Green is the color of Ireland, environmentalism and Islam. If new legislation passes, it will also be the color of certain sex criminals in Wisconsin—or at least their license plates.
State Rep. Joel Kleefisch, R-Oconomowoc, wants released child sex offenders to be required to use bright green plates on cars registered to them. While the intention of the bill is laudable—to protect children from a type of offender who is difficult to reform—it is wrong from numerous angles.
Would children be taught to run and hide from the bogeyman in the car with the shiny green plate? If so, would they, and their parents, have a false sense of security regarding people with normal plates?
Common sense suggests eaching children to associate one type of license plate with ""bad guys"" is a bad idea. Borrowing a car is easy and not all sex crimes involve vehicles. In addition, how about all the sex offenders who have never been caught? Children need to be taught a more sophisticated algorithm for keeping themselves safe—avoiding a car with a certain type of plate is not enough.
Although inmates at Waupun Correctional Institution make all the license plates used on Wisconsin vehicles—presumably below market cost—administering a program costs money. The state should not waste precious funds on a scheme that does not improve security for our children.
Instead, we should invest money in programs that more effectively treat offenders or monitor them upon release. Identifying their cars with a special plate performs no effective monitoring function.
Finally, distinguishing released child sex offenders by license plate would do nothing to encourage them to reintegrate into society, and would unfairly penalize others using the vehicle.
Cars marked by such plates would invite vandalism—people in these cars would suffer harassment. Offenders would quickly give up on trying to make a normal life and more readily slip back into old ways.
In 17th Century Boston, when Nathaniel Hawthorne famously wrote ""The Scarlet Letter,"" the letter ""A"" for adultery was intended purely to shame, punish and isolate the wearer—and, by extension, make the rest of the population feel a little more righteous. Kleefisch's emerald plate is no different. It would not make our kids safer—it would just make everyone else feel a little more smug.
