100
Opinion of the Court
Act are felt by those subject to it. If the disability or restraint is minor and indirect, its effects are unlikely to be punitive.
The Act imposes no physical restraint, and so does not resemble the punishment of imprisonment, which is the paradigmatic affirmative disability or restraint. Hudson, 522 U. S., at 104. The Act's obligations are less harsh than the sanctions of occupational debarment, which we have held to be nonpunitive. See ibid. (forbidding further participation in the banking industry); De Veau v. Braisted, 363 U. S. 144 (1960) (forbidding work as a union official); Hawker v. New York, 170 U. S. 189 (1898) (revocation of a medical license). The Act does not restrain activities sex offenders may pursue but leaves them free to change jobs or residences.
The Court of Appeals sought to distinguish Hawker and cases which have followed it on the grounds that the disability at issue there was specific and "narrow," confined to particular professions, whereas "the procedures employed under the Alaska statute are likely to make [respondents] completely unemployable" because "employers will not want to risk loss of business when the public learns that they have hired sex offenders." 259 F. 3d, at 988. This is conjecture. Landlords and employers could conduct background checks on the criminal records of prospective employees or tenants even with the Act not in force. The record in this case contains no evidence that the Act has led to substantial occupational or housing disadvantages for former sex offenders that would not have otherwise occurred through the use of routine background checks by employers and landlords. The Court of Appeals identified only one incident from the 7-year history of Alaska's law where a sex offender suffered community hostility and damage to his business after the information he submitted to the registry became public. Id., at 987- 988. This could have occurred in any event, because the information about the individual's conviction was already in the public domain.
Page: Index 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007