The Danger and Power of the Sexual Offender Registry

look i understand that a registry can do good things to try to combat actual sexual predators, especially giving awareness to areas with children about a person with a history of abusing children (given the recidivism rate within that demographic). however, this has become one of the most powerful and monstrous tools of the modern LEO/CJ industry

Good example from Reason

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Zachary, now 19, is in jail awaiting sentencing for five pictures his teenage girlfriend sent him of herself in her underwear. He faced a choice between a possible (though unlikely) maximum sentence of 350 years in prison, or lifetime on the sex offender registry as a "sexually violent offender"—even though he never met the girl in person. Here's what happened.

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Eventually Zachary and the dragon-lover struck up a online friendship, which developed into a online romance. By the summer, a month after Zachary turned 18, the girl sent him five pictures of herself in her underwear. Her face was not visible, nor were her private parts.

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Even so, Zachary was arrested and charged with 20 felonies, including indecent liberties with a minor, using a computer to propose sex, and "child porn reproduce/transmit/sell," even though he did not send or sell the pictures to anyone. All this, from five underwear pictures. If convicted, Zachary's father told me, he faced a theoretically possible maximum sentence of 350 years.

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The family hired two psychologists to evaluate Zachary. (Those evaluations were also obtained by Reason.) One psychologist, Mike Fray, found him to be "not a physical threat to this girl or to any other young girls." The other, Evan S. Nelson, summed up this case and what is wrong with all the cases Zachary's story represents:

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This psychologist cannot count the number of adolescent sex offenders I have met who have a sense that what they are doing is 'wrong' but were ignorant that their conduct was criminal, let alone a felony, or actions which could put them on the Sex Offender Registry. In the teenage digital social world, if both parties want to talk about sex, that seems like 'consent' to them. Ignorance does not excuse this conduct, but it does help to explain why he did this, and to the degree that ignorance was an underlying cause of his crime, this problem can be easily fixed with education.

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while i'm not going to say that an 18 year old finding a romantic link with a 13 year old is ordinary or should be permitted socially, we have a case of a person evaluated by multiple psychologists who all assessed him with no signs of being a sexual predator or other related issues.

he's a socially awkward 18 year old virgin who received non-nude photographs of a minor (while almost being a minor himself). the 13 year old didn't want him prosecuted (i don't know if it's clear about what her family wanted, but we can assume they did). he's been in jail for a long time and will likely serve more time, and will basically be a social outcast for the remainder of his life. he'll never be allowed to continue his education, get a decent job, or even live in many areas of the country.

what does our society gain by this punishment of this individual? serious question