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I will probably be the only person on here who disagrees with the notion that there is big money in the registry. To spell that out a little more I believe there is a lot of money being spent on the registry. However, I do not believe any one player is gaining enough money from it to make it financially relevant.
Now if you are saying there is big money on private prisons I wholeheartedly agree. Private prisons make me sick. However in private prisons if they had a choice I don't think even they would want more sex offenders in their prisons. Sex offenders are much harder to manage in prison because of all the protective custody. Why would a private prison want to pay more to protect RSOs from other criminals and still get paid the same amount of money from the state? Truly we are pariahs when even the private prisons don't really want us.
Let's look at the other players of the registry and ask what individual players are "gaining all this big money"?
1. Polygraphers: I'm sure they are making a comfortable living. I asked my polygraphers when I was going through probation how many “clients” they saw a week. They told me usually like 2 or 3 non-correction clients a week and the rest is all from probation and parole. The main guy I went to only worked part time as a retirement gig, and he saw maybe 10 people a week. Still if you think about the cost of polygraphs, this is a pretty good retirement job. So yes, polygraphers are making a cushy living not going to argue that, but what power do they have as a group to push policy like this on society? Almost none. Is there a powerful polygrapher lobby on Capital Hill
2. The Corrections Department: This includes probation, parole, state prisons.
According the Bureau of Justice Statistics, State prisons had an estimated 1,314,900 inmates at the end of 2013, only 160,900 or 12.23% were in there for rape of sexual assault. The Bureau of Justice Statistics also tracks parole and probation by crime, there were 3,910,600 on probation in 2013, of which 3% or 117,318 probationers were on probation for a sex offense. In 2013 there were 853,200 on probation of which, 10% or 85,320. So all totaled there are 6,078,700 people in the correction system of which only 5.9% or 363,448 people are in for sexual offenses.
Now is 363,448 a lot of people? Yes, that is a lot of people in the system right now for sex crimes. However if sex offenders and sex crimes were really driving big money to the states wouldn’t you expect there to be more of the total corrections system than just 5.9%? I would definitely think that number would be higher, in a way I am kind of surprised it is so low in comparison to how often I am bombarded by sex crimes in the media. I would love to see a study done where random people on the street are asked what they think the people in prison and on probation/parole are on there for based on percentages. That would tell us how influential the media really is in shaping our reality.
3. Fees registrants pay: If you have been through probation or parole or have ever been on the registry you know all about the fees we have to pay for the state to “manage” us. I know it may seem like a lot of money that we have to fork over for the state to do effectively nothing, but in the long run it really is not that much money when you are talking about a large bureaucracy known as our government.
Let’s say that every person on the registry has to pay 100 a year for “registry upkeep and supervision costs”. Using a rough estimate of 800,000 registrants, that is 80 million dollars a year. I hate to be crass here, but when it comes to a bureaucracy, you cannot even wipe your gluteus maximus for 80 million dollars. The government is spending way more a year in just labor costs than this!
You know why there are only 17 states that are SORNA compliant? Because the government has not made it worthwhile for states to join. The Federal Government has threatened states by saying if they are not SORNA compliant they will lose 10% of their Byrne grant for law enforcement, and 33 states have said it’s not worth it!
http://www.justicepolicy.org/images/upload/08-08_fac_sornacosts_jj.pdf
It does not seem to me that states are rolling around in the dough when it comes to sex offenders. They are turning down more money because it actually costs them more to be compliant.
Let’s also assume that of the approximately 200,000 people on probation and parole that each one of them pays a monthly “supervision fee” of $50. Now not everyone is going to be able to afford that because they are homeless or poor, but let’s assume for the sake of argument that everyone can and does pay every month. That is 120 million a year. Again, you cannot wipe your gluteus maximus in big government with 120 million dollars.
4. The costs states pay outside agencies to handle the registry:
The state of Ohio is paying an independent company 50,000 a year to manage their registry. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that every state is paying 50,000 a year for a company to manage their registry (they aren’t but let’s assume), that would be 2.5 million dollars.
5. Individual grants: Yes the Federal government will give out grants to help stop the flavor of the week crimes, just look at the task forces in central Florida. But again no one is getting rich off of this and moreover they are going where the politicians are directing them to go. If anyone is at fault here it is the politicians, a good majority of our politicians have been to law school and should know better and how to think critically.
6. Treatment providers: Yes do they get money from sex offenders, and can determine how long they have to stay in treatment. This is a probably a conflict of interest in some scenarios, I can see that and understand how some people here would say this is for monetary reasons. However, it is not as if these treatment providers will be out of clients any time soon. I would answer the conflict of interest question by also saying that If they “graduate” people and they are successful the treatment providers may also be more likely to get more clients from corrections. You also do not see treatment providers as a lobbying group.
7. Victim’s advocate groups: I have said it once and I will say it again, these groups are not out for money. I have not ran across a single victim advocate group that got into it to make money. They got into it because they either know someone who was abused or were abused themselves. They are not in it to make a quick buck, most believe deep down that they are doing the right thing to try and stop what happened to them from happening to others.
Conclusion:
In the grand scheme of things, 200 million dollars is a drop in the bucket for the government and all other individual players are not getting anywhere near that amount. This insistence that the registry is somehow making other people rich is a fairy tale in my opinion.
Now if you are saying there is big money on private prisons I wholeheartedly agree. Private prisons make me sick. However in private prisons if they had a choice I don't think even they would want more sex offenders in their prisons. Sex offenders are much harder to manage in prison because of all the protective custody. Why would a private prison want to pay more to protect RSOs from other criminals and still get paid the same amount of money from the state? Truly we are pariahs when even the private prisons don't really want us.
Let's look at the other players of the registry and ask what individual players are "gaining all this big money"?
1. Polygraphers: I'm sure they are making a comfortable living. I asked my polygraphers when I was going through probation how many “clients” they saw a week. They told me usually like 2 or 3 non-correction clients a week and the rest is all from probation and parole. The main guy I went to only worked part time as a retirement gig, and he saw maybe 10 people a week. Still if you think about the cost of polygraphs, this is a pretty good retirement job. So yes, polygraphers are making a cushy living not going to argue that, but what power do they have as a group to push policy like this on society? Almost none. Is there a powerful polygrapher lobby on Capital Hill
2. The Corrections Department: This includes probation, parole, state prisons.
According the Bureau of Justice Statistics, State prisons had an estimated 1,314,900 inmates at the end of 2013, only 160,900 or 12.23% were in there for rape of sexual assault. The Bureau of Justice Statistics also tracks parole and probation by crime, there were 3,910,600 on probation in 2013, of which 3% or 117,318 probationers were on probation for a sex offense. In 2013 there were 853,200 on probation of which, 10% or 85,320. So all totaled there are 6,078,700 people in the correction system of which only 5.9% or 363,448 people are in for sexual offenses.
Now is 363,448 a lot of people? Yes, that is a lot of people in the system right now for sex crimes. However if sex offenders and sex crimes were really driving big money to the states wouldn’t you expect there to be more of the total corrections system than just 5.9%? I would definitely think that number would be higher, in a way I am kind of surprised it is so low in comparison to how often I am bombarded by sex crimes in the media. I would love to see a study done where random people on the street are asked what they think the people in prison and on probation/parole are on there for based on percentages. That would tell us how influential the media really is in shaping our reality.
3. Fees registrants pay: If you have been through probation or parole or have ever been on the registry you know all about the fees we have to pay for the state to “manage” us. I know it may seem like a lot of money that we have to fork over for the state to do effectively nothing, but in the long run it really is not that much money when you are talking about a large bureaucracy known as our government.
Let’s say that every person on the registry has to pay 100 a year for “registry upkeep and supervision costs”. Using a rough estimate of 800,000 registrants, that is 80 million dollars a year. I hate to be crass here, but when it comes to a bureaucracy, you cannot even wipe your gluteus maximus for 80 million dollars. The government is spending way more a year in just labor costs than this!
You know why there are only 17 states that are SORNA compliant? Because the government has not made it worthwhile for states to join. The Federal Government has threatened states by saying if they are not SORNA compliant they will lose 10% of their Byrne grant for law enforcement, and 33 states have said it’s not worth it!
http://www.justicepolicy.org/images/upload/08-08_fac_sornacosts_jj.pdf
It does not seem to me that states are rolling around in the dough when it comes to sex offenders. They are turning down more money because it actually costs them more to be compliant.
Let’s also assume that of the approximately 200,000 people on probation and parole that each one of them pays a monthly “supervision fee” of $50. Now not everyone is going to be able to afford that because they are homeless or poor, but let’s assume for the sake of argument that everyone can and does pay every month. That is 120 million a year. Again, you cannot wipe your gluteus maximus in big government with 120 million dollars.
4. The costs states pay outside agencies to handle the registry:
The state of Ohio is paying an independent company 50,000 a year to manage their registry. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that every state is paying 50,000 a year for a company to manage their registry (they aren’t but let’s assume), that would be 2.5 million dollars.
5. Individual grants: Yes the Federal government will give out grants to help stop the flavor of the week crimes, just look at the task forces in central Florida. But again no one is getting rich off of this and moreover they are going where the politicians are directing them to go. If anyone is at fault here it is the politicians, a good majority of our politicians have been to law school and should know better and how to think critically.
6. Treatment providers: Yes do they get money from sex offenders, and can determine how long they have to stay in treatment. This is a probably a conflict of interest in some scenarios, I can see that and understand how some people here would say this is for monetary reasons. However, it is not as if these treatment providers will be out of clients any time soon. I would answer the conflict of interest question by also saying that If they “graduate” people and they are successful the treatment providers may also be more likely to get more clients from corrections. You also do not see treatment providers as a lobbying group.
7. Victim’s advocate groups: I have said it once and I will say it again, these groups are not out for money. I have not ran across a single victim advocate group that got into it to make money. They got into it because they either know someone who was abused or were abused themselves. They are not in it to make a quick buck, most believe deep down that they are doing the right thing to try and stop what happened to them from happening to others.
Conclusion:
In the grand scheme of things, 200 million dollars is a drop in the bucket for the government and all other individual players are not getting anywhere near that amount. This insistence that the registry is somehow making other people rich is a fairy tale in my opinion.
Sex offender treatment providers have the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers, the American Psychological Association and a whole host of other related professional associations.
Then you move on to things like the Center for Sex Offender Management which has ties to the American Correctional Association, the American Probation and Parole Association, the American Jail Association, the Council of State Governments, International Association of Chiefs of Police, the National Association of Pretrial Services Agencies, the National Criminal Justice Association and several others like the Center for Effective Public Policy.
Every individual involved with starting and maintaining the registry from the bottom to the top will have attended a function put on by one of the associations or have at least been contacted by one or more of the above associations and most will be dues paying members of one or more of the above associations. The primary function of the vast majority of these associations is to lobby for the interests of that association at every level of the federal, state and local government so yes even the treatment providers are a lobbying group. Every wonder how the polygraph or scientifically baseless devices like the penile plethysmograph became so popular? Professional associations lobbying for governments to adopt them. Reliability? Oh don't worry about that Senator! Our examiners are certified (by us) of course.
I'm sure you're familiar with the term "living room" but what you probably don't know is that term didn't exist until just over a century ago when the fledgling National Funeral Director's Association hired a PR firm to help convince people to use their services. The PR firm hired decorators and got a series of articles and ads published targeting the family matriarch. The goal was to convince them to use the parlor, a room traditionally reserved honoring the deceased, for other things. The tag line? Transform your parlor into a "Living Room". In conjunction with this campaign the association lobbied every legislature in sight to enact laws and regulations restricting the ability of the individual to take care of their dead. They emphasized health concerns, how dangerous it was not to embalm the body and how only licensed professionals should handle the dead. You can thank the NFDA for every rule, regulation and law on the books concerning funerals, cemeteries and transportation of a body.Was there a massive amount of money involved? Not really but it was enough to create a powerful lobby that changed how Americans felt about and handled a death in the family.That's the kind of power you're questioning. Death is a natural, inevitable occurrence. Imagine how much easier it is to lobby against something that's universally reviled like sex offenders. The funeral directors only had one group advocating their position. You have dozens if not hundreds lobbying against sex offenders and the majority of those do so for the benefit of their members and nothing more.
You also mentioned being AWA compliant. You correctly pointed out that not being AWA compliant does cost a state up to 10% of their Byrnes Justice Assistance grants but that's it so the fiscal determination depends entirely on how much Byrnes grant money a state gets. If they get a lot then they actually profit by being AWA compliant. If they don't get that much then it might cost them more than the penalty to be compliant. You should also be aware of the fact that Byrnes grants are far from the only source of federal money to implement and maintain the registry. There are at least a dozen other federal grant programs that fund the registries and related endeavors. There are also millions upon millions of dollars in grants available to the very associations that are lobbying for the registry for impact studies, research on offenders etc etc etc.
Figuring out an exact dollar amount is probably impossible but I'm certain you have severely underestimated the actual power and money involved
I'm just asking for evidence that shows even a correlation.
Can we agree most money spent on the registry goes to feed big government and not private companies? If not please show me your evidence otherwise.
Can we agree that politicians would be pushing draconian sex offender laws as their golden goose to get re-elected and look tough on crime with or without any money from other groups? If you disagree, I want to see your proof that these groups (besides private prisons) pay politicians. And second I want to know how you know politicians wouldn't be pushing this legislation without the money behind it.
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Why would the association do such a thing? Public policies favorable to its members means more money for its members which in turn means a greater interest in treating sex offenders because it can be lucrative which in turn means more paying memberships which in turns means being able to do more in the interest of its members. It's just that simple and yet it is a very powerful thing. Some of the money you paid in treatment fees went directly towards driving public policy in favor of the treatment provider. Ignore it or downplay it if you wish but you do so at your own peril because as I said before every association I listed does the exact same thing.
I personally have worked events for the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers, the American Psychological Association, the Council of State Governments, the American Jail Association and the Center for Effective Public Policy. Other people I work with have worked events for the American Polygraph Association, the American Probation and Parole Association and the National Criminal Justice Association. A part of each and every one of the conferences for these associations is a report on the association's lobbying activities and successes for the year. It does not take outrageous sums of money. All it takes is enough money to provide a "comfortable" living for enough dues paying people. Heck even WIC has a full time lobbyist to drive public policy that favors WIC and he is very good at his job even though most people describe him as "a f****ing b****rd"!
I know you don't believe it and think it's pitiful amounts of money but portions of what registrants pay in treatment, supervision and registration fees goes directly towards and drives the very public policies that created the registry, mandatory treatment, the extreme conditions of SO supervision and you would be an idiot to ignore or discount it.
And is lobbying inherently wrong? I don’t think so as long as what is being lobbied for is evidence based. I think we should judge each situation as a case by case scenario. In your example, treatment providers lobbying for all people convicted of sex crimes to receive therapy. Is this a bad idea on its face? No. The research I have seen has shown that treatment can lead up to an 8% reduction in recidivism, the link that Peekachu linked yesterday from the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, http://www.jhsph.edu/research/centers-and-institutes/moore-center-for-the-prevention-of-child-sexual-abuse/_pdfs/Moore%20Center%202014%20Symposium-Summary%20Report.pdf
Your suggestion that the books are being cooked here is a little out of place in my opinion. The question, “if an offender receives therapy are they less likely to commit another sex crime” is an objective question, not a subjective question. Meaning that you can look at hard data of say all repeat sex offenses in a year, and you can determine which if any had therapy and which did not. It would be much harder to say the books are being cooked with such an objective question such as this.
Now if you want to argue about a subjective question like when is an offender’s treatment “complete” I can certainly agree with you. Therapists hold the upper hand in these situations because they can basically write their own pay check by deciding how long an individual will see them, I cannot debate that logic. What I would say is they will never have a shortage of clients given our current public policy. With that in mind they most likely would not need to make someone’s treatment last indefinitely since there is another paycheck around the corner just getting out of prison, or being placed on probation. Since there is an ample supply of clients, it makes it less likely in my opinion that they would be lying about when an offender’s treatment is complete.
I do not think the treatment providers have “cooked the books” on whether treatment is successful. If you believe otherwise, I would be interested to see what studies you are citing. As such, I am in favor of this public policy of making people convicted of sex crimes go to therapy. Now does a policy like this have a lot of strange situations like Nak’s son who incidentally downloaded CP, yes it does. That is why I still believe there should be judicial discretion.
What legislation can you show that has been lobbied for by these groups that was not done in good faith?
And you still haven’t answered the question Aladdin how can you separate the effect this lobbying has from the gold at the end of the rainbow of every sex offender bill politicians propose and enact?
And you also have not challenged the main tenant that the majority of the funding we spend as registered citizens goes down the sink hole of big government.
Your objective question - “If an offender receives therapy are they less likely to commit another sex crime?” There is data that says yes but there is also data that says no along with data that says a penile plethysmograph is an effective means of testing a person for deviancy and data that says it isn't with a lot of subjective assumptions being made but that's hardly the point. The point is mandatory treatment was being lobbied for before any policy maker ever bothered to ask if treatment was effective. It's still being lobbied for and the lobbying is successful even in "no cure" states like Colorado that don't even legally acknowledge the possibility it could be effective. No grand conspiracy or cooking the books just a plain simple fact.
Reality check - Treatment providers are businesses and they would not be in the business of providing treatment unless it was profitable. In fact they couldn't even be in the business of providing treatment unless it was profitable because a business that doesn't make a profit goes bankrupt and out of business fairly quickly. Undeniably the best way to ensure providing sex offender treatment is profitable is by making it mandatory for as many offenders as possible. Is it a bad idea? Not necessarily. Is it a good idea? Possibly. Is it an idea born purely of altruistic good faith? Not so much but it is an idea that has taken hold thanks to lobbying efforts. Another reality check - In many states and the federal system the treatment provider receives funds from the government for every person they treat in addition to whatever the offender pays. Just more simple plain facts.
When is treatment complete? That all depends on where you live. In many states and federal districts you never complete treatment it's mandatory as long as you're under supervision. I'll give you three guesses as to how that came to be and the first two don't count. Writing your own pay check indeed.
Legislation? That's not a question I ever attempted to answer and as far as the second part goes I'm not sure what you're talking about but I'm pretty sure I never attempted to answer that either because this is what I was responding to:
"I agree people profit off registry, I agree those people wouldn't want the "gravy train" to stop. I question what power they have to keep the laws the way they are and what power they are currently using to implement their evil plan. I have never seen my former polygrapher or therapist at the state capital."
You questioned what power your former polygraphist and therapist have to keep laws the way they are and how they could influence public policy. You also asked to provide a link or even just a correlation between the money an offender pays and how it could be used to influence policy. I have done just exactly that, nothing more nothing less. The link is very real and the influences it helps fund are very powerful and very effective. This is but one example out of several similar examples many of which I have first hand knowledge of because I was there for many of the reports, discussions and decisions on which direction to head and what to focus on.
I have a hard time believing professors are faking studies because they are a part of a conspiracy to help the psychologists who treat sexual abusers keep in business. I don't believe professors would risk their reputation in the academic community. They research is published and is peer reviewed, nothing is more satisfying for these professors than to debunk another peer's paper and show how their claim is false. So I am glad that is not your opinion that these studies are not being faked.
Are there professional organizations that lobby for their own interests, sure. But in your example, therapy for offenders is not an abuse of that lobbying power because research shows that offenders who go through therapy are 5-8% less likely to commit another sex crime. What is the harm in lobbying for something that will reduce sex crimes even if it does make someone money?
You are still missing the point of an objective question. You do not need to be a psychologist to know if therapy works or not. Any idiot, even someone like me, could look at the people who have been arrested more than once for a sex crime and by checking with the court or their PO can determine if they have undergone therapy. It is not similar to your other example of penile plesmography, which is definitely much more subjective as compared to looking at recidivists and asking the question: therapy or no therapy.
The whole point of this post was to ask the question what influence does money have on the process of sex offender laws. I was spit firing some numbers based on my experience on probation, I do not claim to have the exact numbers.
I think we all can agree that enacting sex offender laws gives a certain political cache to politicians, that is undeniable. I brought this up to try and see if there was a good case independent of politicians for money influencing policy. If your only example is the treatment providers who are using evidence based practices, that case is far from compelling.
I'm not missing the point of an objective question. You are ignoring the fact that the question was never asked by any policy makers before said policy makers were being lobbied to implement something. The fact that there are peer reviewed, evidence based studies indicating treatment is "a good thing" is completely irrelevant If it would have been of benefit to introduce peer reviewed, evidence based studies that demonstrated a different outcome then those would be the studies that were introduced as there are numerous peer reviewed, evidence based studies of all kinds available. As a hypothetical let's say it would have been to a particular group's advantage to point out that sex offenders as a whole exhibit some of the highest rates of recidivism, that it's not a question of if but when they will offend again and making sure the public is informed whenever an offender is near is an effective means of protecting the public then that group would provide peer reviewed, evidence based studies......Never mind that's not a hypothetical example now is it? Obviously not but I guarantee you peer reviewed, evidence based studies were a big part of the sales pitch and there are such studies out there.
The association for the treatment of abusers, you say they are creating a racket. They are lobbying for an endless supply of clients. I say they are lobbying for something that has been shown to reduce recidivism. Whether or not they knew at the time it would be beneficial or not in my mind is irrelevant (though you haven't shown that in all states that this was the case, just in Colorado). You also cannot show with any reasonable certainty that the primary motive for the lobbying was/is to make money and not doing it because they thought it was best to get sex offenders treatment. You say of course they recommended therapy, they want to make endless amounts of $$. I say of course they recommended therapy, they are psychologists and psychiatrists, they think therapy works because they have gone to school for years and have been indoctrinated in it. Which one sounds more plausible?
Your hypothetical,
“As a hypothetical let's say it would have been to a particular group's advantage to point out that sex offenders as a whole exhibit some of the highest rates of recidivism, that it's not a question of if but when they will offend again and making sure the public is informed whenever an offender is near is an effective means of protecting the public then that group would provide peer reviewed, evidence based studies......Never mind that's not a hypothetical example now is it? Obviously not but I guarantee you peer reviewed, evidence based studies were a big part of the sales pitch and there are such studies out there.”
I see the culprit in your not so hypothetical being politicians. Of course politicians and our enemies of plenty of ammunition against us. They cite studies done in the late 80’s saying offenders have 200 victims. There are numerous errors to be found in these studies. What is important is that these studies were never the consensus at the time in their fields. Politicians cherry pick studies that support their bills they want to pass. So you are trying to disprove the idea of an evidence based study being effective, I think that is wrong lesson to learn from what politicians have done. The lesson is do not take one study out of context and base policy implications on it.
So when I am talking about a peer reviewed study, I am not talking about just one study. There is a consensus in the community that therapy works. There are always going to be people with counter perspectives to the consensus, all studies are not created equal. However, when the majority of the people in the fields of criminology and psychology both agree that therapy reduces recidivism.
You're right I can't show beyond absolute certainty that profit was the primary motive.The archival recordings are in the hands of a former employer. All I can do is provide my own eye witness testimony from hearing the lobbying reports that was immediately followed up by a session on how to properly bill the government making sure you weren't losing any potential fees. You accuse me of not providing other examples but in reality I have. I did not list the associations I did on a whim or pull them out of thin air. Every one of them has direct ties to the subject, every one of them does lobby in the interest of its members and money is always a primary motivating factor. That's not just exclusive to those associations either. There are over 15000 professional associations in the US and they all exist to provide benefit to their members Municipal Bonds Analysts? Yep they've got an association, the NFMA and they lobby for rules and regulations favorable to the municipal bonds market. Bankers? Yep the American Banking Association. Snow plow operators? Yep them too it's called SIMA, the Snow and Ice Management Association. By the way I never said anybody was creating a racket. It's just the way things work in the real world just like the fact no therapist would choose to specialize in treating sex offenders unless they could make a living at it no matter how passionate they were about the effectiveness of treatment. Which is more plausible - a therapist providing sex offender treatment for free out of pure altruism never making a dime or one providing treatment because they can make a living from doing so? Is money the only reason? Maybe not but I never said it was the only reason either. Once again you asked for link and here it is in black and white.
Studies - To quote you "What is important is that these studies were never the consensus at the time in their fields" I'm sorry but you are dead wrong on that. That was the consensus at the time and there wasn't just one study there were several. The idea that treatment could be effective was a minority opinion back in the day just a few steps above the idea of being able to "cure" homosexuality. After having heard thousands of papers on a multitude of subjects being presented for peer review over the years there's one thing I can say 1. Consensus and science don't really mix. Science only advances when there isn't a consensus and completely stagnates when there is.
Politicians and studies - You're assuming a politician, any politician, actually does any research on his or her own. Any studies seen by a politician were cherry picked long before being seen by a politician for the express purpose of influencing that politician's decisions. Most politicians are clueless about the majority of subjects they vote on. This is a reason why lobbying exists in the first place. This ignorance on the part of the politician gives the lobbyist the perfect opportunity to provide information that might influence a politician's decisions in a way that's favorable to the group the lobbyist represents. That's just what lobbyists do all day every day. The politician will always go for self preservation and gain above all else and if that means taking something out of context and twisting until it benefits the politician then that's what will happen.
You said, “Maybe not…” By saying maybe, you are possibly inferring that it could be the only reason. I think that is a little disingenuous, you really think the registry and sex offenders laws could be entirely monetarily driven?
You also said, “The politician will always go for self preservation and gain above all else and if that means taking something out of context and twisting until it benefits the politician then that's what will happen.”
This we can definitely agree on, and exactly what I believe is happening with the sex offender laws and the registry. My argument is that if money is a factor, it is purely ancillary to your statement about politicians.
I am not saying that they there is not a lobby, I think we can agree there is. I am also agreeing with you that the lobby wants to make rules that support their members. What I am arguing is the influence that money plays in the whole scheme of the registry. I believe even if therapists lobbied for therapy before they knew it would be effective that it should not matter because it has been proven effective. Where is the harm in advocating for something that is proven to reduce recidivism?
And even if you could possibly show that these groups did not have a good faith basis for their suggestion of therapy when it first started it is irrelevant now because what they are lobbying for is proven to reduce recidivism. So it would only show that past lobbying was monetarily driven and not current lobbying by these groups.
And to be clear I think these groups did have a good faith basis. When the only tool you have on your tool belt is a hammer, the whole world looks like nails. The same is true for psychologists, they think everyone needs therapy. It is not insane to think that even though they were creating business for themselves that they also thought they could help the offenders and society is it?
Apparently you don't like the answer even though it's exactly what you asked for. Money offenders pay to polygraphists and therapists is used for lobbying activities that directly influence public policy. The efficacy of polygraph exams or therapy or whatever else you try to dredge up is irrelevant to that activity. The lobbying would (and does) still occur even when the science behind what is being lobbied for is far from settled as is the case with sex offender therapy reducing recidivism. There are studies that say it does and there are studies that say it doesn't and there are studies of the studies that say the studies themselves are flawed so there's no way to determine if therapy is beneficial or not but that didn't stop the lobbying for therapy as being absolutely beneficial and essential.
"Abstract: We review scientific criteria for the minimally useful evaluation of psychological treatment for sex offenders. The Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers recently supported a meta-analysis (Hanson et al., 2002) of the effectiveness of psychological treatment for sex offenders. It was concluded that current treatments for sex offenders reduce recidivism. In this chapter, we reevaluate the evidence. Whereas the random assignment studies yielded results that provided no evidence of treatment effectiveness, Hanson et al. reviewed approximately a dozen others (called "incidental assignment" studies), which yielded substantial positive results for treatment. Upon close inspection, we conclude that such designs involve noncomparable groups and are too weak to be used to draw inferences about treatment effectiveness. In almost every case, the evidence was contaminated by the fact the comparison groups included higher-risk offenders who would have refused or quit treatment had it been offered to them. We conclude that the effectiveness of psychological treatment for sex offenders remains to be demonstrated. Furthermore, we outline solutions that we think will lead to progress in the field of sex offender treatment."
http://tinyurl.com/nefdmqt
P.S. I'm not stating an opinion either way.
My next question which you haven't answered is how significant is that lobby in crafting policy over and above what politicians are doing to stay in office. It is my contention that even without the lobby of polygraphers and therapists that we would be in the exact same place we are in now. On the list of people I hold responsible for the current state of sex offender laws, this lobby is pretty far down the list.
Politicians, district attorney's, media, PO's, police, judges all of these in my opinion hold more overall power to make or break us. Most of these are government entities, not private corporations rolling in the dough from money from RSOs.
And to your point about treatment providers lobbying to make money, for me the act itself is not enough to show guilt. There is evidence both ways that it is effective, you are saying they are obviously doing it for the money. I have been saying they are psychologists, they think EVERYONE needs therapy, even themselves. Being that their natural disposition is to give everyone therapy, I don't think the act alone of lobbying for mandatory therapy for RSOs is enough to show a conspiracy--I would want to see the guilty mind before I could come to that conclusion.