OPINION: Brock Turner spotted at Dayton bars, should sex offenders be forced to identify themselves?

“Brock Turner leaves the Santa Clara County Jail in San Jose, California, September 2, 2016," Photo by Stephen Lam, Reuters.

Danny Murnin is a sophomore studying journalism and an opinion writer for The New Political. 

Please note that these views and opinions do not reflect those of The New Political.

As college students know very well, you are required to show identification to get into most bars. Typically, the person examining the ID is looking to verify the individual's age, but what if they had other grounds to deny certain people from bars? This question was raised amidst rumors on social media that Brock Turner recently frequented bars in the Dayton area. 

In January 2015, Turner, a 19-year-old freshman at Stanford University, sexually assaulted an unconscious 22-year-old woman. Two graduate students out biking discovered the brutal scene and prevented him from fleeing until police arrived. In 2016, Turner was found guilty of three counts of sexual assault and the victim's powerful impact statement at Turner's trial drew international attention to the case. Despite all this, he was given a shockingly lenient sentence of six months in county jail and probation. Turner ended up serving only three months, causing much outrage. 

Turner has been reported to be living in the Dayton area with his parents since his 2016 release, but state records show he recently moved on his own to Oakwood, which is much closer to areas populated with college students. Part of Turner's sentence was serving three years of probation, during which he was prohibited from entering bars. In light of the new attention on him, some are asking if Turner and others convicted of similar crimes should be free to enter bars at all, even when their sentence is over. 

The answer to this question is a resounding no. In an ideal world, people like Brock Turner would be prevented from entering alcohol-serving establishments filled with intoxicated young women, but turning this idea into reality may not be possible. Instead, staff at these establishments should be allowed to prevent convicted sex offenders from being present.

As mentioned, people around Turner's age are usually IDed when purchasing alcohol at bars, so what if there was a way to let bartenders and bar staff know that having this person in the establishment puts other patrons at risk? There is a way, and it is simple and cheap. Lawmakers in Ohio can pass legislation in the upcoming session mandating that convicted sexual offenders bear an identifying item on their drivers' license or state ID. In Delaware, sex offenders in the state are identified on their driver's licenses by a simple "Y." Other examples include Kansas, which require convicted sex offenders to get an ID that says "registered offender," or Florida, which requires "sexual predator" to be spelled out or "943.0435, F.S." on IDs depending on the crime.

Something similar to this would suffice in Ohio and make the public safer. There is simply no valid argument against giving bars and clubs the means to keep dangerous people, like Turner, out of the establishment. 

Unsurprisingly, some are defending the rights of sex offenders to remain anonymous on their identification forms. In 2020, The Louisiana Supreme Court struck down a state law requiring sex offenders to have the words "sex offender" printed in orange letters on their driver's license. As of 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal to the decision. Supporters of these moves argue that it is humiliating for sex offenders to have this kind of language on a document that needs to be shown to other people regularly, but I disagree. There is nothing sympathetic about people who commit sex crimes, which isn’t the case with all criminals. Sex offenders are uniquely dangerous to certain demographics in a way that most people convicted of crimes are not. The only people sex offenders have to blame from potential humiliation resulting from identification on an ID are themselves. Identifying sexual predators and giving establishments the means to reject them is a reasonable, bipartisan goal the legislators in Ohio should work to pass into law.