# Can you really end up on the sex offender registry for public urination?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-really-end-up-on-the-sex-offender-registry-for-public-urination/953904>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 6, 2021, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-really-end-up-on-the-sex-offender-registry-for-public-urination/953904 "2021-11-06T19:15:55Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 2

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**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\
**Post date:** [November 6, 2021, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-really-end-up-on-the-sex-offender-registry-for-public-urination/953904/2 "2021-11-06T20:30:43Z")

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Welcome! Hope you have fun here!

Well, FWIW the question has been brought up several times before in this venue including no less than three threads specifically directed about it

> [@Can you really be put on the sex offender list for public urination?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-really-be-put-on-the-sex-offender-list-for-public-urination/945201):
>
> I’ve always heard of in the context of “Sex Offender Registries don’t work” that anyone can be put on them, including people caught urinating in a bush by an empy road. Is this true? Has anyone actually been put on a sex offender list for it? What would the crime description be?

> [@Peeing in public.....sex offender for life?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peeing-in-public-sex-offender-for-life/528545):
>
> If you get caught peeing in public by a police officer and he gives you an “Indecent Exposure” charge… are you considered a sex offender? So for peeing in public, you are now a blue dot on “Megan’s Law”. Along with the child molestors, rapists,etc? Is this true?

> [@Can You Be Charged With A 'Sex Crime' For Urinating In Public?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-be-charged-with-a-sex-crime-for-urinating-in-public/289005):
>
> I’ve heard stories of men who have claimed that they were charged with a ‘sex crime’, and were required to register as a ‘sex offender’, simply because they were caught urinating in public with their flaccid genitalia exposed. Can this possibly be true? Does this mean it is no longer safe for us to extinguish campfires, de-ice windows and frozen door locks, or write our names in the snow? Thanks.

And the factual answer seems to be…, as in your case, that we cannot nail it down hard and fast: it depends on the specific circumstances of the incident, and on the jurisdiction you are under, and there have been situations that incorporate this but when you dig deeper you find out most ofthen there are complicating factors that make it not so simple.

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