California Is Right to Curb the Sex Offender Registry

Say what you want about Governor Jerry Brown, but never say he’s not brave. He just signed a law that could eventually purge 90 percent of the names off of California’s lifetime registry for sex offenders.

I expect that he, and the legislators who passed it, will be subjected to the withering outrage that accompanies any action or statement, however mild or correct, that seems “soft” on sex offenders. I once wrote a column suggesting that pedophiles who are attracted to children but do not act on their impulses need more support from society to help keep them on the straight and narrow. Of course I was roundly scorned as being, at best, a woolly-headed liberal with a permanently broken moral compass, and at worst, probably a pedophile myself.