Keep sex-offender registry

Convicted sex offenders face a lifetime stigma in most states, including Utah. Even after serving their sentence, they must register on the state's sex-offender registry, and a lot of personal information — address, license plate, professional licenses held, places where they volunteer and, of course, the nature of the crime for which they were convicted — will be on the Internet for all to see. In some states, such ex-convicts subsequently have become victims of crime themselves from neighbors trying to drive them away.

But compare these inconveniences and persecutions to the rape of a child. Compare them to the humiliation and pain a victim experiences, followed by a lifetime coping with psychological scars.

It really isn't close.

And while laws are meant to impose justice and punish offenders, not to exact revenge or to replicate the pain inflicted on innocent victims, the sex-offender registry exists as a tool to protect the public, and often its most vulnerable members — children.

The Utah Supreme Court is considering the appeal of a man convicted of sexually abusing a 9-year-old girl. The offender, Steven Arthur Briggs, served a 15-year sentence, then was forced to serve another 61 days because he refused to register with the state. He argues that he ought to have a court hearing to prove he no longer is a threat to society, and that he has served his time and does not deserve to be publicly shamed forever.

Others have questioned through the years why the state doesn't also keep registries of ex-cons convicted of murder, kidnapping, acts of terrorism, drug dealing or other heinous crimes.

Admittedly, the sex-offender registry has its flaws. Chief among these is that it can't possibly contain the names of all people who have yet to be caught committing sex crimes. The registry itself should give no parent peace of mind, as potential offenders could be anywhere, including under their own roof.

But it is a tool. A few years ago, the U.S. Department of Justice released the first comprehensive study of the behavior of convicted sex offenders who are released from jail, using data from prison releases in 1994. It found that 5.3 percent of sex offenders re-offended within three years. Sex offenders overall were about four times as likely as people convicted of other crimes to be re-arrested for another sex crime.

Other surveys have found that 70 percent of sex offenders abused children, and almost half those cases were committed on their own son or daughter.

When it comes to protecting children, the state has a right to provide important information to parents, even if that information inconveniences people trying to rise above their past. The most vulnerable among us deserve as much.

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