theindychannel.com: Vigilante Launches Sex Offender Magazine.
A monthly magazine that features Indiana sex offenders is part of a personal mission for a man who was a victim of abuse. The magazine is now offered in 55 Speedway stores in the Indianapolis area.
The publisher, who only wants to be identified as Ryan, designed the magazine and pays for all the printing costs, 6News' Tanya Spencer reported.
"I don't think the registry (online) is in your face enough," said Ryan. The magazine has pictures of convicted sex offenders and outlines the charges against them. With more than 2,000 sexual predators in Indianapolis and new offenders being released from jail frequently, the featured pictures will change each month.
Ryan insisted that publishing the information is fair game because it's already online and public domain anyway. He argued that the high recidivism rate of sexual abuse warrants the scrutiny and that his endeavor will be a success if it prevents one child from going through what he did. The magazine is currently only offered in Indianapolis and Fort Wayne, but Ryan hopes to expand to other cities.
Courts around the nation should see this increasing vigilantism as a result of their refusal to rule these registries as "punitive". This man, understandably afraid to reveal his true name, is using his own dysfunctional psyche to further harass individuals who are already being publicly shamed via online sex offender registries. What he is doing is borderline illegal according to most local sheriff department guidelines regarding distribution of sex offender information. Hopefully, one or more of these offenders will sue him, or he will be arrested and charged with illegal dissemination of sex offender registry information to the public.
Not only this, but he even spouts the typically false recidivism rate mantra. US Department of Justice statistics report that sex offender recidivism is around 5 %.
