There have been many, many laws created related to Sex Offenders.  In fact there are so many that it is causing unintended consequences in this country.  Recently in the news and change.org there was a petition for the case of Zachary Anderson and how he got caught up being labeled as a sex offender.  There have been similar cases that have been caught up in these laws and a large number of them affect children.  For example:

• Maya R., now age 28 and a resident of Michigan, was arrested at the age of 10 for sexual experimentation. ‘Me and my step brothers, who were ages 8 and 5, “flashed” each other and play-acted sex while fully-clothed.’ A year later, Maya pled guilty to the charges of criminal sexual conduct in the first and second degree, offenses that required her to register as a sex offender for 25 years.
• In 2004, in Western Pennsylvania, a 15-year-old girl was charged with manufacturing and disseminating child pornography for having taken nude photos of herself and posted them on the internet. She was charged as an adult, and as of 2012 was facing registration for life. 
• In 2006, a 13-year old girl from Ogden, Utah was arrested for rape for having consensual sex with her 12-year-old boyfriend.  Her 12-year-old boyfriend was found guilty of violating the same law for engaging in sexual activity with her, as she was also a child under the age of 14 at the time.

There are hundreds of thousands of individual registered as sex offenders.  Of those, only a fraction of those are considered Sexual Predators.  Regardless of the crime or age, all individuals that are required to register as Sex Offenders are perceived as the same.  According to published statistics of those that commit sex crimes only a very small percentage reoffend. That is lower than any other crime, with the exception of murder.

Currently congress is working on a Bill (HR 515) that will place a highly visible sex offender identifier on a person’s passport with no regard of the type of crime, age of the person or when the crime was committed and how many years since the person has committed the crime.  This Bill is designed to stop sex trafficking. 

Unfortunately, labeling a passport would provide very little to sex trafficking.  There is absolutely no data to support this mechanism will eliminate or even slow down sex trafficking.  In addition, in this Bill there is 6 million dollars designated to a group that will be responsible for labeling passports and dealing with complaints.

There are two negative consequences to this bill. 

• The first is that the 6 million dollars designated for an after the fact labeling does nothing to prevent sex trafficking.  This money would be better spent on a preventative program since there is already laws in place to notify other countries with sex offenders are travelling.  With our budget the way it is, this money would be better spent on education and actual prevention verses labeling.
• Secondly, this could have an adverse effect on many individuals that travel for their businesses or even a juvenile that would be part of an oversea class trip or a church trip, but ultimately it would affect to anyone wanting to lead normal productive lives after completing the punishment and rehabilitation of a sex crime.  People that have been on the Sex Offender Registry for 20 years without a repeat crime would be just as affected as the person identified as a Sexual Predator. 

Please sign this petition to urge Congress to not support this Bill.  The money identified for this notification should be spent on preventive measures, not labeling.  Do not let them throw more money down the drain.  There are already laws in place to notify other countries when a sex offender travels as well as laws in place to stop those designated as sexual predators from leaving the country.  Minimally, the money could be better spent on implementing the laws already in place – not creating new ones.  We have become a nation of creating more and more laws without any consideration if there are existing laws in place and if they are being enforced as intended.