Let the Naked Pumpkinheads Run

by Matt Kelley · 2009-10-31 08:16:00 UTC
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It's Halloween hysteria in Boulder.

Police in the idyllic Colorado city have said they are committing to stopping tonight’s 11th annual naked pumpkin run. And if anyone insists on running naked through the street with a pumpkin on their head, the cops will charge all participants as sex offenders.

The run sounds silly and it’s surely offensive to some - but it’s a prank (or, to those inclined to give a big benefit of doubt, it's performance art). For a decade now, drunk college students and other Boulderites sprint through the city's downtown in their birthday suits, with a pumpkin on their head.  It’s scheduled for 11 p.m. so there won’t be (many) kids around. Adults can handle seeing their neighbors anonymous and naked. To invoke the sex offender registry is beyond ridiculous.

The Boulder city council, the mayor and the local district attorney have all expressed concern with the police plan. The ACLU, of course, advocates for the right of runners to run. One lawyer -- maybe stretching just a bit -- compared the anticipated police action to recent events in Tehran.

This story makes the problems with our sex offender registry system as clear as can be. The Boulder police don't think the pumpkin runners are dangerous criminals, they're using the tools at their disposal to prevent an event they don't like. And this is a pervasive problem with the registry --for example, this post shows how countless kids are now on the registry for "Romeo and Juliet" or show-me-yours-I'll-show-you-mine incidents.

If we want our sex offender registry to work, we can't have it be full of pumpkinheads and experimenting teens. To have an effective crime prevention system, our parole officers and community corrections systems must be able to focus on people who post some threat to society.

Cracking down on the pumpkin run is a bad idea. Putting runners on the sex offender registry is potentially devastating.

The Boulder Magazine and blog elephant has been on top of this story, and reports that the run may move to an undisclosed location. More info here.

Matt Kelley is the Online Communications Manager at the Innocence Project and a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Follow him on Twitter @mattjkelley.
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