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Comment by webwright | Hacker News Reader

Sorry if this is a silly question-- but if that hangs over you like that, can you just (legally) change your name?

In the US, you're required to share information about past felony convictions on job applications and so forth, plus there are companies that specialize in tabulating that sort of information. So trying to start over by concealing your past is treated as inherently suspicious.

Criminals in America sound like they're treated as a de-facto permanent underclass. Less rights (no voting, custody, criminal suspicion, etc), less privacy (sex offender registry) and less opportunity with respect to job applications (job discrimination based on criminal record is legal?).

And then they're released back into the general population, expected to be upstanding, rehabilitated citizens that want to (and can?) contribute back to society.

You think sex offenders shouldn't be on a register?

In some states, urinating in public qualifies as a sexual offense.

I think that such a crime does not merit being placed on a list that is presumed to be comprised of rapists and child predators.

Depends. Rapists and child molesters, I certainly support long-term monitoring and strict parole requirements, in combination with treatment. Some teen sexting his teen girlfriend a picture of his dick? No. Quite a lot of 'sex crimes' prosecuted in the US are based on moral panic rather than any injury.

What makes them different from murderers, robbers?

All I was saying is that these individuals are now part of a permanent underclass. This after they've supposedly "paid" their debt to society by serving their allotted jail sentence.

Whether there should be a registry for sex offenders, or anything else. That's a really big, and complicated problem, though.

How can this possibly fail? /s

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