... somehow ...

Yes. The registry stinks.

But what really affects my life are the restrictions. No parks. No celebrating holidays. No schools. No beaches. No pools. No YMCA. No forest preserves. No bike trails.

That impacts everything I do. I'm constantly looking over my shoulder worrying I broke a law.

I'm not 40 yet and kids are young. I feel like I'll have a stroke by the time they graduate highschool.

In 1996 when the registry was on paper in each towns station I shrugged it off as a silly inconvenience once a year for 10 years. But what exists now is life crippling.

I'd love the whole thing to collapse but the realist in me says our fight is better spend on eliminating the restrictions, reforming the registry and education on sex offenses.

Ivydog,

You said, "But what really affects my life are the restrictions. No parks. No celebrating holidays. No schools. No beaches. No pools. No YMCA. No forest preserves. No bike trails."

That is the exact point I was trying to make. It is the restrictions that are really burdensome, not the registry itself.

To give my fellow posters and friends an idea of how the registry has changed over the years, when I was released from prison in April 2000 and registered for the first time, the only thing I had to do was register with the local law enforcement once a year for 10 years----and that was it.

No residency restrictions until about 2004, no buffer zones until about the same time. no mark on the drivers license until about 2010, no park restrictions until about 2008, and I could go on and on.

rewdiazepam