Sean,

You hit the nail right on the head with this one.

The Jschool should be embarrassed that you cite them as the source of your education.

A well written short, but I’d like to offer a little more for consideration.

There seem to be ‘levels’ of hate, entire categories grouped by how much we hate them. “Sex Offender” is high on the list, but your article seem to say “Don’t hate them… only hate the sub-group, ‘Child Molesters.’”

I also know we Americans waste a huge amount of energy finding ways to think of ourselves “better” than others. So I wonder how many of your readers might be thinking “So, I beat my wife now and then, but at least I’m not a Child Molester,” or “I’m SO much better than Sex Offenders; I run a profitable business, or my name isn’t Bernard Madoff,” or even “Well, I never touched anybody ELSE’s kid.”

The comparative judgments don’t really have any practical value. As a parent, I’d like to suggest that the scientific data is all that matters. It’s not my place to judge others, and I know any registered offender has already paid a price that a judge—presumably much wiser than I—required that he pay.

So what does that mean? It means I only care about offenders near my family if there is a real risk of them putting our safety at risk. Consider these [scientifically gathered] facts:

• Sex offenders have the lowest recidivism except for murderers
• Some offenders have a roughly 3% recidivism rate (note: that means 97 of 100 of that group have a ZERO rate of recidivism)
• The vast majority of sex crimes reported in the USA each year are committed by people NOT on the registries
• The sex offenders with the lowest recidivism are child molesters who offended one or more of their own children
• More than 90% of abused children are abused by a family member or friend
• Offenders (other than the familial ones) rarely offend near their homes

It seems, from these bits of data, that every minute spent watching the ‘known’ offenders is really opening the door for the people who constitute the real threat.

Last but not least, sex offender specialists have sophisticated tools with which to predict re-offense risk. Most use static facts, such as childhood facts and offense history, but some use dynamic factors. On the latter, two huge contributors to risk are: 1) Employment (unemployment increases risk) 2) Social normalcy (isolation increases risk) 3) Intimate relationships (being alone increases risk)

Registry laws, geographical restrictions, political pressure inhibiting employment—all these things are increasing the risk factors for many offender, and in the end, putting us at more risk.

Follow the science. We [Americans] are easily convinced of things, particularly things emotional. But these are our kids we’re talking about, and it’s worth going the extra mile to get educated before lining up behind someone’s anti-offender agenda.

Wasn’t this an article last year?

http://sexoffenderissues.blogspot.com

I am totally against ANY form of abuse to any human being. And I believe anyone who murders another human being should be in prison for the rest of their life (until they die). I do not believe in the death penalty for anyone. Also, I believe that once a person has been in and out of prison and has served their probation and parole, done everything required of them, and what was signed on the “contract” when they took the plea, none of this should be required of them, none of it. The state cannot tear up a contract like this, which they are basically doing, it’s unconstitutional. Many people, if they had known they would be faced with all this, they would have NOT taken a plea deal. And the courts are very aware of this and this is why they made it retroactive; thus violating ex-post facto laws! They should be allowed to get on with their life as if nothing happened. I’m not saying for it to be removed from their record, but, the crime should be removed from public view and background checks, they should not have any more restrictions, shaming, etc. If they commit another crime, then they face a lot more punishment, like everything else is treated.

When are we going to move away from being “TOUGH ON CRIME” and move to being “SMART ON CRIME?” If you locked every single sex offender up, at this moment, or killed every one of them, do you think the problem is over? No, more will follow.

I’ve heard many people say “If these laws protect one child, then they are worth it!” And at the same time, if millions are tortured, it’s ok. Offenders are losing their homes, jobs, families, and children and cannot find new jobs or homes due to the insanity of these laws. The families are also made into outcasts for associating with or being related to an ex-offender and their own children are harassed and bullied at schools due to a family member being an ex-offender.

I know these laws are a sensitive issue, but as all issues, they must be discussed and we must come up with a valid solution that will work. The laws, as they exist now, DO NOT WORK! People are always saying they cause unintended consequences. These laws have been on the books for years now, so nothing is unintended anymore. When are we going to set aside fear, hate, rage and anger and come up with a real solution? History has proven that these feelings NEVER get good laws passed but only create bad ones that punish and torture many people. These knee-jerk reactions to a slim number of high-profile crimes, like Adam Walsh and Jessica Lunsford, MUST STOP!

When an ex-offender is forced to move from his/her home, thus having to sell it, cannot find another home within the law due to the residency “buffer” zones, get fired from their jobs due to being on the registry, cannot find a new job due to being on the registry, their husband/wife lose their jobs due to a significant other being on the registry, their children lose their friends and are harassed and bullied in school due to a family member being on the registry, thus destroying the children’s lives, ex-offenders are forced into homelessness and to live under bridges, harassed by police, neighbors and probation/parole officers, have to wear “I’m a sex offender T-shirt” or have a neon green license plate on ALL their cars, have “sex offender” on their drivers license and forced to renew their licenses every year, forced from shelters during tornadoes or hurricanes, cannot give blood at some places due to being discriminated against for being on the sex offender registry, denied housing due to being on the registry, signs placed in their yards inviting harassment and ridicule from the neighbors, forced to move when the neighbors start picketing outside the ex-offenders home, the list is endless.

I THINK THIS IS CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT, BEYOND THE EXTREME!

Nice Voltaire in the last paragraph.

Note to Sean: don’t use the phrase “reoffend rate” it makes your writing seem amatuerish…the word you are looking for is “recidivism.”

Sex laws have been built on misconceptions and myth. The Supreme Court just ruled on sex offender laws where some factions of our government think by some inert reasoning that sex offender should be quarantined like some virus steaming from Draconian/Islamic radical view that sex offenders should be executed. I have seen for myself, video taken in another country where a sex offender was placed on a pole much like the Catholics use to use a pyramid shaped object and have them sit on it and spin, the pole travels through the body looking for the throat but if not found its ok because the sharpened end of the pole will come out somewhere to the delight of these very strange people who think such sad thoughts. The heritage of the act is in its self a brutal throwback to violent uneducated people who are so obsessed with any sex they can find & the only way to deal with this kind of “hierarchy” of historic hysteria. A word taken from hysterectomy, hysteria is tied to castration used to make animals less threatening which clearly explains the atmosphere we have made for our selves. Anyway we are supposed to be the most advanced nation and we still have a death penalty when the rest of the world except for some nations we are still warring with, selling weapons too, {think!} while other nations went home our weapons dealers and torture lovers delighting in support for the death of people they don’t know or want to simply because they don’t know how to get money with out taking it from someone by force. Is that supposed to include mutilations? In my humble opinion that alone are terrorist activities as much as severed hands, ears, heads, or making a case with nothing more than an obsession justified by lies. The truth about the sex offender registry will come out soon enough. When it does, People will see how the use of the registry was created, and by exactly who and why and the devastation it has created and the worthlessness of the use of it. It’s origin in the Jim Crow hanging laws that brought disgrace to our nation allowing thieves and murderous societal bigots who have trashed any shot at making good of a program in its design to make money destroying our nation and its people. We can not play god and we can not survive using this behavior model because we are compounding the problem since the numbers increasing to include the children they purport to protect. It’s a ruse designed by people who are getting rich off the doctoring, castration/hysterectomy/health care/physic care of people through sex laws that have gone wild. What about the people who are being used by the Medicare programs that requires these mutilations for both men and woman after they take their means of support? Digging around in someone’s genitalia because you want what a weaker nation? Can’t you see? You have created the model and it is worthless! Why don’t we just indiscriminately kill people we don’t know? That is statically the next sex offender, because over 90% of all new offences are committed by someone “not” on the sex offender registry and the numbers are increasing not decreasing so as a behavior model this is really worthless. So what is the use of such laws as the sex offender registry other than to terrorize people? With the murder of so many sex offenders and the continued disregard for life by the use of the registry it will be no time at all before the federal government will be held liable for their deaths through federal court. In a nation where a statement may have a double or triple meaning and our entire linage can be traced through mud, guts, and beer it’s nice once in a while to get the picture of what is meant instead of what some thinks someone may have implied being translated by greed. So it is from the trenches to the hill. Remember the game where someone says something in someone’s ear then passes it the same way to the next; the person advocating such destructive laws are the ones who need to be section 8 by simple brake down of the issue not the sex offenders. Best regards