MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. (AP) - Advocates in Minnesota are pushing legislators to remove most juveniles from the state’s predatory registry, arguing that it makes it difficult for young people to overcome societal barriers.
The state’s Predatory Offender Registry has more than 18,000 names, which includes people in their teens through their 60s, according to a spokesperson from the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. In some cases, people can be placed on the list without a conviction.
Patty Wetterling, who helped create the registry after her 11-year-old son Jacob was kidnapped and killed in 1989, and others want state lawmakers to reevaluate the way names get placed on the registry.
“I hate sex crimes. I am not lenient on people who cause harm to children,” Wetterling told the Star Tribune in a Wednesday report. “But I’m suggesting that children who harm children are different from a 45-year-old man hurting children.”
A spokesperson for Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension didn’t immediately return an Associated Press inquiry into how many juveniles are actually on the list.
The registry, which was created in response to Jacob’s killing, became the state’s first sex offender registry in 1991. It served as a private list to show law enforcement if convicted sex and kidnapping offenders lived in an area by requiring them to register their addresses. It was formed based on the belief that people who commit sex crimes are much more likely than not to do it again.
Studies since then have shown that offenders commit the crime again in 10% or fewer of all cases - far below original assumptions. Their risk also continues to decline the older they get and the longer they live offense-free in a community.
But Eric Janus, a professor at the Mitchell Hamline School of Law who focuses on the effectiveness of sexual predator laws, said the registry can harm people’s chances at starting a new life.
“They can really impair successful re-entry,” said Eric Janus, a professor at the Mitchell Hamline School of Law who focuses on the effectiveness of sexual predator laws. “They kind of remove some of the incentives to avoid recidivism because they make people’s lives miserable.”
Experts are concerned that including teenagers in the list may cause them long-term harm since they are the least likely to reoffend and have the greatest chance of turning their lives around.
“There’s no way to get off the registry,” said Jim Fleming, the district public defender in Ramsey County. “You can’t petition or do anything. You just have to wait your turn.”
Fleming said a man in his 30s was put on the list when he was 13. The man’s 10-year period on the list restarted after a disorderly conduct charge, and then again after another unrelated charge.
A working group tasked with examining the issue agreed that most juveniles should be taken off the registry, and only those convicted of a sex offense should be on the list.
The legislation is moving in the state House, and Republican Sen. Dave Senjem, from Rochester, is sponsoring the bill in the Senate.
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