Unintended Consequences in the Legal System

Posted by lukegilman

August 2, 2006

Slate’s Jack Shaffer has a great article on the darker side of the recent popularity of registration of convicted offenders for certain crimes. Sex offender registries are the most prevalent example. Worried mothers and vigilante mobs both like to know where convicted sex offenders are living. There is a plausible argument that that knowledge helps communities ~~murder~~ use appropriate caution with such persons.

In its benevolent wisdoms, the legislatures Tennessee, Illinois, or Minnesota have each passed laws creating online “methamphetamine offender registries”. If you get convicted of meth crime, your name and address goes on the website. As Shaffer notes such a website while perhaps tenously justifiable as showing the community’s moral condemnation of the act, notifying neighbors that they live in not such a nice neighborhood, and providing police with a google map of houses to raid when they need some publicity also might, just might, be a great resource for addicts on where to find their next score. What could we call it? Methazon.com?

Article: How To Find a Meth Dealer

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