New Bill Would Create a Registry of Military Sex Offenders
(the offenders have to sign up?? how about their names being automatically added to the list when they are convicted?)
New Bill Would Create a Registry of Military Sex Offenders
Due to loopholes in the system, many convicted sex offenders in the military are not registered as sex offenders when they complete their service. A new bill, introduced in Congress by Reps. Jackie Speier (D-CA), Mike Coffman (D-CO), and Pat Meehan (R-PA), would fix that. The Military Track, Register and Alert Communities Act of 2015 (Military TRAC Act) would create a Department of Defense sex offender registry to which offenders would be required to submit their names. The Military TRAC Act would make that registry available to the public and would make sure information about offenders is available to civilian law enforcement agencies.
“[The public] shouldn’t have to wait for a convicted rapist to re-offend before they get the information they need to keep their children safe,” Rep. Speier said in a press release. “This is a frightening loophole and it must be closed.”
Almost 20 percent of convicted military sex offenders were not officially reported and listed on US sex offender registries, according to Scripps data. This failure by the system makes it easier for offenders to attack civilians. Matthew Carr, for example, was convicted of assaulting seven women while in the US Air Force. After Carr was released he assaulted another woman and avoided punishment for some time even after the victim’s mother was suspicious of Carr - because the mother failed to find him in a sex offender registry.
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While the bill would be significant to protect against those actually convicted of sexual assault in the military, less than 1 percent of all military sexual assaults result in a conviction -********* and there are more than 19,000 assaults reported every year in the military.*******
http://feminist.org/blog/index.php/2015/02/18/new-bill-would-create-a-registry-of-military-sex-offenders/