A Stitch in Haste

I previously warned:

Meanwhile, this reasoning opens the door for other ex-convict registries. Don't violent criminals in general have a "moderate" risk of repeat offenses? Drunk drivers? Drug dealers? Check kiters? Tax cheats? The unemployed twenty-something who misses a student loan payment? If the standard is a mere "moderate" risk of repeat offenses, then any and every kind of ex-convict registry is permissible. And inevitable.

Exhibit A:

Crooks convicted of committing crimes with guns will have to report to the NYPD every six months, under groundbreaking legislation signed into law yesterday by Mayor Bloomberg.

"This is the first legislation of its kind in the nation," Bloomberg declared at City Hall.

My guess is that it won't be the last.

More:

Peter Vallone Jr. (D-Queens), chairman of the council's Public Safety Committee, said the registration law will send an unmistakable message to repeat offenders: "We are watching you. We will keep watching you. If you screw up, you're going right back to jail."

Well, no, actually the registry says the exact opposite: We can't be bothered to watch you, so instead we're going to force you to watch us.

And besides, don't we have probation and parole officers who are supposed to do the watching? And double-besides, is "screwing up" now the moral equivalent of the violent crimes that landed these ex-convicts in prison in the first place? When I walk down the street, I worry about murderers and robbers and gay-bashers -- not "screw-ups."

The real intent of this registry, besides the Politics of the Warm Fuzzy feeling, is to drive released convicts out of the city altogether. Which might be a good thing for law-abiding New Yorkers, but I wonder how people in Hoboken, Jersey City or Yonkers will feel about it.

In any case, registries used to be about the threat of recidivism. Are armed criminals likely to be recidivists? Who knows -- the City didn't bother to ask.

And the criminal justice system used to be about, um, justice, not persecution.

Once upon a time.