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
I clearly don't understand you. You engage my post first critiquing it like you are debating me as the college professor I know you to be. Then when I respond to it you step back from defending the point and say you don't need evidence that your gut tells you that you are right. When I hear that phrase it makes me pay closer attention, because I have seen first hand how people using their gut and using arm chair philosophy has got us to where we are with the registry.
Again, please remember you first questioned me.
And you completely missed my point when I said fear started the registry. Of course I think Shelly is in agreement with that, but the point I was bringing up is at what point did the registry switch from fear based to money based? If the fear is still there how do we know money is more important than fear? Her argument just assumed that money was greater than fear but didn't answer those two questions.
To simplify my response I think we can all agree the registry wasn't started as a way to make people money. It was founded on the fear of stranger danger from the cases of famous abducted children. If that is the case I have 2 questions that are tied together:
1. Assuming the registry was founded on fear is it fair to say the public is just as scared now or perhaps even more so due to the nature of the 24 hour media than they were back when the registry started?
2. If the answer to question one is yes, at what point did the registry shift from being fear based to money based and what evidence do you have to support that conclusion?
The politicians soon learned that one way to ensue re-election each term was to continue to be tough on sex offenders, so they have continued to pass more restrictive laws throughout the years. If there is anything politicians strive for, it is to keep their job by getting re-elected.
These laws are not enacted so someone can make a big profit.
But there ARE groups of people who have some---a portion--- of their income generated as a result of people on probation, but NOT necessarily because of people on the registry. The registry by itself does not generate money for psychologists, therapists, or polygraphers; people on the registry and only on the registry who are off paper time never visit court appointed psychologists or therapists, nor do they take polygraphs. They are off paper, have completed their sentence, and cannot be forced to see any of these people.
So, really, the entity that generates most of the income for these groups of people is probation or parole, NOT the registry. It is the probationers who have all these court appointed programs which generate income for certain groups of people. I was never on probation, and I never even thought about going to a psychologist or therapist.
But in some states a registrant does indeed have to pay a yearly fee to the state. The amount of income for the state which is paid by the registrant is a drop in the bucket to the total cost of the registry.
Now here is where I think people begin to disagree. Probation was not established for the government to make money, but all the fees have become a complete racket. How many of those fees are driven by a desire to make money or are just a way to rehabilitate the offender, I don't know. All these fees a probationer must pay does make it seem as if this entire scheme is all about money.
It is the probation rather than the registry that generates most of the income for these groups of people. But to muddy up the waters even more, many sex offenders served probation instead of going to prison and most of those who did go to prison had a probationary period after their release from prison.
This issue is so complex. Then you also have the millions of dollars in federal grant money given to LE. I don't know how it is exactly allocated or what percentage the local LE, the state LE, the ICAC of each state or any other LE agency receives, but someone receives that money. So that is a factor.
The huge federal grants the ICAC and other agencies receive probably contribute more than anything else to our prison overcrowding problem and our problem with too many probationers. I realize that LE agencies might need some funding, but all these hundreds of thousands of dollars only give these LE agencies an incentive to create crime rather than fight crime. One good example is Grady Judd, but there are others. A lot of your questionable and borderline sex charges would never be filed----with the resulting conviction since everyone pleas-----if it were not for all the federal grant money floating around. All these agencies fight over these grants.
Earlier I stated, " I don't see how anyone could think that the registry was driven by money instead of fear." BUT, the federal grants DO cause more people to be convicted of sex crimes, which DOES place more people on the registry, so it would be wrong for anyone to say that money is not a factor at all in the number of people on the registry.
The media has played an important part in keeping our prisons full and tainting our criminal justice system. The media has been the culprit which has caused all these laws to be enacted to begin with.
Anyway, this is my two cents on this subject. I hope this debate or discussion or conversation has made each of us think about how we got to this point of so many laws and what keeps these laws going.
Regardless of how each of us think, I hope we all realize it is in our best interests to agree to disagree. Each----every damn person----on this forum is valuable and needed for our fight for fairness. Everybody on this forum has an opinion and we must respect that.
Frankly, I am not sure if it matters if a person thinks the registry is fueled by money or is fueled by fear. The entire scheme is complicated and we all need to stick together.
rewdiazepam
Treatment providers who aren't really in it for treatment but money making.
LE and Prosecutors want more sex offenders as they get more government money to help fight sex crimes (that they create a crime), and it's easy to secure a conviction. The more inmates, the more the state receives in funding.
The list can go on and on, on ways that the registry was morphed into a money making scheme. Even data showing that the vast majority of sex offenders never reoffend, doesn't deter more and more ways that sex offenders have to pay to "help keep society safe."