Just one humble opinion:
Nothing about Nebraska’s laws regarding former sex offenders has anything to do with public safety. Nothing.
It is all about money.
The insane, weird web of laws and regulations that endlessly hammer former sex offenders and their families are so difficult to dismantle because too many people are making too much money now, and they will not easily let go of the golden goose.
Nebraska’s attorney general, who revels in “dropping a hammer” on former offenders while admitting the state’s public shaming website includes people who are NOT dangerous, became wealthy during his time in office. Who could give that up?
Think about the others who profit from the sex-offender industry:
- Law enforcement agencies that rake in grant money (your tax dollars) for conducting useless home invasions of former offenders,
- state corrections operations that need packed prison populations to justify their budget requests,
- manufacturers of ankle bracelets and other monitoring technology,
- online companies that operate like foul vultures, selling to a fearful public the information about you and your family that is on the State Patrol’s hit-list website.
The Nebraska law that sends you to prison if you’re away from your home for the weekend is not about protecting the public. It is about manufacturing prisoners to feed the former offender industry.
We at NU/FACTS receive wonderful and cogent communication from readers of this blog and of our monthly hard-copy newsletter NINETY-FIVE%. One correspondent thinks it will be useful to determine exactly how the Nebraska State Patrol’s website has been used by for-profit companies that earn their dollars by exposing you and your family to vigilante violence. There’s no question this is happening, and there’s no question it is illegal. Will Nebraska ever do anything about it? Doubtful. Too much money at stake.
The same correspondent, commenting on the true story of the Nebraska-based prosecutor who laughingly admitted outside the courtroom that his argument against a former offender was BS, remarked upon our criminal justice system’s similarity to Nazi Germany. Some are tired or offended by such comparisons. But the comparisons hold up, and that should send chills down the spines of everyone, former offender or not.