When I first heard about the proposal coming out of Albany to create a registry of violent offenders - similar to the sex offender registry New York adopted more than a decade ago - I winced.

On the surface, "Brittany's Law" seems to make sense. (It's named after 12-year-old Brittany Passalacqua, who was murdered in Geneva in 2009 by a convicted felon who was on parole after serving 2 1/2 years of a three-year sentence for assaulting his infant daughter.) After all, who wants a violent felon living next door to them?

The problem with the idea of a violent offender registry is that it quite simply is not a deterrent to crime and won't make the public one bit safer on the whole.

A few months back, I spoke with Dr. Charles Patrick  Ewing, a forensic psychologist, attorney, SUNY Distinguished Law Professor and vice dean of law at the University at Buffalo Law School. He is the author of 10 books related to crime and the law, including his latest, "Justice Perverted: Sex Offense Law, Psychology, and Public Policy,"

In talking about the sex offender registry in New York state, Ewing says time has shown the law to be ineffective at best and dangerous at worst.

"They come out of prison and they are then stigmatized permanently as sex offenders," he says. "It is then hard to get a job, hard to live anywhere, hard to have normal relations with family and friends."

The same will be true for those who will be forced to wear a scarlet letter as convicted felons, should Brittany's Law pass. If you are among those who couldn't care less if a convicted felon can't find a decent place to live or a job, you need to consider the ripple effect of those struggles.

"More of these guys recidivate because of these laws than would without the laws," Ewing says. "That is then weighed against public safety and sex offenders living near you."

Again, similar issues abound with the felon registry. Make it more difficult for someone who has served their time to integrate back into society and you will eventually back them into a corner. It is tough enough for men and women leaving prison to get a job and move on with their lives; adding the registry is a way to virtually guarantee their failure. That failure will then translate to more of your tax dollars going to pay for public assistance to support them. And in many cases, you will be footing the bill once they re-offend and are incarcerated.

Another interesting point Ewing brought up during our conversation was the idea that people say they want the information but, in reality, what are you going to do with it? Vigilante justice isn't an option. For many people, moving isn't an option, and even if it is, between the sex offenders and the felons living in your community, you can't run from everybody.

It is worth noting that several states already have felony registries in place, including Florida and Illinois. Spend any time following national crime stories and statistics and you'll find that Florida is home to some of the most violent criminals in the nation. That state has the registry and yet crime is rampant across the state. Think it's working in Illinois? Ask the folks living in Chicago how safe they feel?

There is a sex offender living one street over in my neighborhood. There also are several felons in my village. Having that knowledge makes absolutely no difference in my life. If one of them wanted to break into my home and attack my family, they would do it. Knowing where they live won't protect me, and given the proven damage it will have on their ability to resume some sort of normal life, Ewing and others argue that it could put me (and you) in greater danger.

While the story of Brittany Passalacqua is heart-wrenching, anyone violent enough, sick enough and sadistic enough to kill a child won't stop because a registry exists. Violent people who wish to harm others will do it, and no database of information on a website is going to change that.

If you want to make your communities and families safer, invest in good locks, don't leave first-floor windows open at night, know where your children are, exercise caution when using social networks and be guarded about who you let into your life and your home. Common sense will make us all safer - not some bureaucratic law aimed at tapping into the emotions of the voters without considering the potentially grave consequences.

Matt Chandler: mchandler@bizjournals.com