Death penalty legislation is not about the death penalty

Also published in the Digest, Vol. XVII-1 and the Washingtonn DC Patch, Jan 15.

By Sandy . . .  A freshman legislator in South Carolina is putting forth a bill this session proposing that sexual crimes meeting certain criteria be considered capital crimes. Incidentally, legislators in Arizona, Missouri, Tennessee, and New Mexico have all proposed the same legislation, and Florida passed a very similar bill last year. *Since the original publications of this piece, Idaho has passed legislation allowing the death penalty for certain sexual crimes against children.

While the author of at least one bill has cited the deterrent nature of the death penalty— which is unsupported and even appears to be false—that is not the issue of concern. These bills are not about the death penalty. Florida’s Supreme Court has ruled that capital punishment cannot be used in such instances. New Mexico abolished the death penalty in 2009. Arizona and Tennessee have gubernatorial holds on capital punishment being used. Other than blatant grandstanding in some if not all instances—Florida’s governor is running for president—these bills are about one thing: the continued vilification of persons with previous sexual crime convictions.

Sexual crimes causing harm to others, especially to children, are serious and deserving of equally serious punishment. However, due to the federal mandate for each state to create a registry of persons with sexual crime convictions and the subsequent federal mandate for these registries to be made public on the internet, an identifiable sub-group of people was created, a sub-group ready-made to be America’s bogeyman: the sex offender.

Every year since then, in virtually every state, new legislation is proposed and often passed increasing in some way the punishments and restrictions against those who are or have ever been convicted of a sexually based offense.

• The number of offenses requiring sex offender registration has increased almost beyond counting with some crimes of a non-sexual nature mandating time on the registry.
• Since it is a “civil regulatory scheme” and not part of punishment, virtually all laws and restrictions can be and are applied retroactively.
• Sentencing limits have risen, and states eschew formally adopting the federal guide[1]lines of AWA so that they can impose lengthier periods of required registration, some up to lifetime for all offenses.
• The tremendous power of the U. S. Marshals has been weaponized against those on registries in every state; they receive huge grants for this purpose, making them one entity among many with a financial incentive to retain registries.
• Law enforcement organizes and carries out sting operations bordering on, and sometimes entering into, the land of entrapment.
• Vigilantes have organized and “help the police” in “sting operations” while individual vigilantes have hunted down and murdered those on registries.
• The consequences of being registered fall to family members sharing the same home, including the registrants’ totally innocent children; entire families are, in effect, registered.
• States rush to heap on laws and restrictions not required in the federal mandate and are in competition with each other to have more laws, tougher laws, more restrictions.

And thus, legislation requiring the death penalty in certain cases where life has not been taken is proposed. The legislators in some of these states know their bills are unlikely to succeed. They all know that, pass or not, some favorable goals—from their points of view—will be accomplished. Their constituents will see them as someone who cares about children, their safety, and “law and order.” The negative image of people with past sexual crime convictions will increase; after all, if they are deserving of the death penalty, they must be monsters, perpetual predators, incapable of rehabilitation.

As long as a sex offender registry exists, those on it will be America’s bogeymen. Creating an underclass who are, on one hand, expected to emerge from prison or probation, get a job, and rejoin society, and on the other hand are perpetually kept or hindered from those objectives by being made into someone that no one wants to hire, socialize with, or have as a neighbor is counterproductive to public safety, contrary to research findings, and an incredible waste in human and financial resources.

Written by Sandy Rozek

Sandy, a NARSOL board member, is communications director for NARSOL, editor-in-chief of the Digest, and a writer for the Digest and the NARSOL website. Additionally, she participates in updating and managing the website and assisting with a variety of organizational tasks.