Why Women and Parent’s Can’t Trust the Louisiana Sex Offender registry
The registry of sex offenders makes sense when you are tracking violent rapists or child abusers, and even public exhibitionists and peeping toms who trespass to invade other people’s privacy. It doesn’t make a heck of a lot of sense to bury those types of dangerous offenders among thousands of listings for prostitutes who had oral or anal sex.
Nine people, including a grandmother, a mother of four, and three transgendered women, challenged a state law that requires people convicted of having oral or anal sex for money to register as sex offenders. The plaintiffs say the law is discriminatory. Penalties in Louisiana for prostitution involving conventional sexual intercourse do not require sex-offender registration, no matter how many times a person is convicted.
All nine plaintiffs have been convicted of a “crime against nature.”
Registering as a sex offender causes humiliation and puts at risk people’s employment, housing, neighborhood affiliation, and puts them at risk of physical attack, according to the federal complaint.
The plaintiffs - eight women, three of them transgendered, and a man - sued Gov. Bobby Jindal, Attorney General James Caldwell and other officials, including police, parole and Motor Vehicle chiefs.