National Criminal Registries

[Yogi]

There is currently a national sex offender's registry for people who commit sex crimes. Why isn't there a similar registry for people who murder others, a crime that's much worse. What about one for drunk drivers? We know that alcohol is addictive and drunk drivers kill thousands of people per year. Why are only sex offenders entered into publically available databases?

[Aaron]

I think that we don't see a drunk driver registry is because alcohol is a socially accepted drug. And even drunk driving is widely accepted beyond those that are touched by it's tragedy, you just have to look at how often police let drunk drivers off with a 24 hour suspension instead of the manditory charge that it warrents in Ontario.

[nasor]

There is currently a national sex offender's registry for people who commit sex crimes. Why isn't there a similar registry for people who murder others, a crime that's much worse. What about one for drunk drivers? We know that alcohol is addictive and drunk drivers kill thousands of people per year. Why are only sex offenders entered into publically available databases?

It's especially mind-boggling when you consider that most people can find out if released sex offenders are living in their neighborhood, but have no way of knowing if released murderers are living in their neighborhood.

People seem to have emotional responses to sex offenders that are wildly out of proportion to the harm that they actually do to their victims. Most people would agree that it's better to be raped than to be killed, but even so most people seem to have a seething hatred for sex offenders that doesn't extend even to most killers. Everyone would agree that raping someone isn't as bad as shooting a convenience store clerk in a robbery, but everyone still just seems to be much more pissed off at the sex offender than the murdering robber.

I suspect that how outraged people get about a crime is strongly correlated with how much people can empathize with the perpetrator. Most people can empathize with a drunk driver far more easily than a sex offender. A lot of people have probably at least briefly considered driving while drunk, even if they quickly decided not to, while very few people can empathize with the urge to commit a sex crime.

[Alyeska]

Sex offenders are noted because of a variety of reasons. Sex offenders have the highest levels of recidivism (commiting a crime after being released from prison). Sex offenders on average prey on the weaker members of society. Sex offenders are often viewed as worse then other criminals.

If you want to try and list murderers, you have to look at the circumstances. Death is not always murder, it can be manslaughter or many other things.