Why Registering Young Children as Sex Offenders is not a Sollution

Near Paris, Texas, Charla Roberts lived with her family and went to school like any normal child growing up. Around the time she was ten-years-old, she played a prank on one of her classmates at her public elementary school and pulled down his pants. She later was prosecuted for “indecency with a child” and ultimately required to be added to the state’s online sex offender database for the next ten years. Like many others, she had probation requirements such as curfew hours during the evening, not allowed to leaving the country, or can not live in the same proximity to young children. Robert’s victim later learn of her future probations and he explained to Sarah Stillman, author of the article, “When juveniles are found guilty of sexual misconduct, the sex-offender registry can be a life sentence”, that the incident was an “act of public humiliation, instead of sexual act”.

This story is not as uncommon in the case of “minors” being registered as sex offenders in their childhood years. After found guilty, majority of the times their punishment is to be entered in some sort of therapy treatment center and registered as a sex offender for a minimum of ten years. In one article titled “When Kids Are Sex Offenders” by Sally Mairs looks at a report by Human Rights Watch which describes the effects of juvenile sex offenders. One of the key findings of the report explained that, “...including one study of a cohort that included 77 percent youth convicted of violent sex offenses—have found a recidivism rate for youth sex offenders of between four and ten percent, and one study in 2010 found the rate to be as low as one percent.” So, if the reoffend rate is low, why do these kids be need to be registered on a list that could negatively affect their future for an act they did not see was “sexually inappropriate”. Following their registry, these children often times are psychologically harmed, including isolation, stigmatization, harassion, and depression which leads to suicide actions. This is where the question comes into play: is this the right sentencing to give these children for sexual harassment and is prosecution really helping them?

It’s hard to have a definite answer to this question. On one hand, you could say yes because what the juvenile has done is still a crime, and they should learn that crime needs to be punished upon. However, the crime stays with them the rest of their lives, so having to live with that stamp on your name is a permanent hinderance from jobs, social circles, and so many other things because of the harsh stigma around the name alone.

For example, “The List” by Sarah Stillman of The New Yorker describes the life of some young adults who were put on the sex offender registry at young ages, and how it has affected them since. The article begins with Leah DeBuc, a twenty-two-year-old college student who was put on the sex-offenders registry at the age of ten, who tries to get the past behind her. This situation, according to Stillman, isn’t new to her. Before DeBuc, she spoke to a number of people accused of sex offenses as minors, ending up on the public registry.

With the recent upbringing of social media and technological connections, it wouldn't be so unreasonable to say that this has caused numbers of juvenile sex offenders to spike. A good example is two teens, a male (17) and a female (16) both put on the public sex offender registry for “sexting* explicit photos back and forth, giving them both charges sexual exploitation of a minor. For children, these behaviors are very common, but they might not be as harmless as they seem. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), one out of every six boys and one out of every four girls have experienced some form of sexual abuse before the age of eighteen, where a third of those offenses were committed by other minors. While very few have committed violent sexual assaults, many of them stem from non-consensual touch and abusive behaviors.

The article returns back to Leah DeBuc, and what has happened since her conviction. When visiting her boyfriend in another city in Michigan, she had to check in with the local police or face a felony charge. While trying to fill out paperwork, a local trooper told her to leave “before I take you out back and shoot you myself.” which caused DeBuc to have a breakdown. When filing a report about the trooper, the station’s lieutenant apologized for the trooper’s behavior.

When a crime has happened, should the age of the criminal change the punishment? When it comes to being a registered sex offender that has a huge impact on the rest of their life. For example finding a job becomes very hard to aquire and most people lose family support at the time the crime is made public. Therefore if a person is less than 12 years old should the punishment be less since the criminal is merely a child. According to Sally Miars from Boston Review “2011, there were approximately 639 children on the sex offender registry, 55 of whom were under the age of 12…”. This shows that 639 were at least under the age of 18, and 55 were less than 12 so kids lives were changed forever at such a young age. The crimes that can make you a sex offender is very surprising because most people associate a sex offender as a person who was convicted of rape, sex with a minor or exposing themsleves in public. This is not the only way a person is forced to be a registered sex offender because according to Business Insider taking a nude picture of yourself as a minor can make you a registered sex offender. Other examples that Business Insider stated were “visiting a prostitute, peeing in public, having consensual sex with a teenager, even if you are a teenager too”. This was surprising to find out because some of these seem to be common mistakes that a minor might do. This article by Erin Funchs connects to the first article by Sally Miars because they both say are not in support of young children being charged as sex offenders.

The number one problem with registering young children as sex offenders is the fact that after the offender as done their time and put in the work, their name is ruined for the rest of their lives. Once your in the system you may not be able to attend school or be able to stay in your own home with your family. See the thing is that you can be removed from the registry after some time but your still labeled a sex offender. A lot of crimes committed by minors are later expunged from your record, not including murrder of course. According to the Juvenile Law Center “less than five percent of teens will re-offend in subsequent years”. So if this crime has such a low return to crime rate then the cut off age should be 18 and the label should be removed and expunged. Especially for teenagers having this title could ostracize them from their communities, which also stated in the Juvenile Law Center; “Being on a registry also increases a child’s risk of suicide”. Many other web cites quote similar information to this, a good example to this is the study from Johns Hopkins called “Children on Sex Offender Registries at Greater Risk for Suicide Attempts, Study Suggests.” They go on to say that they surveyed about 256 childern in 2017 with kids in and around the ages of 12 to 17 across 18 states. 74 had been required to register as sexual offenders. After the study Johns Hopkins said it wasn’t the best course of action to put childen on the registration, “On top of that, our study suggests that these requirements may place children at risk of the very type of abuse the policy seeks to prevent, among other serious negative consequences. Our hope is that this study will convince even more policymakers that the time has come to abandon juvenile registration”.

For conductive research, a survey was sent out to people of the Flagstaff AZ. This survey questioned what people thought about this issue and if they thought the current law was right and just. Out of 50 people surveyed, 70% of people said that putting a minor on the sex offender registry is situational. Another conclusion is that law at the moment should not be as hard as it is in juveniles under 14, as a majority of surveyees stated. In the third section of the survey, there was instruction to check all crimes that should qualify for putting a minor on a registry, and 50 people said that sexual assault should apply, 15 said that public nudity, 40 responded that incest should be considered a sexual crime, and 5 checked other crimes. The final question in the survey mentions how being a juvenile sex offenders can greatly damage their entire lives for something they did as young as 10 years old. The question asks whether or not the law should be reformed. As predicted, the majority (35/50) stated that this law does need to be reformed. When saying yes, they are prompted to give a written response. The surveyees only produced 5 written responses, one of them saying “I think that children should not be forced to because they don’t know what they’re doing is wrong.” Another stated “Some cases are different than others and should be handled to help the child, not ruin a life before it has even started.”

Many people in the area would agree that children are not aware of what they are doing and that they should not be given the extreme punishment that a sex offender registry would create. A general consensus seems to say that they should be learning about these actions before being punished, and knowing would avoid a situation like this altogether.

Work Cited

• Stillman, Sarah. The List: When juveniles are found guilty of sexual misconduct, the sex-offender registry can be a life sentence. The New Yorker. 14, March 2016. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/03/14/when-kids-are-accused-of-sex-crimes. Accessed 28, October 2018
• Mairs, Sally. When Kids Are Sex Offenders. Boston Review. 20, September 2013. http://bostonreview.net/blog/youth-sex-offender-registry-hrw. Accessed 4, November 2018.
• Stillman, Sarah. “When Kids Are Accused of Sex Crimes.” The New Yorker, The New Yorker, 6 July 2017, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/03/14/when-kids-are-accused-of-sex-crimes.
• Waxman, Simon. “When Kids Are Sex Offenders.” Boston Review, 2 Oct. 2013, bostonreview.net/blog/youth-sex-offender-registry-hrw.
• “Juvenile Sex Offender Registry (SORNA).” Juvenile Law Center,
• jlc.org/issues/juvenile-sex-offender-registry-sorna.
• Benham, Barbara, and JH Bloomberg School of Public Health. “Children on Sex Offender Registries at Greater Risk for Suicide Attempts, Study Suggests.” Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 6 Dec. 2017, www.jhsph.edu/news/news-releases/2017/children-on-sex-offender-registries-at-greater-risk-for-suicide-attempts-study-suggests.html.