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Came across this article today. I hope I'm not reposting something.
Follow the money.
How often has this advice been given, and how often has the heeding of it led to the unraveling of an enigma or a crime.
The sex offender industry is both, and 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.
The industry is well diversified. It has three well-developed branches and a fourth smaller but highly important one.
http://with-justiceforall.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-sex-offender-industry.html
Follow the money.
How often has this advice been given, and how often has the heeding of it led to the unraveling of an enigma or a crime.
The sex offender industry is both, and 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.
The industry is well diversified. It has three well-developed branches and a fourth smaller but highly important one.
http://with-justiceforall.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-sex-offender-industry.html
Not only are states being gouged for that those people who maintain them have zero responsibility for it's accuracy. That falls upon corrections and LE who input the data. Garbage in, garbage out. VT has audited their database at least twice by and independent party failing it miserable both times. Also finding the recommendations from the first failed audit not being implemented.
The price tag varies from state to state as to who does the site verifications, state police or sheriffs. Those officers would be on the road regardless except when they are designated site checkers they aren't doing real police work. There's a cost for that too.
The states that charge the registrants yearly don't spend nearly the amount they take in to do the verifications although many registrants are indigent and they collect nothing at all raising those fees to the registrants who are still able to pay.
And then there are cell phone apps that charge you to "Get alerted" when ever a registrant comes close....(Grossly inaccurate!) Lets also not forget the background check sites that charge per person to check.
So it's pretty hard to put a figure on the total cost it's not zero and it's not the also government.
No one is saying that there aren't groups of people/organizations that aren't making money on the registry. You would have to be blind not to see that. The question I think is important is to ask where is that money coming from? Do we really think 800,000 sex offenders are personally responsible monetarily for the billion dollar industry? No, there is absolutely no way we as a group of 800k RSOs have billions of dollars in total assets let alone billions of dollars we are paying the registry industry. So yes offenders foot part of the bill but not even close to its entirety.
So the answer becomes where is that billions of dollars coming from? And the answer is simple, the only place that it could come from, the pockets of tax payers. So it means individual politicians are capitalizing on the fear of the general public and making them pay or the nose for security.
The real question I have with shelly's article is her 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."
The heart of the registry and all the businesses associated with it is not money, but fear. The registry came about as the result of the horrendous stranger danger cases of Jacob, Jessica, Megan and Adam. It was not founded on Washingtons, Lincolns, Jacksons, and franklins. If you remove the money aspect there is still fear of stranger danger. If you remove fear the registry industry is left without guaranteed clients and will dwindle down to a more reasonable size.
Fear is what is driving the registry, not money.
Yes... fear is driving the madness... stirred up by the media and politicians. Strange that they don't have the same effect with drunk drivers who have a far higher recidivism rate than registrants often killing someone. Yet we don't tell them they can't go within 1,000 feet of a bar or ban them from having alcohol.
The American "Band Wagons" grow where the money is. Most of the "sex offender" insanity has built a lot of wealth but certainly not the government. The government doesn't know how to make money except by printing it.
Then I ask the students of the 3 which crime has the highest statistics? They never answer armed robbery - never! Most say sex offenses - a few will say murder. Then I ask them of the 3 which one does the offender repeats their crime most often? They never say robbery - always one of the other crimes and usually the sex offenses ...
Then I tell them the truth (and believe me I bring sources with me because there will always be a challenger! LOL) When I tell them that murder and sex offenses have the lowest recidivism rate not only out of the three crimes I listed but of all crimes committed they are absolutely floored! Then we talk about mass incarceration and not believing everything you hear or see ... LOL I love that class!