There is perhaps an overload of information circulating the internet, television, and social media with various discussions about the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). The COVID-19 strain is a serious issue, and NCRSOL is watching developments closely for our registry, family, and ally communities. 

Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that can cause illness in humans. Human coronaviruses commonly circulate in the United States and usually cause mild illnesses like the common cold. Coronaviruses like COVID-19 are most often spread through the air by coughing or sneezing, through close personal contact (including touching and shaking hands) or through touching your nose, mouth or eyes before washing your hands.

The CDC recommends to follow these common-sense measures to protect yourself and others from spreading viruses, including COVID-19:

• Wash hands frequently with soap and water for at least 20 seconds at a time.
• Avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth with unwashed hands.
• Avoid close contact with people who are ill.
• Cover your mouth and nose with a tissue when you cough or sneeze.
• Do not reuse tissue after coughing, sneezing, or blowing your nose.
• Clean and disinfect surfaces that are frequently touched.

The CDC does not recommend that people who are healthy wear a facemask to protect themselves from respiratory viruses. Facemasks should be used by people who have been diagnosed with COVID-19 and other respiratory illnesses like flu to protect others from getting infected. 

Currently, there is no vaccine to protect against COVID-19. The best way to protect yourself from respiratory diseases like COVID-19 is to take common-sense precautions. 

Most people with illnesses due to coronavirus recover on their own. There are no specific treatments for COVID-19, but treatments to bring down fever or alleviate other symptoms may help. For people who become severely ill, hospitals can provide care. 

Older adults and people who have severe chronic medical conditions like heart, lung, or kidney disease and those with weakened immune systems seem to be at higher risk for more serious COVID-19 illness.

If you develop symptoms within 14 days after travel from an affected area or have contact with a person known to have COVID-19, you should call to discuss this with your health care provider and your local health department. Effective 3/13/2019, President Trump authorized a national emergency declaration. That declaration allows states to set up emergency operation centers “effective immediately” and asking “every hospital in the country to activate its emergency preparedness plan.” 

Those impacted by the N.C. Sex Offender Registry bi-annual and in some cases, quarterly in-person sheriffs visits have not been put on hold or suspended. The staff at NCRSOL urges all those directly impacted by the sex offender registry to continue to obey the law and appear when notified by letter to do so. It is advisable to check with the Sheriff in your county of registration for up-to-date information should COVID-19 procedures and closing suddenly escalate. Never assume because the courts are closed that the Sheriff’s office will be closed. Law enforcement is a continual 24-hour cycle. Additionally, there is no legal remedy within current state registry laws that allows for national emergencies. NCRSOL urges all registrants to remain compliant to avoid unnecessary legal problems. 

Most of all, NCRSOL urges everyone to be safe, healthy, and informed. Hopefully, soon the COVID-19 will pass so that we may get back to a sense of normalcy in our daily lives. 

Jacob’s mother, Patty, lobbied Congress to pass the Jacob Wetterling Act in 1994, the same year the S.C. Legislature established a state registry. Since then, lawmakers have added layer upon layer of ever more burdensome requirements.

These laws are almost always trumpeted as “protecting children” and regularly cite the claim that “sex offenders often pose a high risk of re-offending” (S.C. Code of Laws, 23-3-400). However, a steadily growing body of evidence demonstrates that this premise is simply not true and that our sex-offender laws in fact do very little to protect children.

South Carolina now has more than 14,000 citizens on the registry; probably fewer than a thousand of those pose any real risk to the public. But you can’t identify them because the registry is cluttered with thousands of people whose crimes were committed decades ago, teens who had sex with other teens and countless minor offenses. Tier assignments confuse the issue further, giving the illusion of identifying the riskier registrants although they are unrelated to the risk of re-offense.

The fact is that the overwhelming majority of child sexual assaults are not committed by previously convicted sex offenders: 94 percent, according to a 2003 Department of Justice study. Numerous other studies have produced similar results. Turning that number around, it means that for all the expense and effort put into registries, they are, at best, relevant to only about 6 percent of child molesting cases. So we are focusing vast attention and resources on a very small segment of the crimes and doing very little to prevent the other 94 percent.

The Wetterling case provides a good illustration. Even though Jacob’s death provided the impetus to begin this crusade, the sad irony is that if all of today’s laws had been in existence in 1989, they would have done nothing whatsoever to protect Jacob Wetterling. Jacob’s killer had no previous sex crime convictions. He did not choose a victim from his neighborhood; Jacob was kidnapped some 30 miles from the perpetrator’s home.

The Justice Department study also demonstrated that re-offense rates of sex offenders are actually far below other offense groups: Only 3.5 percent of child molesters were convicted of another sex crime during the three-year study period.

South Carolina mandates lifetime registration, but a long-term study released last year by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation revealed that after former offenders remain offense-free for 15 years, the statistical probability of them committing a new sex crime was indistinguishable from the general population. The bottom line is that the state’s registry and related policies are consuming millions of dollars and imposing onerous restrictions on thousands of citizens, but are perilously close to useless.

It is time to change course. Interestingly, Patty Wetterling, who championed the original registry law, now advocates for scaling back registries, recognizing that what they have become has diminished their usefulness and caused untold collateral damage.

As our Legislature reconvenes in January, lawmakers need to take a long, hard look at the sex-offender registry and related laws. Consider what is actually supported by research and contemporary knowledge versus what has been passed as a result of 1980s-era myths and emotional knee-jerk reactions to isolated horrific crimes.

Scaling back the registry would no doubt raise the hackles of some who love to play the label-and-hate game, but doing so would be the most just and economically expedient thing to do. And the citizens of the state would be much better served by a smaller (and cheaper) registry that accurately identifies those who might pose a real risk.

Mr. Thurber is S.C. state advocate for Reform Sex Offender Laws; contact him at dthurber@scrsol.org.

Source: The State, Columbia, SC