“Available research indicates that sex offenders, and particularly people who commit sex offenses as 
children, are among the least likely to re-offend,” Human Rights Watch has found.  Furthermore, the U.S. 
Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that the “single age with the greatest number of offenders from the 
perspective of law enforcement was age 14.” This means that 14-year-olds, more than any other age, are 
being placed on a lifetime registry. 
Sometimes this results from minors engaging in consensual sexual encounters simply because they are 
underage and cannot legally consent.  And in some states, sexual contact is not required to end up on 
the registry. In some instances, sexting under the age of 18 is a felony and can earn someone a place on 
the registry.  Until recently, Missouri offenders were grouped together in one category regardless of the 
offense so individuals who urinated in public endured lifelong registration and were categorized with the 
worst of the rapists and molesters.  There was no distinction or tier structure. 
Is lifelong registration appropriate punishment or is it being strictly punitive?  Most offenders serve their 
time in prison and therefore serve their debt to society. This is not the case with life long sex offender 
registrants who can’t live near a school, park, or playground and must report to authorities anytime they 
get a new job, a new place to live, or even a new hairstyle. They can never fully re-enter society and are 
seen as never being able to be rehabilitated. 
All these requirements are based on the “flawed but pervasive idea that those convicted of sex offenses 
became incurable and predatory monsters requiring—and deserving—lifetime punishment,” writes Emily 
Horowitz, a professor of sociology at St. Francis College and author of two books on this subject. 
What would happen if the registry were to disappear? All other criminal laws would remain in place, 
including increased penalties for repeat offenses. Only the list, and the dehumanization it wreaks would be 
gone. 
“If my child was victimized, I’d want to kill a person,” Horowitz says. “But what if my child was a 
victimizer? I’d also want them to have a chance”  (Skenazy, 2018, para 15). 
Read more at: https://reason.com/archives/2018/04/09/there-are-too-many-kids-on-the 
Ted Talk: How Fake News Does Real Harm 
https://www.ted.com/talks/stephanie_busari_how_fake_news_does_real_harm?language=en 
First, folk devils are the people who are blamed for being allegedly responsible for the threat to society. Folk 
devils are completely negative and have no redeeming qualities. This is how juvenile offenders, or “super-
predators” as they were referred to in the 1990s. The narrative went like this: 
We’re talking about kids who have absolutely no respect for human life and no sense of the future….And 
Introduction to the American Criminal Justice System
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