Another Shade of Gray
Some Surprising Truths about the Sex Offender Situation
How do we begin to address such an emotionally charged topic? A subject that by and large, is distasteful to most, and directly problematic to all too many. There are few social issues existing today that carry such widely impacting relevance, and are at the same time plagued by such an abundance of myth, misconception, misinformation, myopic motivations, outright lies, and above all – a critical shortage of accurate statistical data.
It would make the most sense to commence with some pertinent, probably somewhat surprising facts - real facts, based on true, complete, and accurate presentation of information revealed by the most extensive studies ever conducted on convicted sexual offenders. Ironically, the United States Department of Justice, the originator of the largest and most comprehensive study, would likely benefit much more by the results coming out, in effect, the opposite of what was revealed. Herein lies one of greatest intrinsic challenges in dealing with child sexual abuse – much of our perception, reaction, statute, and social viewpoint are based not on the truth, but on myth. As an example, it is widely accepted as fact that sex offenders are extremely likely to re-offend. In reality, with the singular exception of murderers (probably because they are usually imprisoned for life or executed,) individuals that have committed sexual crimes against children – once prosecuted, are the least likely group of criminals to commit a similar crime again. (See U.S. DOJ Study @ www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/rsorp94.htm.) Where much of the perceptive distortion may come from, is the actual fact that most offenders against children have committed multiple offenses prior to being caught the first time. This element of truth has routinely been twisted to serve the agendas of a host of entities and organizations that benefit greatly from the public maintaining a universal fear and revulsion of sex offenders.
In this case, it’s an insidious instance of “throwing out the baby with the bathwater.” By reacting legally and socially based on mistaken assumptions, we expend a hugely disproportionate amount of our efforts, energies, and resources on incarcerating, monitoring, supervising, and tracking a population that is relatively harmless. There is not a recognized, significant study instrument existing today, that indicates a recidivism (re-offense) rate higher than 5% among this group of criminals, and some come in as low as 3.4 %! Many will immediately contend that this still constitutes a high enough risk level to warrant the current policies, laws, rights violations, and overall hysteria, “to protect the children!!” Where the myopic rubber meets the road here, is that as sentences, regulations, restrictions, and monitoring have increased, so proportionately has the number of absconded (whereabouts unknown) offenders - and equally significantly, the number of dead and missing children. How is this helping anyone, in any way?
Most are aware that “Meagan’s Law” is the precedent for the majority of today’s sex offender registries, monitoring, and community notification structures nationwide. What may come as a surprise is that there is absolutely no empirical evidence whatsoever that Megan’s or other like-minded laws have prevented anything, or protected anyone, ever. Many law enforcement professionals have gone on record bearing this out. While it has occasionally assisted in the apprehension of a few of the 2 – 5 % of individuals that did choose to re-offend, it can also be argued that those same resources could be applied to better screening, therapy, and public awareness processes, in order to lower that number even more and better detect warning signs - rather than wasting money and punishing many undeserving individuals for the sins of the few. It is difficult to even conceptualize the depths of Mrs. Kanka’s (Megan’s mother) grief or the scope of her family’s loss, and one would hope that very few would ever have to experience that level of tragedy. What must nonetheless be said is this: Laws should never be initiated by grieving families of victims for the above reasons. Having no basis in statistical fact, a “good idea on paper” has turned out to be ineffective, often unconstitutionally restrictive, and in effect counter-productive to its intended purpose (recidivism rates are the same as they were prior to the enactment of any of these laws.) The federal government’s typically inept reaction to this abject failure has been to create “SORNA” (legislation also initiated by an impacted family,) which is just more of the same, on a larger, more comprehensive scale. It reminds one of the tale of the watermelon vendors, selling melons for half of what they paid for them. After a season of losses, they concluded that a larger truck was necessary, so they could make it up next year in increased sales volume! We will not further protect our children by enveloping them in a blanket of false security. Rather, we must face facts and change course drastically if we hope to achieve a real difference – the need is clear for more exhaustive research, and more fitting, productive responses based on truth, not special-interest-serving fear-mongering.
Another hugely unproductive myth is that of “Stranger Danger.” Whether it be in public places, like malls and parks, on the streets, at the movies, wherever – your children are almost 95% safer at any of these locations, than they are in your own home, and the company of family, friends, and others that you actually “know,” and believe to be relatively safe. The explanation is simple – the overwhelming majority of child-related sex offenses are committed by someone known to the parents and the child - not “strangers.” While no one would advocate neglecting safety measures while in public, this merely illustrates yet another dangerous, counter-productive fallacy, that by its very nature, is likely contributive to an ongoing failure in the prevention of offenses that would be less likely to occur in an environment of accurate information.
A Perfect Storm
It’s important to clarify exactly how and why there are so many misconceptions, so much irrational fear and hatred, and such an unhealthy overall climate, which unintentionally contributes to worsening the problem. Simply put, there is a self-perpetuating cycle of misinformation, fear-mongering, knee-jerk reactions, and “feel good” legislation - all of which combine to create an exceptionally ineffective environment on every front of this “war.” It begins and ends with the news media, and our society’s apparent misconceptions about their true purpose. If we keep in mind that most of the media’s actual primary goal is, and always has been, to sell advertising, the overall picture might make more sense. It should come as no surprise that society possesses a certain morbid cultural curiosity around subjects that generally have very little or no direct relevance to most of us. For example, there seems to be something about fire that attracts our collective attention. The same goes for natural disasters such as typhoons and earthquakes, half the globe away. We’re constantly subjected to comprehensive coverage of the horrific of every kind, even though it generally has absolutely no practical impact on any of us, and that we have no intention of doing anything for or about. This seems to be exceedingly apparent with sexually based offenses, especially those committed against children. Almost like peeking at a scary movie through our fingers, we sit transfixed, unable to turn away – despite the heinous and revolting nature of what we’re viewing.
This is precisely what much of the media want and expect of us, and creates the most value benefit for them, in the form of advertising dollars - generated in direct proportion to the size of their audiences. The media have no desire whatsoever to report on what’s most relevant, important, or beneficial to you. Make no mistake, it’s all about the money, and always has been. Increasingly sensational (and often disturbing) stories go hand in hand with larger revenue potentials from bigger audiences.
The evolution and emergence of such an unfortunate dynamic has directly resulted in a precariously misinformed public, having been deliberately misled for profit, at an almost unimaginably high price. Because we’re told to believe that convicted sex offenders are inherently dangerous people that should be watched, regulated, supervised, and avoided if possible, we’re not looking where we should be for danger – within our own circles of family, friends, caregivers, and acquaintances. Meanwhile, we ostracize, revile, demean and disenfranchise a statistically harmless group of human beings.
Thus, the cycle continues with ubiquitous, sensationalistic misinformation, nurturing largely irrational and generally unjustifiable fear, contempt, repugnance, and hatred, all of which results in a devastatingly wasteful misdirection of energies and resources. With the public kept in a constant mindless frenzy of emotional reactivity (often due to atypical but high profile, particularly gruesome incidents,) the stage stays set for grandstanding politicians to step up – spouting rhetoric all having the same ring, “sex offenders are bad people, and we MUST protect our children from them, at ANY COST!”
The glaring error in this is that the vast majority of new-victim sexual offenses are not, repeat, not committed by already convicted sex offenders. Consequently as stated earlier, valuable resources are wasted on a relatively non-dangerous population. Still, the pundits rant on for their own political gain, probably fully cognizant of the pointlessness of what they propose, in order to garner more votes, gain leverage, or trash more level-headed, civil-rights-minded opponents. This prompts generally useless, often Draconian legislation that protects no one, and prevents nothing, but indeed looks “tough on crime” in the media. Public misinformation is then further reinforced, because, surely the lawmakers must know what they’re doing, right? Wrong. The statistics here, while undeniably true, are almost astounding, simply because they appear so foreign from what the media, policies, attitudes and overall current climate would suggest. Figures don’t lie, but liars apparently do figure.
We now come to the next insidious, cancer-like piece of this poisonous pie: The Criminal Justice System. More numerous and stricter laws equal more walls, more bars, more guards, more probation and parole officers - MORE MONEY. With over one million convicted sex offenders living and working among us, some very attractive opportunities present themselves to the ambitious in many professions. After all, who will come to the defense of a sex offender, even when it may involve his or her (the “her” contains a hypocrisy worthy of an entire additional article,) constitutional rights remaining intact? “They don’t deserve rights,” is a fairly common belief among many, largely due to the mass hypnosis continually perpetuated by the media and law enforcement, for their own benefits, not yours. Sex offenders, due to safety concerns, often require special, more expensive housing in jail and prison facilities, higher-priced custody situations for necessary segregation, and smaller scale, more expensive transport, for the same reasons. They often receive longer sentences, and are making up an ever-growing segment of today’s institutional populations. Again, more facilities, jobs, and money for everyone, at the taxpayers’ expense. So, why do the authorities continue to ignore relevant research and real facts? Because it’s profitable to do so. What price does this carry, beyond just dollars and sense? Our children, and many law abiding citizens pay it every day, in decreased safety, misplaced trust, and losses of freedoms.
And finally, we must consider the therapeutic sector’s impacts, interests and implications in this idiotic ideology. One might mistakenly assume that therapy providers would endeavor to act in society’s best interests in order to minimize recidivism rates. Wrong again. Here is yet another area where financial interests outweigh the greater good. Psychologists that treat sex offenders are generally contracted through states’ and counties’ criminal justice systems, and therefore subject not just to intense scrutiny from law enforcement such as probation and parole departments, but actually often must waive standard confidentiality procedures, and even conform their programs to requirements set by authorities. There have been numerous cases, some successful, some thrown out, of offenders being further prosecuted for disclosing additional victims or offenses in “private” therapy sessions. In return for sacrificing professional practices, experience, and ethics, treatment providers are rewarded with almost guaranteed success through lucrative contracts that provide them with a steady stream of long-term, compliant “customers.” So, the actual “customer” becomes the state or county, while offenders and taxpayers foot the bills for substandard, compromised – and consequentially less effective – “treatment.” All this is in seeming opposition to the standard mantra that “there is no cure,” so what actually is the point? It would appear to be an exemplary application of the Orwellian concept of “Double-think,” wherein government and society allow themselves to believe two directly conflicting ideas at the same time, in order to benefit financially and politically. The major costs, obviously, are that the safety and well-being of our children, as well as the constitutional rights of over a million Americans and counting, are being line by line sacrificed to get your vote and strengthen and grow already ineffective systems.
How Do We Fix It?
The solution is two-fold. From the perspective of society and for the victims’ well-being, it is necessary to develop better awareness programs, geared toward warning signs, trauma indicators, and common techniques and typical set scenarios used by offenders to “groom” their potential victims. The most widespread fallacies must be dispelled, such as that of “stranger danger,” vs. “next-door-neighbor danger,” and replaced with solid foundational information, that may actually help prevent offenses, and protect children.
With respect to convicted offenders themselves, more accurate and universal risk-assessment tools must be developed, based on empirical evidence that already does indeed exist, and has thus far just been ignored, or at best, not properly mined. Perhaps the greatest advancement we could make to help decrease the overall aggregate amount of child sexual abuse is to confront the general public with the facts – convicted sex offenders are not inherently dangerous, and their deviances can be successfully managed. This in turn will hopefully engender an environment wherein offenders can come forward to seek the help they need, because again and contrary to popular belief, most are not devoid of conscience, and struggle with deviant behaviors prior to being caught – and are simply not willing to be subjected to the current social branding and vilification that inevitably accompany such disclosures. Instead, they are almost forced to choose to try to deal with their problems on their own, and are consequently likely to commit many more offenses then they would with proper treatment.
It is not being suggested that all be forgiven, and no consequences come to bear, but rather we endeavor to balance them with solution-oriented results in mind, as opposed to the current atmosphere of utter contempt and hatred. We stand at a critical crossroads right now, both socially and legally – we had best tread carefully.
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