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DAN GUNDERSON: After they're convicted of a crime, sex offenders are required to register with police. The idea is to make it easy for police to keep track of those sex offenders. Many states have expanded on that idea. Some post every sex offenders picture on the internet. Other states like Minnesota post only the most dangerous offenders. The reasoning is if you know where sex offenders live, you're safer. Ricky is one of those sex offenders whose picture is on the internet. He was 17 living in a small town in Iowa when he committed a sex crime.

RICKY: I was playing a game of pool at the time I met her and she came up and we started talking. And I asked her age. She told me she was 16. So we went out there we dance a bit, started dating, and then we ended up having sex twice.

DAN GUNDERSON: But the girl wasn't 16. She was 13 years old. Ricky was admitting to a crime. A few months later when the girl ran away from home, Ricky was questioned by police.

RICKY: And I just told them the truth because I didn't think I was going to get in trouble. I told him that I had sex with her twice and he told me, well, the parents ain't pressing charges, so we're just going to go ahead and let you go home.

DAN GUNDERSON: Soon after Ricky was arrested, he was charged with two counts of felony sexual abuse for having sex with a 13-year-old girl. He faced 20 years in prison. Ricky pled guilty to a lesser charge and was placed on probation, ordered to get sex offender treatment, and to register as a sex offender. A few months later, his family moved to Oklahoma. There his picture was posted on the internet as a sex offender. Most states have websites with pictures of sex offenders. There's a new national sex offender website too.

Ricky was kicked out of school. He can't go near schools, parks or daycares. At least, 21 states restrict where sex offenders can live. Ricky says he'd plan to join the Navy, go to college, and become a police officer. Now he works at an assembly plant and he's not sure what he'll do next.

RICKY: I get frustrated at times because I can't do what a kid wants to do. I mean, my friends, they go out do stuff, you know? I can't go with them. I can't go play basketball, football, or nothing with them. I try to just go to work, come home, and just do stuff around the house.

MARY DUVALL: He's constantly watching his back. He doesn't know if the next person walks up on him is going to know he's a sex offender and what they'll do or what they're going to say, you know?

DAN GUNDERSON: Mary Duvall is Ricky's mother. She says her son should have been punished for having sex with a 13-year-old girl but she's angry he's painted with the same brush as a violent predatory rapist.

MARY DUVALL: He won't date. He won't talk to girls. A girl says hi to him in the store and I have seen him twice bail out of the store and lock himself inside our pickup. And he just says I'm scared, you know? And the damage that's being done to him by making him register as a sex offender is going to be long term. This will always haunt this kid.

DAN GUNDERSON: There are likely hundreds of faces like Ricky's mixed in with the dangerous sex offenders on public registries. Some states like Minnesota don't post the pictures of less dangerous sex offenders. But in state after state, lawmakers say putting pictures and addresses on the internet so everyone knows where sex offenders live will make people safer. Patty Wetterling disagrees. Her son Jacob was abducted 18 years ago and has never been found. Over the years, Wetterling has lobbied for tougher sex offender laws. But Wetterling says she's tired of tough.

PARRY WETTERLING: Everybody wants to outtough the next legislator. You know, I'm tough on crime. No, I'm even more tough. You know, and it's all about ego and boastfulness.

DAN GUNDERSON: Wetterling says she wants public policy to be effective. She says broad sweeping laws that treat all offenders the same waste resources and lives. Wetterling recently met a 10-year-old boy going through sex offender treatment. He was sexually abused and he was later convicted for abusing a younger cousin.

PARRY WETTERLING: He finishes a sex offender treatment program and then he returns to another state, goes back home, and his photo's on the internet while he goes back to middle school. What are the odds that kid could ever make it? It just doesn't make sense. We have to treat juveniles differently. We're setting up an environment that's just not healthy. It's just anger driven, anger and fear. It's not smart and it doesn't get us to the promised land.

DAN GUNDERSON: OK, so maybe there are a few cases that don't belong on the sex offender website, but knowing where sex offenders live makes us safer, right?

JILL LEVINSON: Overall, we don't have very much evidence to support the idea that knowing where sex offenders live actually protects children or reduces the number of sex crimes in our communities.

DAN GUNDERSON: Jill Levinson teaches at Lynn University in Florida. She compares sex offender laws with research to see if the laws are making a difference. She says telling the public where the most dangerous sex offenders live might help prevent crime, but she says posting every sex offenders picture is not helpful.

JILL LEVINSON: When you're looking at a sex offender registry online and you see a pedophile with several arrests and many, many victims right next to a picture of the 19-year-old with a 15-year-old girlfriend, it becomes very difficult for the public to differentiate and to know who's truly dangerous and how to protect themselves from those people.

DAN GUNDERSON: In many states, community notification has expanded to include restrictions on where sex offenders can live or requiring all sex offenders to wear electronic monitors. Jill Levinson says making outcasts of sex offenders often makes them more dangerous.

JILL LEVINSON: They need to have a place to live. They need to be able to get jobs. They need to be able to support themselves and their families. And without those things, they're going to be more likely to resume a life of crime. That's not a debate. That's a fact.

DAN GUNDERSON: Ricky knows what it feels like to be an outcast. His picture has been posted in the local grocery store. He's not allowed in schools or parks. His family has moved twice because of harassment. Mary Duvall says being publicly identified as a sex offender has changed her son's life. She worries telling his story publicly might bring a backlash, but she says she wants lawmakers to know what they've done to a teenager who made a mistake.

MARY DUVALL: I know tons of parents on the internet with boys similar to mine and they're scared. I mean, I've been advised not to talk to reporters, not to speak out because it could be bad things to my family or even Ricky. And I refuse to be silent. I'm going to fight this and I'm going to fight this and I'm going to fight this until someone listens.

DAN GUNDERSON: Mary Duvall is fighting one of the unintended consequences of getting tough on sex offenders. A sex offender label means Ricky is seen as dangerous, likely to re-offend, and someone who probably can't be rehabilitated. Those are among the common perceptions held by legislators who write sex offender laws. Experts say applying the same laws to Ricky and a violent predatory rapist makes for bad public policy. Dan Gunderson, Minnesota Public Radio News.