Police Suspend Sex Offender Check-Ins Amid Pandemic In Other States
The Dallas Police Department in the state of Texas is making changes to the way it checks in with sex offenders because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It appears that other police agencies are taking notice of how to protect officers and the general public by suspending the amount of foot traffic and implement social distancing standards.
Those with registry requirements who have recently been released from incarceration will still be processed and registered, according to media reporting.
Current registrants in Texas that have been previously processed and actively on the sex offender registry are instructed to call and make an appointment to come back at a later date.
Other police agencies throughout the country are suspending sex offender registrations and in-person requirements as a precaution due to the COVID virus pandemic. Police agencies in South Carolina, Nevada, Arkansas, and Florida have taken steps to not only protect officers but the registry community. Some of these states are using Skype, Zoom, and other mobile based video conferencing to check on the registry population as an alternative.
All of the police departments have taken the advice and guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to reduce low priority contact with the general public.
NCRSOL has reached out on multiple occasions to the various state and local leaders as well as medial outlets to suspend mandatory sex offender in-person registration temporarily. We have not had replies.
Today, a sex offender advocacy group in California has filed a civil lawsuit to stop police from requiring sex offender in-person or home checks because of the pandemic. Perhaps North Carolinians affected by the sex offender registry should consider filing a lawsuit to temporarily suspend in-person sex offender requirements?
I would pay my share of the costs to file a lawsuit in North Carolina to stop law enforcement from requiring in office visits during this serious epidemic. I am a senior citizen in very bad health which causes my immune system very low. I also am required to ride numerous City Buses just to get to the required appointment. I had a stroke this past weekend and am i fear for the safety of my health and life.
“Perhaps North Carolinians affected by the sex offender registry should consider filing a lawsuit to temporarily suspend in-person sex offender requirements?”
Who & how do we need to do this?
With any lawsuit, it requires lots of money to pay an attorney. That attorney must be knowledgeable about the collateral consequences of the N.C. Sex Offender Registry.
Also, it takes a few people on the registry willing to be brave enough to come forward before a judge and the scrutiny of the general public. The registrants’ story will be rehashed all over again in court. It is a painful reality, but eventually, it pays dividends if a judge sees through the rhetoric and applies the law to protect all citizens equally.
But most of all, we must be cognitive that any case introduced has to be a winnable case. Otherwise, it is money thrown down the sewers.
The one fact remains. The courts have overturned most laws ranging from unjust civil rights of the 1960s to LGBT issues in 2015. It wasn’t legislation or lawmakers, but a judge ruling that wiped the law off the books. Nearly all of these instances were at the federal court level.
Our money is best spent by hammering away at the federal court system to win rights and dignity for all registrants across the country. This is why membership and donations for pending litigation are critical, stopping the registry and Jim Crow styled laws in its tracks.