"Mission Creep" in law -- can it be prevented?

[Bricker]

@Evil_Captor

…because I don’t think there’s a whole huge constituency wanting to keep everyone who’s ever peed in the bushes . . . on a perpetual sex offender registry.

Sorry for the hijack, but this little bit of hyperbole keeps coming back, no matter how many times its debunked:

@Bricker

There is, and I don’t mean this comment to derail your main point, but since you mention in jest something that a lot of people take seriously, I want to get the straight dope out there again.

The idea that public urination can cause someone to be registered as a sex offender is greatly overblown. A paper issued by Human Rights Watch made that claim, it it has permeated the Internet; a dozen cites will confidently claim this is a danger. But when GFactor and I researched the issue, we discovered that it was very unlikely. In most states were HRW claimed it was a danger, the truth was that some other behavior was necessary, such as multiple convictions, was required. In short, it was highly unlikely that a simple public urination, with no other suspicious factors, would be the predicate offense for sex offender registration.

The rest of the thread discusses more detail; the main point remains.