Proof Offender laws are not protecting children

[Guest]

With respect to the registries creating sex offenders, I believe I already addressed that. The many studies of reoffense rates before and after the institution of registries does not show any statistically significant increase in the rate of reoffending

"not show any ... significant increase" for homeless/unemployed offenders? Or all registered offenders as a whole?

That increased rate of reporting could offset a decline in the rate of the incidence of child abuse. Or that, because law enforcement has access to the registers, they were able to locate and arrest repeat offenders at a higher rate. Again, this increased efficiency could offset any decline in the incidence of child abuse. I looked for, but could not find any studies that looked at those kinds of potential effects. (Not that my research skills are perfect....)

It is a good possibility, but is there any evidence that reports are increasing? You told me, "However, a big problem with that -- there's substantial agreement in the literature that sex crimes are significantly underreported"

At any rate, I don't see anyone suggesting that legalizing kiddie porn would be an acceptable way to reduce sex offenses.

Of course not. I thought I made it clear in my post above. The authors do not approve porn, it is not an acceptable way to reduce child abuse. My only point was that we don't see studies showing a "significant decrease" of child abuse because of the sex offender registries.

The problem with that study is that it simply showed correlations without exploring other possible causes of the decline. It also looked at aggregate measures of sex offenses without considering that exposure to pornograpy can have different effect on different individuals. .

It is a study published in a respected Journal. For you what could be another possible cause? If you know of another possible cause please let me know because it could be very important,

but according to the study, "In comparison with our findings for the sex crimes mentioned following democratization and porn availability, the number of societal crimes of general murder, assault, and robbery rose significantly. Murders associated with robbery or with other non-sex related motives increased sharply (t= -6.8, df=20, p\.001) (Fig. 2). Murders associated with sex related matters—small in number at any time—did not increase (t= -0.3, df=23, p=.77) (Fig. 2). The number of reported sex related crimes decreased significantly from the pre-switch period to the post period, (t=5.3, df=32, p\.001), whereas the number of reported nonsexual crimes increased signifi- cantly (t= -19.72, df=35, p\.001) (Fig. 3)"

Again, I am not saying porn is the solution because we cannot legalize an evil to fight another evil, but my point is that you won't find the same numbers in sex offender registry studies.

It also looked at aggregate measures of sex offenses without considering that exposure to pornograpy can have different effect on different individuals.

Here is a list of studies showing porn (in general) does reduce rape, but we have no such list about the sex offender registry

Diamond, M. et al. “Pornography and Sex Crimes in the Czech Republic,” Archives of Sexual Behavior (2011) 40:1037

Diamond, M. “The Effects of Pornography: An International Perspective,” in Pornography 101: Eroticism, Sexuality, and the First Amendment, edited by J. Elias et al. Prometheus Press, Amherst, NY, 1999.

Diamond, M. and A. Uchiyama. “Pornography, Rape, and Sex Crimes in Japan,” International Journal of Law and Psychiatry (1999) 22:1.

Goldstein, M. et al. “Experience with Pornography: Rapists, Pedophiles, Homosexuals, Transsexuals, and Controls,” Archives of Sexual Behavior (1991) 1:1.

Kutchinsky, B. Pornography and Rape: Theory and Practice? Evidence from crime Data in Four Countries, Where Pornography is Easily Available,” International Journal of Law and Psychiatry (1991) 14:47.

Kutchinsky, B. “The Effect of Easy Availability of Pornography on the Incidence of Sex Crimes: The Danish Experience,” Journal of Social Issues (1973) 29:163.

Poipovic, M. “Pornography Use and Closeness with Others in Men,” Archives of Sexual Behavior (2011) 40:449[/quote]

[_DoubtingThomas]

Similarly, one of the predictors of reoffending among those convicted of a sex offense is having an anti-social personality. That factor, in and of itself, could result in unstable employment. So, figuring out how all these factors relate to each other and interact to result in a high rate of reoffense is much more complicated than identifying a single source.

For that you have to prove most unemployed offenders already had problems with keeping a job before being added to the registry. Do you have such data?
And do you have data showing most employers don't take into account the sex offender registry?

Second, as I already said, the broad statement that the government is not doing anything that works is just nonsense.

I meant the government isn't doing anything to effectively reduce child abuse rates since the sex offender registry. Do you have data?

But, the fact of the matter is, around 90% of people arrested for sex crimes are being arrested for the first time. And of those folks, 90% are committed by family members What, exactly, do you propose the government do to substantially reduce that? Government has constitutional limits on what it can do before someone commits a crime. And it is not in a position to intervene before abuse occurs.

Perhaps the government can let psychologists and sociologists make the decisions. The government should be funding more research studies to find a solution that actually works.

If I were in charge, I could only keep the sex offender registry for child rapists only. That is my solution.

[_DoubtingThomas]

I'm really not interested in the book. It has a clear editorial bias, which is fine. But I'm afraid that reading it would give me a very one-sided view of the issues. I prefer to look at the studies themselves rather than have someone tell me what they mean.

Res Ipsa,

I really like your approach. I really like it when we talk about the research literature. This board needs more people like you Res Ipsa. In fact, I am going to rethink many things and continue with my research on the subject. Perhaps you are right, I am now open to the possibility that our Sex Offender Registry is doing at least some good.

But like I said I will continue with more research when I have the time. I should be more slow and careful to make conclusions and judgments.

[_DoubtingThomas]

What's shifting which burden of proof? Absent persuasive evidence that public urination or teenage sexting are reliable leading indicators of future commission of serious sex crimes, people committing those crimes shouldn't be on any registry. I haven't seen any such evidence, so I agree.

Sadly, some judges can't tell the difference between child porn produced by dangerous gangs and teenagers sexting each other.

[_Res Ipsa]

Hey DT, thanks for all your thoughtful responses. I’ll be nerding out at a board game weekend for the next four days, so I likely won’t be able to follow up until early next week. I am really enjoying learning about the subject. Thanks for provoking me to dig into it.

[_DoubtingThomas]

Hey DoubtingThomas, thanks for all your thoughtful responses. I’ll be nerding out at a board game weekend for the next four days, so I likely won’t be able to follow up until early next week. I am really enjoying learning about the subject. Thanks for provoking me to dig into it.

You gave me stuff to think about too. I did learn.

I do really like that you get your information from the research literature.

[_DoubtingThomas]

Finally some progress in Virginia, but I can't understand why no one talks about how ridiculous and barbaric some of our laws are. Under US laws one in four teenagers are sex offenders, and I think parents should be outrageous and furious at law-makers.

The Virginia Senate on Monday passed a bill intended to keep teenagers who willingly share sexually explicit images with one another from being branded felony sex offenders. The measure, which passed on a bipartisan 35-to-5 vote, would give prosecutors the option to charge “sexting” among minors as a misdemeanor. Under current law, the sender and recipient can be charged with dissemination and possession of child pornography, a felony. That means prosecutors must choose between bringing felony charges or doing nothing, said Sen. William M. Stanley Jr. (R-Franklin), who sponsored the bill with Sen. Scott A. Surovell (D-Fairfax). Stanley said the bill would let prosecutors “do something in the middle, not to end someone’s life before it even begins with a felony conviction that doesn’t fit the crime.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/vi ... 1971a331bc

A new study finds

A new data study shows that the number of teenagers sending and receiving sexts is on the rise. The analysis, which was published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association, showed that more than one in four teenagers reported that they’d received a sext, defined by the study as a sexually explicit image, video or message that is sent electronically. About 15 percent of people, slightly more than one in seven, reported sending a sext....But authors noted a few troubling indicators: they found 12 percent of people reported that they had forwarded a sext without consent and 8.5 percent said that a sext of theirs had been forwarded without their consent.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the ... 71e7d61dc5