Statistics on Why Sex Offender Registries are Ineffective
I appreciate that you are busy and will make this short. In considering residency restrictions for sex offenders, the members of your community have the reasonable expectation that you will do nothing that will place them in harm’s way. Evidence demonstrates and strongly suggests you may unknowingly be doing just that.
Eleven-year-old Jacob Wetterling, his brother and a friend were riding their bicycles back from a convenience store in St. Joseph Minnesota on 22 October 1989 when a masked gunman kidnapped Jacob. His fate and the gunman’s identity is not known. His mother, Patty, has been a tireless advocate for child safety. May I quote from a statement she posted on their website named for their son. “Because residency restrictions have been shown to be ineffective at preventing harm to children, and may indeed actually increase the risks to kids, JWRC [Jacob Wetterling Resource Center] does not support residency restriction laws. Such laws can give a false sense of security while sapping resources that could produce better results used elsewhere.”
http://www.jwrc.org/GetHelpNow/SexualExploitation/ResidencyRestrictions/tabid/84/Default.aspx
Ineffective: The 2003 report “Recidivism of Sex Offenders Released from Prisons in 1994” reviewed 9,691 sex offenders after their release. Within three years only 5.3% (517) of all sex offenders were arrested for another sex crime. There were 4,295 child molesters in that group and 3.3% (141) were arrested for another sex crime against a child. One child victimized is too many, but the statistic most troubling is that 1.3% (3,328) of non-sex offenders in this study were arrested for a sex crime after being released, 1,042 for sex crimes against a child. The significance is that these 3,328 (of 262,420) persons had no history of sex crime conviction and therefore could not be on any registry or affected by residency restrictions.
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/rsorp94.pdfÂ
When the whole of society is scrutinized, the threat from non-sex offenders increases. The California Sex Offender Management Board’s “Report to Legislature and Governor’s Office” January 2008, revealed that; “Preventing further sex offenses is seen as largely a function as stopping these known offenders from committing another offense. The premise for such an approach is not a correct one. In fact, approximately 90% of new convictions for sex offenses involve an individual who had no prior sex offense conviction history.
http://www.casomb.org/docs/SOMBReport1.pdf
The University at Albany School of Criminal Justice reviewed sex crime arrest reports filed between 1984 and 2004. They reported in their study “Does a Watched Pot Boil?” that more than 95% of those arrested for a sex crime had no history of convictions for sex crimes.
http://ilvoices.com/uploads/2/8/6/6/2866695/63-sandler-freeman-socia-2008.pdf
I understand that your community wants their officials to be tough on crime. And even if these laws only prevent one child from being sexually abused, then the measure is worth the effort and expense. This rationale fails in practice because these laws apply to such a small and inadequate element of the population seen as presenting the threat we wish to control. These laws additionally exacerbate circumstances known to increase risk of recidivism. Research is currently documenting that recidivism increases after laws like these are passed. Two such studies found that recidivism by registered sex offender actually doubled after residency restrictions were implemented.
https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/242952.pdf and http://www.law.virginia.edu/pdf/olin/0708/prescott.pdfÂ
These laws are shown to increase homelessness and joblessness. Both significant factors increasing the likelihood of recidivism.
http://www.casomb.org/docs/SOMBReport1.pdf
http://www.doc.ks.gov/publications/kdoc-community-field-services-publications/sex-offender-housing-restrictionsÂ
http://www.royallcreations.com/fatsa/Final_Report_- _Sexual_Offender_Sexual_Residence_Task_Force.pdf
The most incriminating aspect of these laws, however, is that parents will trust you when you tell them you have made their community a safer place for children. I’ll share some comments from other communities made while discussing these laws. “I also felt relief knowing that none of them live on the street where I allow my children to play every single day.” And worse: “I checked a registry and didn’t see any [sex] offenders living near my home so now I feel liberated to allow my six-year old to walk down to the park a few blocks away and play as much as she wants without inconveniencing me.” How dangerous are these attitudes adopted by parents trusting their elected officials to know?
Jimmy Ryce had only one block to walk from his bus stop to home. Juan Chavez confessed but the laws would not have applied because he had no prior convictions for any crime.
Adam Walsh was with his mother when she went shopping for lamps. She let him stay at a video game display while she stepped around the corner. No aspect of any sex offender law would have affected Ottis Toole, the man Hollywood police announced in 2009 was the most likely person to have committed the crime, because at the time he had not been convicted of any sex crime.
Jaycee Dugard was kidnapped on her way to her school bus. Her step-father was watching and heard her scream as she was dragged into the car but he wasn’t close enough to get the tag number. Phillip Garrido was a registered sex offender, but not local – he had traveled 141 miles from his residence to find a victim. <br.
Michael Devlin had no history of conviction for any sex crime so he could live anywhere and no one was watching him. He still drove 54 miles to kidnap Shawn Hornbeck in 2002, and 49 miles to kidnap Ben Ownby in 2007. He probably didn’t want anyone to recognize him.
There were 161 registered sex offenders living within 5 miles of Sommer Thompsons home. Jarrad Harrell confessed to kidnapping and murdering her, but he wasn’t on the registry. He couldn’t have been, he had never been convicted of any sex crime.
I could go on and on but already this is longer than I intended. Better you should apply resources from enforcing these laws towards notifying parents where the greater threat comes from and urge them to make sure their children are closely supervised by a responsible adult. Ensure they know that no government or law can offer the protection they evidently think it can. You might include that 34% of childhood sexual abuse involves family members, and another 59% involves acquaintances. That leaves only 7% that you seek to abate by these laws.
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/saycrle.pdf
Thank you for your time,
Paul Smith, FAC Member