Intriguing article on fishy criminal registries

Thanks to an SSRN e-mail, I see an interesting looking piece about criminal registries for reading this weekend (when I am not busy rooting for a four-way tie in the National League).  The article by Ofer Raban is entitled “Be They Fish or Not Fish: The Fishy Registration of Nonsexual Offenders” and is available at this link.  Here is the abstract:

The article deals with a bizarre but common phenomenon: the registration of nonsexual criminals in sex offender registries. The practice has been challenged in a number of cases, but there is much disagreement among courts — often within the same jurisdiction — on its constitutionality, and on the analysis it entails.  The issue has recently picked-up steam — reaching some state Supreme Courts (Florida’s and Illinois’), and appearing in the popular news media. The article offers a comprehensive analysis of the Substantive Due Process issues involved, showing why registering nonsexual criminal in sex offender registries is a violation of the federal Constitution (both on the part of the States and on the part of the federal government). It also shows that the registration of nonsexual criminals in sex offender registries is a first-rate case-study for negligent policy-making (supported by faulty data), which frequently received a stamp of approval from an often-poor judicial reasoning, itself supported by an impoverished constitutional jurisprudence.