Who Is SOLAR, and Why Should I Care?
Shining light where there’s been only darkness—replacing myth with data, fear with compassion, and permanent punishment with real safety.
For decades, the public conversation about sex offense laws has been dominated by fear, misinformation, and stigma. In that climate, policies have grown harsher, broader, and often unconstitutional—but not safer. Families are torn apart, communities destabilized, and people with past convictions locked into permanent punishment.
The SOLAR Project was born from lived experience and grounded in evidence. We exist to shine a light in that darkness— replacing myth with data, fear with compassion, and punishment with real paths toward safety and reintegration.
Let’s be honest: America’s obsession with registries isn’t about safety. It’s about fear—and political theater— while gun deaths, domestic violence, and DUIs pile up without lifelong public shaming.
SOLAR Means Three Things
Sex Offense Learning, Advocacy, and Resources
This is our core identity. We confront sex offense laws because current systems do not work. We emphasize person-first language: people are more than their worst moment.
- 📚Learning: DOJ/BJS data, recidivism research, and lived experience guide our work.
- 📣Advocacy: We oppose ineffective, unconstitutional, and harmful policies and propose evidence-based alternatives.
- 🧭Resources: Practical guides for registration, housing, employment, travel, and navigating stigma.
And yes—the registry includes people who have done serious harm. We don’t minimize that. But real accountability requires proportionate, evidence-based responses, not one-size-fits-all punishment.
Supporting, Organizing, Leading, Advancing, Reforming
- 🤝 Supporting individuals and families with credible resources and community.
- 🧩 Organizing voices for reform and coalition-building.
- 🧪 Leading with data that challenges myth-driven policy.
- 🛡️ Advancing prevention, treatment, stability, and reintegration.
- ⚙️ Reforming overbroad laws that perpetuate harm.
If “public safety” justifies permanent public registries, why limit them to one class of offense? Where are the registries for repeat DUI, gun crime, or domestic violence? Selective registries look less like safety—and more like stigma.
Safety, Opportunity, Liberty, Accountability, Redemption
Safety
Same-type recidivism for sex offenses is lower than for many other offense categories; public resources should track actual risk, not stigma. See the Bureau of Justice Statistics overview of 2012 releases (BJS), the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s studies of firearms offenders (USSC 2019, USSC 2022), and NHTSA’s research on DWI/DUI recidivism (NHTSA).
It makes no sense to pour billions into branding registrants for life while ignoring groups that cause far more harm. That’s not safety. That’s political theater—with dead kids in the wings.
Opportunity
Structural barriers—housing bans, passport identifiers, in-person reporting—undercut desistance and community safety. See federal passport identifier info under International Megan’s Law (State Department) and Miami’s well-documented homelessness caused by residency zones (Miami Herald 2019;case archive).
We claim we want reintegration, then slam doors on housing, work, and even passports. Instability isn’t an accident—it’s the policy.
Liberty
Courts repeatedly flag overbreadth and punitive effect: Packingham v. North Carolina (U.S. 2017) (First Amendment) (opinion),Does v. Snyder (6th Cir. 2016) (Ex Post Facto) (opinion; case explainer), andIn re Taylor (Cal. 2015) (residency restrictions unconstitutional as applied) (opinion; case summary).
If laws keep losing in court for being too broad, maybe the problem isn’t the courts—maybe the laws are broken.
Accountability
Evidence-based conditions (treatment, targeted supervision) matter—but so does institutional accountability. See NIJ’s evaluations of SORN effectiveness (NIJ summary;empirical evaluation).
We demand accountability from individuals. When policy choices make people homeless under bridges, who holds the state accountable?
Redemption
Stable housing, employment, and family connection are protective; indiscriminate restrictions increase instability—and risk. See collateral-consequence reporting and scholarship (The Marshall Project).
We know redemption works—it’s why risk declines over time. Permanent punishment is cowardice masquerading as safety.
Our Position Statements
SOLAR is guided by eight core positions, grounded in research and lived experience:
- Registries are ineffective, harmful, and rooted in misinformation. Most sexual harm is committed by people not on a registry; recidivism rates are lower than for many other crimes, yet registrants face harsher lifelong consequences (BJS overview).
- Registries harm individuals, families, and communities. Fear, discrimination, and vigilante risks are real; children of registrants bear collateral damage they did not cause (context in National Affairs, case reporting in The New Yorker).
- Real risk to children often lies closer to home. Most child sexual harm is perpetrated by someone known to the child or family (CDC).
- Other crimes present greater, more consistent dangers to public safety. Compare firearms and DUI recidivism to sexual reoffending (USSC;NHTSA).
- Registries are punitive in practice, not merely administrative. Courts have recognized punitive effects in specific regimes, raising Ex Post Facto and other constitutional problems (Does v. Snyder, 6th Cir. 2016; residency bans constrained in In re Taylor, Cal. 2015).
- One-size-fits-all registry laws are fundamentally flawed. Overbroad, categorical restrictions ignore individual risk and needs, undermining prevention and safety (see NIJ).
- Registries create a permanent underclass. Housing/employment exclusion and “scarlet letter” effects are well documented—Miami’s cycles of forced displacement are emblematic (Miami Herald).
- People are more than their worst act. Stability and support reduce risk over time; broad shaming increases instability (seeThe Marshall Project).
“Initially, this was supposed to be a private law-enforcement tool… I’ve turned 180 degrees from where I was.”
RECON: Register Every Convict or None
RECON is our campaign that exposes the hypocrisy of selective registries. If public safety truly requires permanent public registries, fairness demands they include every conviction type—or we admit it’s not really about safety.
We don’t put drunk drivers on yard signs. We don’t force burglars to report every time they sleep somewhere new. We don’t ban people with gun felonies from living within 1,000 feet of schools. Yet we pretend registries for one class of offense are the linchpin of public safety. It’s nonsense—and everyone knows it.
Why SOLAR, Why Now
Registries have become political theater, but the victims are real: families evicted, children bullied, opportunities lost, lives destroyed. SOLAR stands for something better—credible because we ground everything in research; relatable because we live these realities; accountable because we hold ourselves and institutions to evidence; and real—neighbors, parents, partners, professionals—committed to shining light where there has been shadow.
SOLAR is not just a project—it’s a movement for dignity, redemption, and evidence-based reform.