Posted on: Monday, July 7, 2003

EDITORIAL
Sex offender registry must be discriminating

Personal information on Hawai'i's 1,900 sex offenders is yet to be made available to the public because of — among other matters — unresolved privacy issues. And we can't say we're entirely sorry, because there are still civil rights questions surrounding this effort to publicly identify sex offenders.

Indeed, this has got to rank among the toughest dilemmas in the American justice system: While we want to protect the community from sexual predators, we also believe sex offenders who have served their time are entitled to a degree of privacy so they can turn their lives around. They should not be arbitrarily subjected to harassment and discrimination.

Right now, Hawai'i is technically in violation of the federal "Megan's law," which requires convicted sex offenders to notify law authorities when they move into a new community. But the state has been given a reprieve so it can reform our law and get its registry up and running.

The state shut down the registry in 2001 after the Hawai'i Supreme Court struck down the state's Megan's law in response to an appeal from a man who had pleaded no contest to pinching a young woman on the street in Waikiki — what amounts to a fourth-degree sexual assault — and didn't want his name on the register.

"The state must allow a registered sex offender a meaningful opportunity to argue that he or she does not represent a threat to the community and that public notification is not necessary, or that he or she represents only a limited threat such that limited public notification is appropriate," the ruling said.

In response, a state law was passed that gave city and country prosecutors the authority to petition to make public the names and addresses of sex offenders. Those requests would then be heard before a judge. Essentially, it meant tracking down those sex offenders and allowing them to have their day in court.

Once that process is completed — and it could take a while — the state expects to have up an Internet registry that will not only have the names of sex offenders and the streets where they live, but also their photographs and vehicle information.

It's important to take into account that sex offenders are not all cut from the same cloth. Some need constant scrutiny while others are more likely to act on their anti-social or criminal impulses if put under pressure. Moreover, there's a world of difference between a promiscuous teenager and a violent sexual predator.

The registry must be limited to those sex offenders who are considered a threat to the community, and any hearing process must establish that.