On Sunday New York Governor Andrew Cuomo ordered that sex offenders stay away from Pokémon Go. The immensely popular game that has taken the world by storm for the past month leads its players on a real life search for digital Pokémon, using your phone’s map function.

Last week NY State Senators Jeffrey Klein and Diane Savino discovered that using the app actually might take you to the homes of convicted sex offenders. Now they are trying to pass legislation that will keep players a minimum of 100 feet away from such locations. It is also possible to pay real life money to get a rare Pokémon, in order to lure other players to your location–a tactic that some businesses are using to get customers to come to their stores.

Governor Cuomo previously worked to prohibit or limit Internet access for convicted sex offenders and pedophiles. This new directive will ban all registered sex offenders from downloading and playing interactive online games such as Pokémon Go. This will immediately affect around 3,000 individuals on parole.

We directed @NYSDOCCS to restrict sex offenders on parole from playing Pokémon GO and similar games: https://t.co/WpL19oEswq

— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) August 1, 2016

Cuomo also sent a letter to Niantic, Inc., the American software company behind Pokémon Go, asking for cooperation on the issue by technologically barring sex offenders from even using the app. He said in a statement:

Protecting New York’s children is priority number one and, as technology evolves, we must ensure these advances don’t become new avenues for dangerous predators to prey on new victims. These actions will provide safeguards for the players of these augmented reality games and help take one more tool away from those seeking to do harm to our children.

In the same statement, Jeffrey Klein said that pedophiles constantly seek new ways to approach and lure victims and that this is an important first step to limit the technological ways they can do it.

Diane Savino pointed out that Pokémon Go is an entertaining game for children, but the real world can be dangerous and it is important to remember the risks. However, there is no evidence that anyone has been sexually abused because of the Pokémon Go app.

It is great that an online game manages to get kids out and moving in their search for Pokémon, but there are several risks involved when walking around with your eyes on a screen–such as robbery, various physical injuries, and in one case, even finding a dead body. Hopefully the new directives regarding sex offenders will protect kids from one of those potential dangers.

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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The concept behind sex offender lists is good–we want the public to have access to the names and locations of predators. But as recent reports detail, the concept doesn’t always match up with reality. And while the idea of sex offender lists is to protect the people, sometimes they create more harm than good. Furthermore the idea of sex offender lists in some ways violates one of the moral tenants of our justice system–the idea that rehabilitation is possible.

One of the biggest issues with sex offender registries is that they are not consistent from state-to-state. All of them contain the obvious crimes–rape, pedophilia, and the like, but laws differ when it comes to other crimes that fall into more gray areas. For example, over half the states have laws that allow teenagers to be put on sex offender registries if they have consensual sex with another teenager.

Statutory rape laws, when applied to teenagers, operate on sliding scales. Each state has slightly different laws, but they all operate under the same principle: there is leeway for teenagers of the same age who have sex, but as they get further apart in age, the legality vanishes. Here’s an example: in my home state of Connecticut, it would be legal for two sixteen-year-olds to engage in sexual intercourse. It would be illegal for a 14-year-old and a 17-year-old to do the same.

Of course, the argument can be made that those three years do mark important differences in maturity. That’s fair, and I’m not attempting to say that there aren’t many cases in which abuse does occur. These laws do protect that from happening, and even if just one victim is saved, the laws are doing their jobs. But, violating these laws could land that 17-year-old on the sex offender registry, and that’s where I see a problem. A 17-year-old who has sex with a 14-year-old made a bad choice, and broke the law, but he or she does not necessarily deserve to pay that price for the rest of their life.

That exact scenario has happened before– this week Slate published the story of a man named Virgil McCranie who slept with his 14-year-old girlfriend Misty shortly after turning 18. He has since married Misty and started a family with her, but he had had to register as a sex offender to avoid jail time. Because of the laws in his state, he can’t attend his kids’ sports games or dance recitals. He’s lost jobs, money, and opportunities. That doesn’t really seem like justice–it seems like unnecessary punishment.

Consensual sex between teenagers isn’t the only crime that can land you on that list–urinating in public can in certain states. Again, that’s a crime, but the question I want to pose here is, does the punishment match the crime? I’m not so sure.

Inconsistency isn’t the only problem with sex offender lists. They also have the potential to be outdated and inaccurate. Recently it was discovered in Vermont that over 10% of the entries on their sex offender registries were inaccurate in some way. That’s hugely problematic–especially when the presence of a name on a sex offender registry can so seriously affect someone’s life when it comes to job opportunities, purchasing houses, and being a part of the community.

There’s also the issue of how sex offender registries fit into the idea of our justice system. In some ways, our justice system is centered on rehabilitation. Putting people on “lists” to warn the public around them directly contradicts the goal of rehabilitation. Criminal records are of course always affect an individual’s job prospects. But the voyeuristic nature of the sex offender lists make them even more difficult to overcome. As one mother of a young man on a list pointed out:

Several years ago, my son made some really bad choices. He was 22. The girl was 16. He would be placed on the sex offender registry for the rest of his life. He would never be able to serve his time and move on with his life, like any other offender.

She’s right–this can really ruin an offenders life, and not always deservedly so. The blanket treatment that occurs with sex offender registries is problematic–cases deserve to be reviewed on an ad hoc basis. Recognizing rehabilitation is important, and its time that we see that in some of these cases, the punishment simply does not fit the time.

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Anneliese Mahoney (@AMahoney8672) is Lead Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

Featured image courtesy of [Kevin Spencer via Flickr]

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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