Families of SOs Community Group
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Shelly,
I wanted to start this reply off by saying how impressed I am with you and the work you do for our movement. You have this calm demeanor about you that when responding to hateful people on the internet that is amazing. You constantly represent our movement in the best way possible, using logic and statistics to try and get people to see the truth of the matter. One of your replies a couple years ago on a newspaper article is what sparked me to want to become more involved. This is all to say thank you for what you do, you do a great job.
A little background about me, I made a horrendous choice as a young teenager was charged several years later as an adult. I did not serve time in prison but I was on probation and had to register. I am now married, finished college and have 2 four year degrees, have a full time decent job (though underemployed because of background checks), and I also live in a state with fairly good RSO laws, so I cannot complain and I feel very blessed.
Having lived the registry and seen how it has grown, I find myself agreeing with some of your points and disagreeing with others. I agree that the registry is a multi-billion dollar business, and I like the way you showed all the players of the registry in this blog post. Your conclusion I agree with for the most part:
“Proper management of such a vast range of behaviors requires moving away from our “one size fits all” model and actually reading the research and listening to the experts in the field. Even more essential is focusing on the very real problem of child sexual abuse and those who really do sexually abuse our children and developing appropriate programs of education and prevention.”
I agree we need to move away from a “one size fits all” model. Research shows different offenses have varying levels of recidivism rates inside the sex offender label. Recidivism also varies depending on the age of the perpetrator and victim, the sex of the victim, the relationship of the perp to victim etc. To deal with all offenders the same way is not only burdensome on the system, it creates registry bloat.
I agree it is essential to focus on the very real problem of child sexual abuse, I don’t need to tell you according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics that 92.9% of victims of child sexual abuse know their abuser and usually quite well. Prevention and education are paramount if we are ever to get ahead of child sexual abuse and have any hope of stopping it.
However I disagree with your thesis and the last line of your closing paragraph.
Thesis:
“…following the money trail reveals what lies at the heart and continues to drive this occasionally well-meaning but more often self-serving complexity of businesses, individuals, and motivations that comprise this billion dollar industry.”
Last sentence:
“But first we need to dismantle the sex offender industry; we need to remove the financial and personal incentives to keep the status quo; otherwise, nothing will change.”
While I don’t think these groups benefiting financially helps us at all trying to end the registry it is not the driving force of why the registry was created in the first place. The driving force of the registry is fear. The registry was built on the awful stranger danger cases of Jacob and Adam, Megan and Jessica. It was not built upon Washington, Lincoln, Jackson and Franklin.
Let’s say it was possible and we could remove the financial aspects of the registry, I don’t know how you could possibly tell a private company not to make money on something but let’s for the sake of argument we can. Even if we were to remove the financial aspect of the registry, there is still a public that is scared to death of stranger danger when they really should be looking in their family portrait. If instead we were able to show the public the truth and they actually understood it (I know not likely to happen for quite some time!) and we could stop the fear the public has you would have a sex offender industry that would run out of clients.
Here is how I see registry, I would love your feedback on this:
Fear is generated by the 24-7 news and media. News organizations are in business to make money, and in order to do that they have to sell advertising space. They have a phrase, “If it bleeds, it leads” and I think this is truly to our detriment. I think based on our psychology we as humans tend to remember the negative things we see hear much more so than positive. If you actually look at the UCR and the NCVS crime rates have actually gone down yet the fear of crime has gone through the roof. I think that is a good picture of what happens with the general public and sex crimes.
Someone like Valigator can share stories all day long and she believes she is right that all sex offenders need to be shot. She believes that in spite of what research says, she believes it so much she thinks the research is faked, that they are “cooking the books”. Unfortunately she is not an unusual example of this cognitive bias, she is just the loudest mouthpiece of it. Much of America thinks just like her--why? Because they see a news story every night of another sex offender. When a person does not step back and get a bird’s eye view of the situation based on statistics they end up with a warped sense of reality.
Politicians see that fear the general public has and capitalizes on it. They see how easy it is to propose ever more draconian bills and their constituents not only like it, they LOVE it! Even if a politician wanted to help our cause right now it is just a terrible business decision to do so. However most politicians don’t really want to help us, they fall all over each other to propose even more restrictive laws to keep the community “safer” and to keep the votes rolling in. Their mantra is “If it only saves one child!” because who could be against saving children?
So first fear from the media created a need for politicians to look tough and do something about it. Politicians then created all sorts of ridiculous laws to try and keep the country “safe”, it was in these laws that the sex offender industry you speak of erupted. I don’t believe the industry started as a heinous effort to keep sex offenders down. I think entrepreneurs saw a need and a guaranteed stream of public money for the long haul and set up shop.
The sex offender industry is a billion dollar business with part of its contributions coming from sex offenders themselves but mostly it is doled out by the government. Which means John Q Taxpayer is paying for the brunt of the registry.
So while I think the branches you mentioned are certainly powerful it is not the main reason the registry is not going away. Until the public can get the memo fear will continue to reign supreme, the politicians will continue to capitalize on that fear for their own gains and the industry will stay strong.
-Independent2014
I wanted to start this reply off by saying how impressed I am with you and the work you do for our movement. You have this calm demeanor about you that when responding to hateful people on the internet that is amazing. You constantly represent our movement in the best way possible, using logic and statistics to try and get people to see the truth of the matter. One of your replies a couple years ago on a newspaper article is what sparked me to want to become more involved. This is all to say thank you for what you do, you do a great job.
A little background about me, I made a horrendous choice as a young teenager was charged several years later as an adult. I did not serve time in prison but I was on probation and had to register. I am now married, finished college and have 2 four year degrees, have a full time decent job (though underemployed because of background checks), and I also live in a state with fairly good RSO laws, so I cannot complain and I feel very blessed.
Having lived the registry and seen how it has grown, I find myself agreeing with some of your points and disagreeing with others. I agree that the registry is a multi-billion dollar business, and I like the way you showed all the players of the registry in this blog post. Your conclusion I agree with for the most part:
“Proper management of such a vast range of behaviors requires moving away from our “one size fits all” model and actually reading the research and listening to the experts in the field. Even more essential is focusing on the very real problem of child sexual abuse and those who really do sexually abuse our children and developing appropriate programs of education and prevention.”
I agree we need to move away from a “one size fits all” model. Research shows different offenses have varying levels of recidivism rates inside the sex offender label. Recidivism also varies depending on the age of the perpetrator and victim, the sex of the victim, the relationship of the perp to victim etc. To deal with all offenders the same way is not only burdensome on the system, it creates registry bloat.
I agree it is essential to focus on the very real problem of child sexual abuse, I don’t need to tell you according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics that 92.9% of victims of child sexual abuse know their abuser and usually quite well. Prevention and education are paramount if we are ever to get ahead of child sexual abuse and have any hope of stopping it.
However I disagree with your thesis and the last line of your closing paragraph.
Thesis:
“…following the money trail reveals what lies at the heart and continues to drive this occasionally well-meaning but more often self-serving complexity of businesses, individuals, and motivations that comprise this billion dollar industry.”
Last sentence:
“But first we need to dismantle the sex offender industry; we need to remove the financial and personal incentives to keep the status quo; otherwise, nothing will change.”
While I don’t think these groups benefiting financially helps us at all trying to end the registry it is not the driving force of why the registry was created in the first place. The driving force of the registry is fear. The registry was built on the awful stranger danger cases of Jacob and Adam, Megan and Jessica. It was not built upon Washington, Lincoln, Jackson and Franklin.
Let’s say it was possible and we could remove the financial aspects of the registry, I don’t know how you could possibly tell a private company not to make money on something but let’s for the sake of argument we can. Even if we were to remove the financial aspect of the registry, there is still a public that is scared to death of stranger danger when they really should be looking in their family portrait. If instead we were able to show the public the truth and they actually understood it (I know not likely to happen for quite some time!) and we could stop the fear the public has you would have a sex offender industry that would run out of clients.
Here is how I see registry, I would love your feedback on this:
Fear is generated by the 24-7 news and media. News organizations are in business to make money, and in order to do that they have to sell advertising space. They have a phrase, “If it bleeds, it leads” and I think this is truly to our detriment. I think based on our psychology we as humans tend to remember the negative things we see hear much more so than positive. If you actually look at the UCR and the NCVS crime rates have actually gone down yet the fear of crime has gone through the roof. I think that is a good picture of what happens with the general public and sex crimes.
Someone like Valigator can share stories all day long and she believes she is right that all sex offenders need to be shot. She believes that in spite of what research says, she believes it so much she thinks the research is faked, that they are “cooking the books”. Unfortunately she is not an unusual example of this cognitive bias, she is just the loudest mouthpiece of it. Much of America thinks just like her--why? Because they see a news story every night of another sex offender. When a person does not step back and get a bird’s eye view of the situation based on statistics they end up with a warped sense of reality.
Politicians see that fear the general public has and capitalizes on it. They see how easy it is to propose ever more draconian bills and their constituents not only like it, they LOVE it! Even if a politician wanted to help our cause right now it is just a terrible business decision to do so. However most politicians don’t really want to help us, they fall all over each other to propose even more restrictive laws to keep the community “safer” and to keep the votes rolling in. Their mantra is “If it only saves one child!” because who could be against saving children?
So first fear from the media created a need for politicians to look tough and do something about it. Politicians then created all sorts of ridiculous laws to try and keep the country “safe”, it was in these laws that the sex offender industry you speak of erupted. I don’t believe the industry started as a heinous effort to keep sex offenders down. I think entrepreneurs saw a need and a guaranteed stream of public money for the long haul and set up shop.
The sex offender industry is a billion dollar business with part of its contributions coming from sex offenders themselves but mostly it is doled out by the government. Which means John Q Taxpayer is paying for the brunt of the registry.
So while I think the branches you mentioned are certainly powerful it is not the main reason the registry is not going away. Until the public can get the memo fear will continue to reign supreme, the politicians will continue to capitalize on that fear for their own gains and the industry will stay strong.
-Independent2014
More importantly how would you propose stopping private businesses from making money off the registry? The politicians don't want to stop because their constituents love them for making it harder on sex offenders and they get money for re-election. The public won't want to stop it because they are fearful of sex offenders. The courts cannot do anything about it because there is nothing inherently illegal about the government farming out jobs to private business.
Most voters are idiots. They don't know anything about government until the few days before an election when the candidates thump their chests. Then they make their decisions based on whatever news programs they watch. After the election the go back to ignorance.
If they really knew just how much money is wasted based on fear they would vote differently. If they knew how much money we spend defending some piece sand in the middle east we wouldn't be there. If they knew how much they pay for a hammer for the defense department they would scream. If they knew that the registry is totally useless based on the fact they would want it abolished. Politicians won't let that happen. They're afraid their constituents will find out the real facts and they'll be out of a job!
This is called "Capitalism." Everything is controlled by the almighty dollar. You can't tell someone they can't make money on anything. When the private extortion websites popped up the government stepped in to stop them yet their own extortion sites are okay.
You bring up an interesting point, why does it even matter if it is fear or money the registry is here to stay?
I would say it changes the paradigm. When looking at the registry from our side of it, it is easy to get overwhelmed. I personally think it is even more overwhelming when you think you are trapped in it because of money. Because how can you compete with a billion dollar industry? What can you do as an individual with little to no disposable income to ever hope to fight the industry?
If instead we understand that fear is the main motivating factor for the registry and see that the industry is ancillary to the fear we can now fight the real problem.
So not only do I think there isn't evidence to show the registry is driven by money, I think the view isn't as advantageous to action as believing it is driven by fear.
I never said it's driven by money only that money is being made.
http://with-justiceforall.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-sex-offender-industry.html
You still have never responded to my claim in the other post. Your claim is the government has to be making money on the registry or they wouldn't be doing it. My retort was the government is trillions of dollars in debt, why would you think this is the one time they are actually making a financially sound decision?
And I agree there is corruption in the political process, I just don't think it's a government wide conspiracy. Individual politicians get rich, re-elected, more of their pet bills passed, but overall there is no way the government is making money on sex offenders. The tax payers are footing the bill.