[DRAFT] The Offender Fair And Intelligent Reporting Act

[Qlerb]

I wish to submit this bill for review and scrutinization by the World Assembly. Because I cannot submit a proposal on my own, I am also asking for a co-author to sponsor this bill and bring it officially before the World Assembly.

The Offender Fair And Intelligent Reporting Act
(The O-FAIR Act)

The General Assembly,

RECOGNIZING the need to help deter offenders of the law from continuing acts and practices that are harmful to the community at-large,

APPLAUDING the efforts of law enforcement agencies and international cooperation to help reduce crime amongst the nations,

UNDERSTANDING the desire to have publicly available registries of such offenders so that community residents can make informed decisions regarding their lives,

However,

ALARMED that such publicly available registries have not deterred crime to the extent that communities and politicians have aimed for,

DISMAYED that universities and other polling agencies have shown that offender registries such as (but not limited to) sex offender lists and violent offender lists have not reduced crime, yet governmental agencies continue to use them,

SHOCKED that communities and nations that support such registries do not recognize the continuing fear and bias that is perpetuated, without knowing the individual circumstances of each offender,

DISAPPOINTED that without understanding the unique circumstances of each offender, rehabilitation of the offender can be delayed, and offenders can be easily group into categories that make it easier to subject them to discrimination and prejudice,

Hereby:

PROHIBITS nations from creating public offender registries, with the exception of publicly available court records,

MANDATES that nations with a current public registry either limit that registry to law-enforcement personnel or dismantles that registry entirely

Court records, arrest records, detention records, and probation/parole records that are required or necessary for the department or agency by itself and with other law-enforcement and judicial agencies within that nation to function are not subject to this act

PROHIBITS nations from participating in international registries that are not under the control or direction of the World Assembly

and:

EMPOWERS the World Assembly to create an offender information clearinghouse, known as the Clearinghouse for Offender Fair And Intelligent Reporting (CO-FAIR), to allow for pertinent information regarding an offender to be shared between countries

SETS the following limitations on CO-FAIR,

This clearinghouse does NOT have the authority to store or maintain records of offenders on its own. Information shall be exchanged between countries only, and CO-FAIR would only act as a mediator and central location to exchange such information.

This Clearinghouse does NOT have the authority to conduct negotiations, exchanges, or investigations into nations that are not a part of the World Assembly

This Clearinghouse does NOT have the authority to dismantle or modify in any way registries from nations that are not a part of the World Assembly

REMOVES the authority of all other World Assembly commissions or departments the responsibility to maintain records of its member nations’ offenders, and records of nations who are not a part of the World Assembly,

DEFINES, for the purposes of this resolution

A “Registry” is a list or roster of persons within a nation that have committed an offense that is illegal according to the laws of that nation that is publicly available. Information regarding offenders includes, but is not limited to:
Name
Age/Date of Birth
Gender
Current Address
Current place of occupation or education
Phone Number
Registered vehicles
Email Address
Social Media Accounts
Utility and electric communication subscriptions

ENCOURAGES member nations to understand and accept that, while ensuring the public-at-large is protected from criminal and illegal acts, offenders who have committed such acts should not be ostracized and marginalized from the nation through legal, social, financial, medical, and mental health needs.

Thank you

First edit:
moved one line into its own paragraph "Removes the authority..."
Added "...to dismantle OR MODIFY IN ANY WAY..."
Changed last line to "...medical, and mental HEALTH needs"

[Araraukar]

OOC: Welcome to the GA forum!

You obviously have a fairly good grasp of the general format used on resolutions, but the lack of category and strength/area of effect suggests you're not very familiar with those yet, so linking you the proposal rules here: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=159348

Because I cannot submit a proposal on my own, I am also asking for a co-author to sponsor this bill and bring it officially before the World Assembly.

I am posting out of character (OOC) so that I can offer game-related advice as well; and I suggest you modify this statement to include "not without my permission", to prevent someone stealing it and submitting it under their own name without crediting you.

The Offender Fair And Intelligent Reporting Act

What reporting? This seems to be about public registries, not reporting. Also, "intelligent"?

(The O-FAIR Act)

I suggest you leave this out. The resolution (if this were to pass) talking about the resolution name in shorthand sounds more than a little schitzophrenic.

RECOGNIZING the need to help deter offenders of the law from continuing acts and practices that are harmful to the community at-large,

I'd drop the "to the community at-large", since a lot of laws also forbid things that are harmful to the individuals, not just communities.

APPLAUDING the efforts of law enforcement agencies and international cooperation to help reduce crime amongst the nations,

You might want to start with this one.

UNDERSTANDING the desire to have publicly available registries of such offenders so that community residents can make informed decisions regarding their lives,

Good that you understand that desire. Can you explain it to me?

However,

You're probably over the mark limit anyway with the length of the proposal, so cutting any fluff like this will help reduce your character count.

ALARMED that such publicly available registries have not deterred crime to the extent that communities and politicians have aimed for,

DISMAYED that universities and other polling agencies have shown that offender registries such as (but not limited to) sex offender lists and violent offender lists have not reduced crime, yet governmental agencies continue to use them,

I know you're basing this on the Real Life, but NS is not RL, and many people are likely to brush this away either as "don't be absurd, we don't and have never used them", or "don't be absurd, they work perfectly", whichever fits their roleplay (RP) better. Not even all RL nations use public criminal lists.

Rather than delving into these details, your preamble should say what the problem is and why it needs international legislation to fix it.

SHOCKED that communities and nations that support such registries do not recognize the continuing fear and bias that is perpetuated, without knowing the individual circumstances of each offender,

Earlier you say you understand the desire for the lists, but now you say you're shocked that they're used. I suggest picking one of the viewpoints and sticking to it.

DISAPPOINTED that without understanding the unique circumstances of each offender, rehabilitation of the offender can be delayed, and offenders can be easily group into categories that make it easier to subject them to discrimination and prejudice,

Also, what does this mean? Offenders that would in RL be put onto any of these lists, would not be released into the wild public under after they're deemed rehabilitated. At least in any reasonable nation. Additionally, in my understanding the lists are based on the names of the offences the people have been convicted for, so such categorization will exist anyway, due to how the legal system works.

Also, if someone commits murder and is convicted and receives punishment for mudering someone, calling them a murderer is hardly prejudiced.

PROHIBITS nations from creating public offender registries, with the exception of publicly available court records,

Why?

MANDATES that nations with a current public registry either limit that registry to law-enforcement personnel or dismantles that registry entirely

You can't prohibit something and then say it's ok for those to have it that had before. If you were trying to ban slavery (has been banned a long time ago, but just for comparison), would you say "it's ok to have slaves if you had slaves before, just so long as only government officials keep slaves"? The resolutions must treat all member nations equally.

Court records, arrest records, detention records, and probation/parole records that are required or necessary for the department or agency by itself and with other law-enforcement and judicial agencies within that nation to function are not subject to this act

"Resolution", not "act". I know you're referring to the name of this thing, but it's clearer for everyone if you use "this resolution". Also, I would say that in the normal way round, which tends to be something like "Clarifies that nothing in this resolution has any effect on (list of things)".

PROHIBITS nations from participating in international registries that are not under the control or direction of the World Assembly

Such as? Also, you realize you're just banning international no-fly lists that weren't WA-created, as well as partaking things like Interpol (which the WA can't have anyway), and especially a registry of known terrorists and their affiliates.

and:

More fluff to cut. This is all still going under the "hereby" earlier.

EMPOWERS the World Assembly to create

Or, just "CREATES". You've (correctly) started this whole thing with "The General Assembly", so you're already talking as the WA.

an offender information clearinghouse, known as the Clearinghouse for Offender Fair And Intelligent Reporting (CO-FAIR), to allow for pertinent information regarding an offender to be shared between countries

That "clearinghouse" looks very much like a RL reference. Or branding. Or possibly both. It's certainly not a regular English word. Also, again, what reporting?

SETS the following limitations on CO-FAIR,

I suggest using list code rather than tabbing, for the following clauses, since obviously tabbing won't always work, at least on the NS forums. If you don't know how to use the list code, just ask. And while I mention formatting, it'd help if you numbered all of your active clauses (ones that come after "hereby"), as then people can refer to them by number.

This clearinghouse

You're using these as subclauses, you don't need to keep repeating that weird word. And in any case, for the purposes of proposal writing, it'll count as a committee.

does NOT have the authority to store or maintain records of offenders on its own. Information shall be exchanged between countries only, and CO-FAIR would only act as a mediator and central location to exchange such information.

If it's not allowed to store or maintain records, how is it going to share information between nations?

This Clearinghouse does NOT have

Since you start every subclause with "this does not have", you should put that in the main clause and drop it from the subclaues. Character saving again.

the authority to conduct negotiations, exchanges, or investigations into nations that are not a part of the World Assembly

Or you could specify that in the creation clause and drop this entirely.

This Clearinghouse does NOT have the authority to dismantle or modify in any way registries from nations that are not a part of the World Assembly

Or you could specify that in the creation clause and drop this entirely.

REMOVES the authority of all other World Assembly commissions or departments the responsibility to maintain records of its member nations’ offenders, and records of nations who are not a part of the World Assembly,

If such records are required in any previous resolution - and I'm fairly sure they are at least in a couple of them - this clause would make this whole thing illegal for contradiction. You can't amend passed resolutions, or repeal their effects without repealing the resolution.

DEFINES, for the purposes of this resolution

You should put all definitions before the rest of the active clauses, since that way people will have some idea of what you're talking about. Also, again, list code.

A “Registry” is a list or roster of persons within a nation that have committed an offense that is illegal according to the laws of that nation that is publicly available. Information regarding offenders includes, but is not limited to:

I don't think you need to go further than "identifying information". The list you have here is pretty anal.

ENCOURAGES member nations to understand and accept that, while ensuring the public-at-large is protected from criminal and illegal acts, offenders who have committed such acts should not be ostracized and marginalized from the nation through legal, social, financial, medical, and mental health needs.

Are you trying to ban putting people into prisons? Because that will never fly.

Note: Written while sleep deprived. Will probably contain typos. I'm off to bed now...

[Bears Armed]

"Hrarroom!" ( = "Greetings!")

Artorrios o SouthWoods,
ChairBear, Bears Armed Mission at the World Assembly.


_____________________________________________________________________________________________________


OOC: There's a maximum length allowed of 3'500 characters, including space & line-breaks. This seems to be a bit over that limit, closer to 3800, so you need to shorten it by about 10%.

Such as? Also, you realize you're just banning international no-fly lists that weren't WA-created, as well as partaking things like Interpol (which the WA can't have anyway),

The NS-UN had one, and the relevant rules haven't officially been tightened since then: As long as it's just a clearing-house for information, without any actual 'police' powers, one should still be possible.

[Araraukar]

OOC:

Interpol (which the WA can't have anyway),

The NS-UN had one, and the relevant rules haven't officially been tightened since then: As long as it's just a clearing-house for information, without any actual 'police' powers, one should still be possible.

OOC: Which was kinda my point. The WA can't have Interpol, because Interpol actually does something.

And what the hell is a clearing-house anyway? The Wiktionary definition that makes the most sense in the context equals to "database". So why use an non-regular word when you have one that's already been used numerous times in resolutions?

[Covenstone]

I wish to submit this bill for review and scrutinization by the World Assembly. Because I cannot submit a proposal on my own, I am also asking for a co-author to sponsor this bill and bring it officially before the World Assembly.

The Offender Fair And Intelligent Reporting Act
(The O-FAIR Act)

The General Assembly,

RECOGNIZING the need to help deter offenders of the law from continuing acts and practices that are harmful to the community at-large,

APPLAUDING the efforts of law enforcement agencies and international cooperation to help reduce crime amongst the nations,

UNDERSTANDING the desire to have publicly available registries of such offenders so that community residents can make informed decisions regarding their lives,

However,

ALARMED that such publicly available registries have not deterred crime to the extent that communities and politicians have aimed for,

DISMAYED that universities and other polling agencies have shown that offender registries such as (but not limited to) sex offender lists and violent offender lists have not reduced crime, yet governmental agencies continue to use them,

SHOCKED that communities and nations that support such registries do not recognize the continuing fear and bias that is perpetuated, without knowing the individual circumstances of each offender,

DISAPPOINTED that without understanding the unique circumstances of each offender, rehabilitation of the offender can be delayed, and offenders can be easily group into categories that make it easier to subject them to discrimination and prejudice,

Hereby:

PROHIBITS nations from creating public offender registries, with the exception of publicly available court records,

MANDATES that nations with a current public registry either limit that registry to law-enforcement personnel or dismantles that registry entirely

Court records, arrest records, detention records, and probation/parole records that are required or necessary for the department or agency by itself and with other law-enforcement and judicial agencies within that nation to function are not subject to this act

PROHIBITS nations from participating in international registries that are not under the control or direction of the World Assembly

and:

EMPOWERS the World Assembly to create an offender information clearinghouse, known as the Clearinghouse for Offender Fair And Intelligent Reporting (CO-FAIR), to allow for pertinent information regarding an offender to be shared between countries

SETS the following limitations on CO-FAIR,

This clearinghouse does NOT have the authority to store or maintain records of offenders on its own. Information shall be exchanged between countries only, and CO-FAIR would only act as a mediator and central location to exchange such information.

This Clearinghouse does NOT have the authority to conduct negotiations, exchanges, or investigations into nations that are not a part of the World Assembly

This Clearinghouse does NOT have the authority to dismantle or modify in any way registries from nations that are not a part of the World Assembly

REMOVES the authority of all other World Assembly commissions or departments the responsibility to maintain records of its member nations’ offenders, and records of nations who are not a part of the World Assembly,

DEFINES, for the purposes of this resolution

A “Registry” is a list or roster of persons within a nation that have committed an offense that is illegal according to the laws of that nation that is publicly available. Information regarding offenders includes, but is not limited to:
Name
Age/Date of Birth
Gender
Current Address
Current place of occupation or education
Phone Number
Registered vehicles
Email Address
Social Media Accounts
Utility and electric communication subscriptions

ENCOURAGES member nations to understand and accept that, while ensuring the public-at-large is protected from criminal and illegal acts, offenders who have committed such acts should not be ostracized and marginalized from the nation through legal, social, financial, medical, and mental health needs.

Thank you

First edit:
moved one line into its own paragraph "Removes the authority..."
Added "...to dismantle OR MODIFY IN ANY WAY..."
Changed last line to "...medical, and mental HEALTH needs"

Here's a question :- if there are any agencies/etc that DO maintain criminal records that were created by previous resolutions, would this proposal class as an amendment to those resolutions because it is stripping the agencies of those powers? (I am genuinely curious - this isn't any type of legality question or challenge. Just me not not knowing how such a statement works in practice).

And as a slightly more pertinent question, we have what we refer to as a KCB check, which essentially checks that people who are applying for jobs where they might have (for want of a better phrase) unfettered access to children are basically not the sort of people who should NOT have unfettered access to children. Is this going to prevent us from doing that? Because that would be a bad thing, and something we would be against. (And I know the "think of the children" argument is the last refuge of the desperate, but would you want a five time child rapist working as a caretaker in your local primary school?)

[Araraukar]

Here's a question :- if there are any agencies/etc that DO maintain criminal records that were created by previous resolutions, would this proposal class as an amendment to those resolutions because it is stripping the agencies of those powers?

OOC: Yes. "You can do what the previous resolution said you can do, except only in these cases I'm now laying down" is pretty much the dictionary definition for amendment.

And as a slightly more pertinent question, we have what we refer to as a KCB check, which essentially checks that people who are applying for jobs where they might have (for want of a better phrase) unfettered access to children are basically not the sort of people who should NOT have unfettered access to children. Is this going to prevent us from doing that?

Unless the court records are public, then looks like. I say "looks like", because it's hard to see what clauses are supposed to be subclauses, and one clause prohibits something with an exception and then the next one seems to remove that exception...

[Qlerb]

OOC: My apologies about the tabbing issue, and figuring out which clauses are actually subclauses. It has been many moons since I used a forum. Yes it is my first proposal, and far be it from me to get it right on the first try. Thank you for your patience.

OOC: Using the world "clearinghouse" upon reflection was not the right choice. go figure that 11th hour proposal writing would be filed with errors. Besides that, from reading it now, my proposal is trying to do two things (at least), and it's purpose seems to defeat itself. The WA would have an agency that would act as a mediator between nations to exchange information about offenders, creating a central, standardized platform by which to do so. The part about not holding onto information was done out of a courtesy to nations that do not wish to disclose pertinent information to the public or under another resolution that has broad powers over information dissemination.

This proposal also does not infringe upon nations having their own registries, but requires that nations do not make their registries public. This clause is important and is supposed to be the central point of the argument, albeit it may seem obscure at the moment. My error with the proposal was supposed to indicate that law-enforcement agencies & judicial systems are allowed to have registries if they do not have one, but they must only be made available to their departments; and that existing systems must be moved over to non-publicly accessible systems.

The problem of background checks raises a question as to the powers of this resolution versus the rights and responsibilities of individuals, families, and businesses. The purposes of this resolution side with those families and individuals by not giving so much power to a background check. A Background check, a Credit Check, or an employment check are all methods by which citizens, honest and not, can be placed into simple categories for easy filtering. First time offenders who committed a serious crime should not have their entire lives (and remember, humans only live ONE life) defined by one action, especially if they have attained serious rehabilitation.

OOC: I will admit some bias to this, as I have studied criminal justice aspects of certain countries, and find that there are significant populations who are being marginalized due to their actions. I find it deplorable, but for the same reasons I don't like most categories. I'll stop here and keep my opinions and biases short.

[Covenstone]

OOC: My apologies about the tabbing issue, and figuring out which clauses are actually subclauses. It has been many moons since I used a forum. Yes it is my first proposal, and far be it from me to get it right on the first try. Thank you for your patience.

OOC: Using the world "clearinghouse" upon reflection was not the right choice. go figure that 11th hour proposal writing would be filed with errors. Besides that, from reading it now, my proposal is trying to do two things (at least), and it's purpose seems to defeat itself. The WA would have an agency that would act as a mediator between nations to exchange information about offenders, creating a central, standardized platform by which to do so. The part about not holding onto information was done out of a courtesy to nations that do not wish to disclose pertinent information to the public or under another resolution that has broad powers over information dissemination.

This proposal also does not infringe upon nations having their own registries, but requires that nations do not make their registries public. This clause is important and is supposed to be the central point of the argument, albeit it may seem obscure at the moment. My error with the proposal was supposed to indicate that law-enforcement agencies & judicial systems are allowed to have registries if they do not have one, but they must only be made available to their departments; and that existing systems must be moved over to non-publicly accessible systems.

The problem of background checks raises a question as to the powers of this resolution versus the rights and responsibilities of individuals, families, and businesses. The purposes of this resolution side with those families and individuals by not giving so much power to a background check. A Background check, a Credit Check, or an employment check are all methods by which citizens, honest and not, can be placed into simple categories for easy filtering. First time offenders who committed a serious crime should not have their entire lives (and remember, humans only live ONE life) defined by one action, especially if they have attained serious rehabilitation.

OOC: I will admit some bias to this, as I have studied criminal justice aspects of certain countries, and find that there are significant populations who are being marginalized due to their actions. I find it deplorable, but for the same reasons I don't like most categories. I'll stop here and keep my opinions and biases short.

Yeah, I am sorry, but I entirely disagree. If someone has been sent to jail for raping a child, they should NOT BE WORKING WITH CHILDREN.

I don't give a shit if they have been through rehabilitation, they don't get to work with children. They can do other jobs, I have no problem with that, but I am not going to let them work with children, and especially not where they will be left alone with said children.

And if you don't understand that, if you don't get why my country wishes to prevent that, then I really don't care. I am not going to support any legislation that will get in the way of preventing these checks from taking place and will actively campaign against them.

[Araraukar]

*snip*

*snip*

OOC: The solution to the background checks is actually pretty simple: only law enforcement people can access the registries, but if you need to know, for hiring purposes, if someone's been convicted of, to use your example, child abuse (I wouldn't want a child-beater to work with children either!), then you leave the information request to the correct branch of government/law enforcement, they check the registry and either say "yes" or "no" to a specific question. That'll let you do background checks without needing to make the registries public. And to be honest, I was fucking flabbergasted to hear that criminal records can be randomly accessed by anyone in the USA, just by asking (and possibly paying a tiny fee).

Or, do like Finland does, and let the person whose criminal record is being asked for, to order the document from the authorities, and then you let your possible employer to view it, but not keep it.

[Covenstone]

*snip*

OOC: The solution to the background checks is actually pretty simple: only law enforcement people can access the registries, but if you need to know, for hiring purposes, if someone's been convicted of, to use your example, child abuse (I wouldn't want a child-beater to work with children either!), then you leave the information request to the correct branch of government/law enforcement, they check the registry and either say "yes" or "no" to a specific question. That'll let you do background checks without needing to make the registries public. And to be honest, I was fucking flabbergasted to hear that criminal records can be randomly accessed by anyone in the USA, just by asking (and possibly paying a tiny fee).

Or, do like Finland does, and let the person whose criminal record is being asked for, to order the document from the authorities, and then you let your possible employer to view it, but not keep it.

<ooc> This is more or less what I was thinking when I was asking if it would still be doable. The fact that the author said no, then proceeded to say that "one serious crime could screw up their future unfairly" was what made me curious. Because to me that does just seem to be asking for trouble </ooc>

[Bears Armed]

And what the hell is a clearing-house anyway? The Wiktionary definition that makes the most sense in the context equals to "database". So why use an non-regular word when you have one that's already been used numerous times in resolutions?

OOC: The term implies a bit more direct activity than a database; for example, its staff could actively forward data to the relevant agencies, without those agencies having to check whether anything interesting to them has come in since the last time, and requests for international cooperation could also pass through it so that individual agencies wouldn't have to gather & maintain their own contact-lists for every foreign agency whose assistance they might eventually want.

[Araraukar]

OOC: The term implies a bit more direct activity than a database; for example, its staff could actively forward data to the relevant agencies, without those agencies having to check whether anything interesting to them has come in since the last time,

OOC: Except if the house clearers aren't allowed to store the information, they'd still have to request it from the original source, so basically that'd only make them... what? Auto-diallers?

and requests for international cooperation could also pass through it so that individual agencies wouldn't have to gather & maintain their own contact-lists for every foreign agency whose assistance they might eventually want.

I think there already is a thing for that, though, and it's called "the World Assembly". I'm almost certain there's even a committee that does little else but help law enforcement peeps communicate with their equivalents in the other member nations.

[Bakhton]

"Absolutely opposed, these are issues that should be left up to national discretion. There is not a satisfactory reason for this to be legislated by the General Assembly."
Jeffrey leans over, "Well, that's like just your opinion, ma'am."
"Does this make you Lebowski and me Maude? I don't want to copulate with you."