New York Post Article About Pedophiles

So, last week, I had an article from a columnist in the New York Post come up in my news feed. I usually dismiss stuff from the New York Post, because it is usually difficult to get in contact with their authors to notify them that pedophilia and child sexual abuse, as well as pedophiles and child rapists, are four separate and distinct ideas. I do this outreach, because conflating the two minimizes child sexual abuse and unfairly stigmatizes pedophilia.

This blog has covered this distinction and why it matters several times, most recently when I was talking about Prevention Project Dunkelfeld. So, I had a brief correspondence with the writer of the article, John Crudele, about why the distinction matters, why child pornography is incorrectly named, and that the distinction can mean less children are sexually abused. The ideas I am presenting are hardly new. They have been covered in the news, by researchers, and by non-offending pedophiles themselves. Even This American Life has tackled this issue.

You can read the full text of what I wrote him (minus the links, sadly). Unfortunately, Mr. Crudele did not completely represent the bulk of the exchange in what he published, but as you can see, I did not ask him to publish it.

I especially enjoyed his threat to report me to the FBI, when I have reached out many times to legislators in Minnesota and law enforcement agencies about the facts around sex offenders, a prosecutor's office out of Long Island about not blaming victims for abuse, and yesterday, the Minnesota Department of Corrections regarding Prevention Project Dunkelfeld. I could be wrong, but I doubt anyone in law enforcement has a big issue with the advocacy that I am doing to prevent child sexual abuse before it can happen.

But there you have it, I was in the New York Post. And Mr. Crudele, if you are paying any attention to this blog post, you may want to better inform yourself about these issues. Myths do not protect children from being sexually abused and exploited, facts do, and the more myths we believe about child sexual abuse and drive it into secrecy, the more we enable child sexual abuse. I think a better situation is where children are not victimized, and pedophiles are not scarred by the idea that they are a ticking time bomb waiting to molest children. We must talk about this if we are to end abuse.

But thank you, Mr. Crudele, for presenting your readers with the ideas that I emailed you about. The more we talk about these issues, the better.

Prevention Project Dunkelfeld And Mandatory Reporting

Another Word About Terminology (Again)

It is quite normal to use the word "pedophile" to refer to someone who has sexually abused children, or to think that those with a sexual attraction to children have or will abuse children. However, neither is accurate. People with a sexual attraction to children (pedophiles) are not typically responsible for abusing children, and those that abuse children do not typically have pedophilia. By using the proper terminology, we can reduce the stigma around pedophilia and enable pedophiles to come forward for help if they need it.

What Is Prevention Project Dunkelfeld?

PPD is a German program aimed at reaching anyone with concerns about their thoughts around children. Because there is no mandatory reporting law in Germany, they are able to offer free and completely confidential help to people. While their primary target is people with a sexual attraction to children (regardless of whether those people have hurt or not hurt children, see here if you need a refresher on the distinction between child rapist/child rape and pedophile/pedophilia), it is impossible to argue with their results. Hundreds of people have come forward since the program started in 2005, and they have gone from a single site to many sites all over Germany. Their program is seeing people with sexual concerns crawling out of the woodwork to get help.

A Word About Sweden

Sweden has one of the best systems for handling crime out there: They treat their criminals like people instead of scum, and it seems that this system is paying off. While some reports might tell you that they have a much higher rate of rape and other sexual crimes compared to the United States, you must remember that rape is a highly underreported crime, particularly in the United States: According to RAINN, out of every 1,000 rapes, only 310 are reported to police, and 11 get referred to prosecutors. It is possible that Sweden's approach to crime means more people are prosecuted, and more cases are reported. Sweden has a fairly low incarceration rate because they offer help when giving people a second chance, rather than just slapping them with a sentence, a criminal record, and telling them, "Good luck rebuilding your life, we'll be watching." This begs the question of whether the United States could do better, and whether looking at Sweden, as well as Germany, could benefit us.

Why Does Mandatory Reporting Matter?

Previously, I have discussed mandatory reporting from the perspective of those who have loved ones who have abused children. What you may not realize is that mandatory reporting does not just affect people who have already hurt a child, it affects those who have not committed any crime, but fear they might be charged with one because of a misconception or false accusation. While false accusations of sexual abuse are relatively rare (4-8%), the degree to which sexual abuse is punished by law makes it a very, very scary topic for people.

Combine that with the sexual attraction to children, which most people erroneously conflate with the sexual abuse of a child, and you have a recipe for no one coming forward for help. One of the biggest emerging areas in sexual abuse prevention is the question: How do we get people with concerns about their thoughts towards children to get help before a child is hurt? Prevention Project Dunkelfeld has answered that question. While many pedophiles may already have support systems in place, it is extremely difficult. Establishing support networks for pedophiles (those with the sexual attraction, not those who have abused, remember) has been a challenge primarily because of the fear that they will be charged with a crime or investigated (and outed) by law enforcement.

Mandatory reporting also deters victims from reporting their abuse. Most people consider sexual abuse to be a heinous crime... and rightly so. But those same people also consider those who commit this crime to be abhorrent monsters, sexual predators even... when this is not the case. Around 90% of child sexual abuse is perpetrated by someone known and trusted, not just by the victim, but in the surrounding community. 30% are family members: Someone's loving uncle, father, brother, and more. 60% are people who are close friends with the family: Teachers, babysitters, coaches, and more. These are people we care about, not just an ugly monster we feel fine just locking up and throwing away the key.

That matters because the person abusing the victim is someone the victim loves and cares for, and the community around both the victim and the abuser loves and cares for both the victim and the abuser. We see a pattern in many institutional cases where a teacher or priest is known to have been abusing, and nothing is done- by adults. This outrages us because of the lack of accountability, but it gives testimony after testimony that abuse is perpetrated by known, loved, and trusted figures. This means that no one wants them to get in trouble, but everyone wants them to get help. If the only way to get them help is for the abuser to go to prison and have their life ruined, many people decide that the help is not worth it. I suggest that it is possible to hold an abuser accountable without giving them a criminal sentence for the rest of their life, and without draconian punishments. Sweden clearly demonstrates this possibility, as does Germany.

Bringing Primary Prevention To The United States

The Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse is a program of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, led by Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau. Since 2015, they have been working on a project that they have called "Help Wanted" which is a project designed to determine what help young adult pedophiles need, and how to reach them before they hurt a child. While some of their work ignores the reality that some pedophiles do not need expert interventions, the goal of the project is to figure out how Prevention Project Dunkelfeld could happen in the United States.

The original basis for their Help Wanted project was an episode that aired on This American Life (30 min.), which told the story of a young pedophile who tried many different therapists before joining Virtuous Pedophiles and creating his own support group. While Help Wanted seems to be exclusively aimed at helping teenagers, it is the only US-based attempt to determine how to reach potential abusers of children before the abuse can happen.

One of the biggest needs to make this kind of prevention a reality is the elimination of mandatory reporting laws, and the elimination of draconian sentencing. While there are a small percentage of sexual abusers who fit the media stereotype of being "monstrous scum" who constantly prey on children, the majority of abusers do not fit this stereotype. If we had policies and a public that recognized that fact, the United States and other countries could put a significant dent in child sexual abuse.

How Can You Help?

Contact your legislators, and link this post, or the programs linked in this post. The more people who are aware of Help Wanted and Prevention Project Dunkelfeld, the more chance there is that something can be done. It is not enough for a lone prevention advocate, and a lone prevention organization, to be saying these things. Multiple people from different areas of background (or no background at all) need to join these voices.

For most people, calling your legislators and leaving a message is far more effective than shooting off an email. Sending a physical letter will help as well. If you are unsure of who your legislators are, Google "contact my representative in [state]". If multiple people contact the same office at around the same time, they take more notice.

You can also donate money to the Moore Center and other organizations that push primary prevention, like Stop It Now! There is a heavy financial need for projects like Help Wanted, because of the number of people unwilling to provide funding on such an emotional topic.

Filling In The Gaps Of "Untouchable"

Say What?

In case you have not yet heard, the documentary Untouchable is screening with the MSP International Film Festival. Last night's showing was sold out, and audience members asked a number of great questions of the panel composed of director David Feige, child advocate Patty Wetterling, and local legal powerhouse Eric Janus. However, the film does not cover the entire issue- only a few small facets of it, like sex offender registration, sex offender notification, and residency restrictions.

And just how do you cover a nationwide hodgepodge of laws that were originally designed to protect children, and have since become a quagmire of punitive nonsense? The laws that apply in one state are different in another, civil commitment is left untouched, and only the briefest mention of International Megan's Law is made. In the interest of brevity, and in sparking a conversation about this topic nationwide, the director chose to limit the scope of the documentary (and its length, since we have "shorter and shorter attention spans" these days).

Untouchable In A Nutshell

If you have not yet seen the film (and you should, whether you are already allied in the fight to protect children or not, because you might get to meet Patty Wetterling as I did last night), let me summarize it (spoiler alert!).  Bearing in mind that I am abbreviating a 104-minute movie into two paragraphs, the movie starts out discussing the victimization of Lauren Book, daughter of Ron Book, at the hands of their nanny Waldina. Following this revelation, Ron Book pursues and passes many different laws that have wide-ranging and unpredictable effects on sex offenders. While Lauren Book champions Lauren's Kids, sex offenders are getting more and more fed up with how the laws are impacting them and their families.

The movie is peppered with facts and studies, and you learn (as you have seen many times on this blog) that recidivism is very, very low. You also learn what the basis is for many of these laws in terms of facts: Nothing. The Supreme Court of the United States ruled that sex offender registration and other laws are constitutional because the recidivism rate for sex offenders is "frightening and high", which as it turns out comes from a single unsupported line in a 1986 Psychology Today article from someone with no research background. While it may be difficult to feel bad for sex offenders, the movie reveals that many of the laws that were originally intended to keep children safe have instead become a quagmire of draconian and punitive nonsense that has little to no impact on new sex crime.

More Information About Civil Rights, Laws, And Civil Commitment

By far the best place to find more information about sex offender laws, civil commitment, and current court cases is the National Association for Rational Sex Offense Laws. If you want to lose yourself in finding out more information, or wish to advocate against the laws that are failing to protect our children, you can find a ton of great information at NARSOL.

There is also, as was mentioned in the film, Women Against Registry. They cover the issue of how these laws impact the relatives of sex offenders. They are very similar to NARSOL in many respects, but they focus on the damage that sex offender laws have caused to completely innocent people: The mothers, aunts, sisters, daughters, and families of sex offenders.

Questions Asked And Answered

The questions asked by the audience were appropriately varied on a range of topics:

• How many children are harmed by family vs friends vs strangers? What are the proportions?
• Patty Wetterling and Eric Janus pointed out that strangers account for less than 10% of cases, Patty mentioned that 2% of non-family child abductions are perpetrated by strangers. Both stated that stranger danger is not working.
• What is the realistic recidivism rate for sex offenders with underreporting in mind? 
• Eric Janus pointed out that recidivism is a very small part of violent crimes and most violent crimes are committed by first-time offenders, not those with prior records. Patty Wetterling pointed out that what we are doing in looking at recidivism is not working, and Eric Janus closed by saying that underreporting would likely inflate recidivism rates by 25-30%. Many of the recidivism rates mentioned in the movie were 2-4%.
• Are there any states on a remarkably different path from the national norm in punishing sex offenders?
• Short answer: No, most states are still focusing on punishment.
• David Feige pointed out that each state handles the issue differently, and that each state carries over whatever restrictions were more punitive so that someone could not move to a different state to ease the restrictions placed on them. Both Eric Janus and David Feige pointed out that there is a nationwide "hodgepodge of laws and restrictions," and that mandatory reporting does not help because people are afraid of being turned into the police. 
• David Feige mentioned Prevention Project Dunkelfeld in Germany, which promises confidential help without reporting to the police, and that the project is seeing great success. 
• How many offenders are victims of child sexual abuse? (asked by a psychologist)
• Eric Janus said not the majority and that the studies vary, and Patty Wetterling said that the thought of being considered an offender in the making keeps male victims of child sexual abuse from disclosing their abuse. They speculated on the problems that mandatory reporting causes, and that the fear of being considered a risk to children scares many victims, as was hinted at in the film.
• How did Patty Wetterling's advocacy evolve to be defensive of sex offenders?
• Over time, and by meeting sex offenders and seeing people in varying situations that were not the original intent of the laws she helped create. She used the word "hijacked" as she did in the movie to refer to how the registry has evolved to become punitive. She emphasized that the point was to create an investigative tool for law enforcement, not a public list. 
• How do you short circuit the focus of being tough and punitive on crime?
• David Feige suggested that laws be evidence and fact based, focusing on the fact that risk is a part of life. He admitted that nuanced arguments are harder to make than simple ones, because people buy the simple arguments more readily. 
• Eric Janus suggested storytelling and humanizing people to get people to empathize, while changing the question to "How can we prevent this from happening?"
• Patty Wetterling suggested early interventions like comprehensive sexual education and treatment over punishment, and by starting the focus on one demographic, like juvenile sex offenders, so that people can see the complexity of one single group of sex offenders. 
• Did the evolution of Lauren Book's views on the issue happen during the movie? Did Ron and Lauren Book see the film, and what did they think?
• To the first question, no. To the second, yes, they saw the movie and were very enthusiastic, save for the comedian at the beginning of the film. David Feige pointed out that they were less enthusiastic after seeing the reaction of the screenings since its release. 
• How did all sex offenders get thrown into one pot?
• David Feige very quickly said something to the effect of "bad politicians and badly written laws", and Patty Wetterling pointed to the media, which reports about "sex offenders" rather than differentiating the nuanced information that is valuable.
• Does Ron Book regret his threatening to kill Waldina?
• No, he does not, though David Feige speculated that he may rethink his threat to kill Waldina when she gets out of prison in 2025. 

Two Questions Left Partially Answered

One of the answers to the question about the proportion of abusers (first bullet point above) indicated that stranger sexual abuse is very, very rare. Patty cited the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in saying that only 2% of non-family abductions are perpetrated by strangers, but admitted she did not know that specific statistic. That answer is incomplete. The exact figure is that around 4-5% of child sex abuse cases are perpetrated by strangers, while around 5% remains unknown, and the remaining 90% breaks down into 30% family, 60% friends of the family. The overarching point that was made in the film, which you have heard me mention time and time again, is that abuse is not perpetrated by monsters, but by people we know, trust, and care about.

The answer to the question about how many offenders are victims was: It depends. We have no idea what proportion of victims go on to become abusers (certainly a very small minority at most), but we do know from these studies what percentage of abusers have been victims. Eric Janus said a variety of studies have mixed results. While that is true, there are two sets of studies that have been done: Studies that use polygraph, and studies that do not.  Studies that use polygraph generally find between 30-40% of abusers have been victimized, and studies that do not use polygraph generally find between 50-60% of abusers have been victimized.

How You Can Get Involved

One of the points David Feige made was that there is little information available from him and the film's website on how to get involved. His purpose in making the film was more to start the conversation around this hard and complex topic. He and the film make the case that sex offenders are not being treated fairly by these laws.

I take a different approach, and I can tell you why you need to get involved: The longer these laws are in effect, the more victims we have. We must form fact-based policies so that we can stop sexual violence before it happens. How do you get involved in making that happen?

I propose three areas you can get involved:

1. Contact legislators and city leaders: Email with a phone call to follow-up works well, mailing, emailing, and calling works very, very well. Be respectful.
2. Become an advocate: Learn the facts by heart, and speak up whenever you get the chance. Contact journalists and reporters, write editorials, comment online, etc. 
3. Donate money: No one wants to fund research into helping pedophiles (those with an attraction to children, not those who have already hurt them) or helping sex offenders, but that research is badly needed. 

WAR and NARSOL both have opportunities for you to get involved, and there are many victim advocacy groups that take a fact-based primary prevention approach. The biggest thing you can do is be a voice, and tell people what you think. 

Why "Pedophile" vs. "Child Rapist" Matters To Prevention

This Again?

Apparently I need to cover this again more clearly, since my words can apparently be twisted beyond all recognition. So, yes, I am covering this topic yet one more time in the hopes that I can communicate more clearly what I intend to say about why pedophilia/pedophiles are different from child sex abuse/child rapists.

Most Child Rape Has Nothing To Do With Sex

That is where we will start: Child rape is usually not something that happens because someone wants the sexual pleasure of doing things with children. It is usually more related to power, control, or unmet mental health needs. The unmet mental health needs can range from anything to someone with lots of stress in their life, and the child is an available outlet for that stress to someone who cannot find an appropriate adult sexual partner, and again the child is an available outlet for that unmet need. Even in cases where the child rapist does have an ongoing sex drive towards children, the sex drive is less of an issue than other factors like desperation, depression, anxiety, or feeling in control.

This part is vastly oversimplified due to the fact that motivations behind child sexual abuse are vast and complex enough to fill multiple books. But the overarching point is that an ongoing sex drive towards children is usually unrelated to the motivations behind why someone sexually abuses a child.

That is important because...

...Those With A Sex Drive Towards Children Do Not Usually Rape Children

That may be difficult to believe, but it is true. Those with a sex drive towards children are not usually responsible for raping them. However, a statistically significant (30% or so) portion of sexual abuse does include a sex drive towards children as a factor, which means that something more could be done for these people to manage the issues (like desperation, depression, anxiety, and feeling out-of-control) that can arise from having a sex drive directed at children.

In other words, we need to make sure that those with this sex drive towards children have some way of getting help if they feel they need it- before they feel desperate, depressed, anxious, or out-of-control and are then at-risk for sexually abusing a child. Making help more readily available to someone with a sex drive towards kids means less kids are abused.

...Which Does Not Mean That...

• Child rape is okay
• We should accept pedophiles being sexual with children
• Pedophilia should be normalized (whatever the heck that even means, I have no idea)
• Pedophiles get a free pass to molest children

None of those four bullet points is the point, in any way shape or form. The point is that child rape is bad, and needs to be avoided, and one of the ways we can do that is by making sure that someone who feels sexually inclined towards children has whatever help they feel they might need in facing that sexual inclination. The point to them getting that help is so that they do not rape a child.

Primary Prevention Primer

Maybe I just like words that start with P, and maybe I think people sometimes do not understand how primary prevention differs from, well, prevention. But primary prevention is about stopping child sexual abuse, before it can happen. It means a child is not abused in the first place, as opposed to punishing the living snot out of whoever rapes a child (because at that point, the rape has already happened). Why "as opposed to punishing"? That is somewhat difficult to answer because...

...Mandatory Reporting Hurts Kids

It hurts children by making it less likely that adults who know sexual abuse has happened will report it or direct the child rapist to a therapist because they know that therapist will turn the rapist into the police. Also, it makes children less likely to say that they were abused, because they fear that the rapist (which is usually someone they know, love, and trust) will get in trouble, and because they want to protect the community from the knowledge that this great person that people love and trust is doing these horrid things.

When a mother does not take her teenage kid to a therapist for fear of the therapist calling the police because the teenage kid sexually abused a younger kid, that is a prevention failure. Not only will the teenage kid not be held accountable, they will not be likely to understand why they did that and are at-risk for abusing more children. If our system is set up to punish the snot out of those who rape kids, no matter who they are, it means less rapists are held accountable, less rapists get the mental health help that they need, and it means that rape happens more (which is bad (obviously)).

The Bowtie

A child rapist is someone who has made a choice to hurt a child (regardless of how the rapist justified it or what their motivations were, the behavior to rape a child is a choice). A pedophile is someone who has an ongoing sex drive directed at kids (and has likely never harmed a child). If child sexual abuse is to be prevented, and pedophiles are to get whatever help they feel they need (so that a child is not raped), then we need to keep these terms separate. Thus ends my rant against improper terminology, and my frustration with my apparent inability to communicate clearly what I mean when I say that, "We should pity pedophiles because they have an attraction they cannot help." The part to be pitied is that pedophiles have a sexual attraction to kids that they did not ask for and cannot change, and they can never act on it the way you, I, or most other human beings can be sexual with someone because the someone we are attracted to is old enough to consent to being sexual. That deserves pity, and whatever help they ask for. It does not deserve a correlation with being a child rapist. If someone has not raped a child, they should not be automatically confused with someone who has, regardless of their sexuality.

Why Minnesota's New Sex Offender Sentencing Bills, HF 1572/SF 1895, Will Endanger Minnesota's Children

Sex Offender Facts

Before I begin, I would like to start with a brief review of three facts about sex offenders that the average person does not know:

1. Most sex crimes are committed by people new to the criminal justice system
1. 95% of new sex crimes are committed by first-time offenders, or those new to the criminal justice system. This comes from studying 21 years of arrest data in New York. The authors stated that an attempt to replicate the study would be extremely useful, but to my knowledge there has not been such an attempt, though the Minnesota Chapter of The Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers and the Center for Sex Offender Management cite the same statistic. If you know of a similar study, use the contact gadget on the right, and be sure to cite the study.
2. This premise is supported by the low rates of recidivism among sex offenders (see following point): If convicted sex offenders do not typically commit sex crimes, then either A: Other offenders with different convictions or B: Those new to the criminal justice system (first-time offenders). The above study establishes that it is the second group, first-time offenders.
2. Sex offender recidivism is low (really low)
1. A wide variety of recidivism studies are available on the subject (for starters, see here: 45,398 offenders in 16 countries, 11.5%; here (MN: 7%), and here). 
2. Studying recidivism is compounded by two major factors: Recidivism typically looks at those released from prison, not those on supervision (probation), and underreporting can skew findings in recidivism studies with no way to control for the different findings.
3. A wider review of the literature shows that general recidivism (a sex offender that reoffends with any crime) is higher at around 30-40%, and sexual recidivism (a sex offender that reoffends with a sex crime) is lower at around 12%. In other words, when a sex offender reoffends, it is not usually with a sexual crime.
3. Sex offender treatment works well
1. For a very broad overview of the topic, see here or here. For a study aimed more at recidivism, see here. 
2. Sex offender treatment is not geared to a one-size-fits-all approach, but is tailored to a specific offender's needs. Generally, juveniles and first-time offenders respond better to treatment than other offenders. 

For a more comprehensive look at the facts about sex offenders, see here (PDF from Center for Sex Offender Management, and Office of Justice Program of the United States Department of Justice). For a look at Minnesota ATSA's discussion on sex offender residency restrictions, which includes an overview of facts, see here.

With that having been said, let me introduce the new sentencing bills (here and here) and what its aims are.

The Bills: An Overview

For those of you who are unfamiliar with these topics, what they are essentially proposing can be summed up in three points:

1. Eliminating the stays of adjudication (wipe criminal record pending successful completion of probation, record is invisible to public) and stays of imposition (felony drops to a misdemeanor upon successful completion of probation, record is visible the entire time but drops in severity).
2. Establishing a mandatory minimum sentence for "child pornography" (child sexual abuse material) offenders: 6 months for first-time offender, 12 for someone with a prior same offense.
3. Establishing lifetime supervision, either in the form of conditional release or probation.

The supposed goal of the bills is to improve public safety. I say supposed, because I believe these bills will do nothing of the sort and may in fact increase recidivism and ignore the bulk of the problem: First-time offenders. If the goal is public safety, the bill's contents should be policies that are effective, not policies that pander to public opinion.

Who Is Opposing These Bills?

I have confirmation that the Minnesota Chapter of The Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (MN-ATSA) is fighting certain provisions of this bill, the Minnesota County Attorneys Association, as well as the Minnesota Coalition Against Sexual Assault. By contrast, three sexual abuse survivors and the Minnesota Sheriff's Association has voiced their support. Frankly, I trust the aforementioned groups because they actually see the results of sex crimes on both sides of the coin: Victims and sex offenders. The facts are with those opposing these bills.

Why Oppose Them: The State of Minnesota's Own Statutes

In case you are unaware, last year, the State of Minnesota passed a statute regarding the policy it has towards criminals. That statute reads:

"The legislature declares that it is the policy of the state of Minnesota to encourage and contribute to the rehabilitation of criminal offenders and to assist them in the resumption of the responsibilities of citizenship. The opportunity to secure employment or to pursue, practice, or engage in a meaningful and profitable trade, occupation, vocation, profession or business is essential to the rehabilitation and the resumption of the responsibilities of citizenship."

If the Public Safety Committee sees its current omnibus bill, HF 896, passed, they will add that, "The opportunity to secure housing is also essential to rehabilitation and the resumption of the responsibilities of citizenship."

If that is Minnesota's policy towards criminals, then one must ask the question: How does establishing the lifetime supervision of a certain kind of criminal encourage them to resume the responsibilities of their citizenship? Likewise, how does removing the incentive of stays of adjudication and imposition make it easier for sexual offenders to reintegrate into society? The bills that are currently under consideration are a violation of Minnesota's own policy towards criminals.

Why Oppose Them: The Problem With Focusing On Sex Offenders

In case you missed my critique of Kare 11's investigations that started this bill, I argued that the bill targets a group of people responsible for the fewest number of sex crimes: Sex offenders. I overviewed some of the numbers specific to Minnesota and the reports that the Minnesota Department of Corrections has issued concerning sex offenders, and some of the problems with their reports. In short, focusing on reacting to sex crimes, which is what this bill does, is only ever going to affect about 10% of the problem or less. 

Why Oppose Them: The Problem With Taking Away An Offender's Incentive To Remain Law-Abiding

What if you made a mistake so bad, you knew it would haunt you for the rest of your life? What if you were not familiar with the laws about your mistake, the facts, or an ability to get mental health help? For a sex offender, that is not a hypothetical question: That is reality. Now, what if, having made that mistake and been caught, you are told that if you mind your P's and Q's and do not make another mistake, that mistake will only haunt a limited part of your life?

Exactly. You will jump at it, right? "I learned my lesson, I will do whatever it takes to get that chance the judge is giving me!" is roughly going to be what most offenders react with. There will always be a small percentage that try to manipulate the system and commit other crimes, just as there will always be a small percentage of "career criminals" for whom a sex offense is just another felony under their belt. But the reality is, most sex offenders are not in either of those groups.

Politicians in the state of Minnesota want to take away that hope for sex offenders in the hopes that it will deter sex crimes. Victims want stricter sentencing because they believe the same. What both parties are unaware of are the facts around this issue, and it is the facts, not an emotional testimony, that will protect Minnesota's children. They want to look tough on crime, but what they are really doing is making it harder for a sex offender to move on once they have committed their crime. That puts them more at risk for mental health issues, as well as further crimes. It does not lead to a safer community.

Why Oppose Them: The Problem With Lifelong Supervision

The main problem with lifelong supervision is that for most sex offenders, it is completely unnecessary: It would be a waste of taxpayer money. Read, if you will, the statement of an expert that has not only treated victims of sex crimes and sex offenders, but has extensively researched sex offender typology:

1. Recidivism rates are not uniform across all sex offenders. Risk of re-offending varies based on well-known factors and can be reliably predicted by widely used risk assessment tools such as the Static-99 and Static-99R, which are used to classify offenders into various risk levels.
2. Once convicted, most sexual offenders are never re-convicted of another sexual offence.
3. First-time sexual offenders are significantly less likely to sexually re-offend than are those with previous sexual convictions.
4. Contrary to the popular notion that sexual offenders remain at risk of re-offending through their lifespan, the longer offenders remain offence-free in the community, the less likely they are to re-offend sexually. Eventually, they are less likely to re-offend than a non-sexual offender is to commit an “out of the blue” sexual offence.
1. Offenders who are classified as low-risk by the Static-99R pose no more risk of recidivism than do [whiteout] individuals who have never been arrested for a sex-related offense but have been arrested for some other crime.
2. After 10-14 years in the community without committing a sex offense, medium-risk offenders pose no more risk of recidivism than individuals who have never been arrested for a sex-related offense but have been arrested for some other crime.
3. After 17 years without a new arrest for a sex-related offense, high risk offenders pose no more risk of committing a new sex offense than do individuals who have never been arrested for a sex-related offense but have been arrested for some other crime.
5. Based on my research, my colleagues and I recommend that rather than considering all sexual offenders as continuous, lifelong threats, society will be better served when legislation and policies consider the cost/benefit break point after which resources are spent tracking and supervising low-risk sexual offenders are better re-directed toward the management of high-risk sexual offenders, crime prevention, and victim services.

It may be slightly difficult to understand the last paragraph, but they recommend that instead of viewing all sex offenders as lifelong risks to public safety (as HF 1572/SF 1895 does), it is better to look at the point at which the costs outweigh the benefits of supervising and tracking sex offenders, and to focus efforts on high-risk offenders, prevention, and services to victims. 

Why Oppose Them: Mandatory Minimum Sentences

They call it child pornography. I call it sex abuse material, because that is what it is. Those that are charged with sex abuse material crimes are typically low-risk sex offenders, who would do well on probation with a stay of imposition. Probation would require them to complete sex offender treatment as well as refraining from consuming any kind of sexual imagery or pornography. In larger counties, compliance is monitored by a computer program. They would also need to refrain from contact with children. Mandatory minimum sentences would again hinder these offenders' abilities to re-enter the community, and leave a larger gap between the time they are arrested and sentenced, and the time they are able to get sex offender treatment. That serves no real public safety purpose, it serves to vindictively punish people for committing a certain crime. As the bills are aimed to improve public safety, that must be their focus.

Sex Crime Is Not Simple

The unfortunate truth is that sex crime is vastly complex, and a wide variety of research has been conducted in each complex area within sexual crime. While the public may understand the issue simply as, "If someone poses a risk to the public they should be locked up!" the reality is not nearly that simple. Most sex offenders do not present enough of a risk to public safety, and many other types of offenders (property crime, financial crime, theft, etc.) have a much higher risk to public safety than sex offenders present. Attempting to take a one-size-fits-all approach to this issue will compound these complex issues, not solve them.

A Criminal Issue Or A Mental Health Issue?

Recently, there has been much talk in the academic field of child sexual abuse prevention about treating sex abuse as a public health issue. This idea is new to the public and to policy makers, but not new to researchers. The Center for Sex Offender Management has stated much the same thing, and last year, Elizabeth Letourneau gave a speech at TEDMED indicating that sexual abuse is a preventable public health issue. 

While victimizing people sexually is absolutely abhorrent and a criminal act, the issues that lead someone to commit that act are largely mental health issues with a wide variety of motivations and contributing factors. Those motivations and factors are just as complex as the realities of sex crime, if not more so: The same thing that motivates incest in one person does not motivate a juvenile to sexually abuse a younger child. Even the same kind of offense is motivated differently.

If we paid attention to the realities of sex crimes, who perpetrates them, and focused on preventing sex crime, a larger dent would be made in keeping the public safe than current methods of reacting to sex offenders will do. That is why I have formed some solutions, based on my nerd-like knowledge of this subject.

Alternative Solutions

I have already taken the liberty of contacting many state politicians about this same issue. The recommendations I made for them are, instead of passing HF 1572:

1. Use stays of imposition and probation on adults that score as low-risk on Minnesota’s risk assessment criteria, and stays of adjudication on juvenile offenders. Incentivize sex offenders to remain law-abiding. Do not eliminate these stays.
2. Assign risk level based on risk assessment, not on which statute was violated. If possible, use both the MN-SOST-3.1 and the Static-99R. While the MN-SOST-3.1 is reliable, more research has been done proving the reliability of the Static-99R. www.static99.org has more information including research. 
3. Remove the requirement to register for low-risk offenders, and reserve that for moderate and high-risk offenders. If any low-risk offender commits a second sex crime, they must register, and if any moderate to high risk offender commits a second sex crime, they receive an automatic prison sentence appropriate to the circumstances, after which their name would be made public (notification). The money saved from taking this approach should be spent on prevention and education.
4. Should any offender with at least two sexual crimes on their record reoffend again regardless of the offense type, it is an automatic life sentence in prison. Three strikes and they are done. That alone should serve to both control recidivism, and deter recidivists.
5. More is needed in the way of educating children and communities about sexual issues and where they can go to get help. I believe Erin’s Law is just one step: We cannot stop with passing just Erin’s Law. These recommendations is covered in depth here.

I have made other recommendations before on this blog, and indeed in the critique of Kare 11's investigation. These recommendations are specific to Minnesota, while many of the recommendations in my critique are generalized to the rest of the United States. I believe that sex crimes can be stopped before they happen. Do you believe these are preventable crimes? If so, let your legislators know. If not, then study up on this subject. The articles and studies link on the right is a great place to start.

It is for the children, after all.

Update:

Victory

The Senate Public Safety Committee, and the conference committee, has chosen to delete HF 1572 from the Public Safety Omnibus Bill. For now, I am considering this a victory.

37 "Scarey" Repeat Sex Offenders Statistics, Debunked And Fact-Checked

Um, Say What?

So, I was looking for a replication of a study I constantly cite (again, to no avail), and came across this article. Now granted, it is two years old, but I figured that it could use a little bit of updating, and since I know a lot about this topic and I have not written anything for a month... One of the biggest criticisms I have for this article is that it cites no sources for its numerous "facts" so there is no way to identify which come from studies unless you are familiar with the research. Since I am familiar with some of the research, I will take a stab at this.

Introduction

In their one-paragraph introduction, they give wrong information. Current laws do not, in fact, make it impossible for sex offenders to live or work near places where children congregate and the laws that do have been shown to be ineffective. They also state that a sex offender can easily become a repeat offender, despite citing no evidence to that effect (the average recidivism rate for sex offenders committing new sexual crimes is around 12%, which means that 88% of sex offenders never commit another sex crime). But then, the post was written by someone at "Health Research Funding", so it must be right, you might think. Well, their introduction paragraph has two wrong facts right off the bat.

Health Research Funding's List Of Alternative Facts

So, to their list. It would be tedious to give each statistic a heading, so I will have their alternative facts in the far-left numbers that progress, and the reaction to that fact in the little "1" under their "facts".

1. The total number of registered sex offenders that are currently in the United States: 747,000.
1. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children puts this number at 859,500 as of December 6, 2016.
2. 33% of the registered sex offenders that are in the US right now are under the supervision of a corrections agency.
1. Since they cite no source for this, there is no way to verify this statistic, nor is there any way to determine if the supervision they mention is probation or parole.
3. The average age of a rapist is 31-years-old and 52.2% of them are white males.
1. As a small percentage of sex offenders (less than 30%, since 66% of sex offenders are those with offenses against children) are rapists, this fact is misleading. 
4. An estimated 24% of those serving time for rape and 19% of those serving time for sexual assault had been on probation or parole at the time of their repeat offense.
1. See previous answer: They are talking about a minute fraction of sex offenders, certainly not the majority. Since there is no way to verify this list, 
5. Only 2% of the Catholic clergy sexual abusers were ever jailed, despite over 10,000 victims and an estimated 4,300 total abusers.
1. There is no way to verify if this is true, but given the coverups and overall statistics about underreporting, it would not surprise me if this were accurate.
6. An adolescent sex offender who does not receive treatment will commit an estimated 380 sex crimes over their lifetime.
1. This is hogwash that is based on a hogwash study that was debunked some time ago. Here, you can see a therapist address this. 
7. 1 out of every 2 child molestations that occurs are perpetrated by an adolescent male.
1. A study in the Juvenile Justice Bulletin done in 2009 puts this figure at 35.6%, not half. 
8. Offenders with a previous sex offense conviction have a 37% re-offense rate.
1. Overall sex offender recidivism for general crimes is 30-40%, while sexual recidivism is around 12%. 
9. Rapists repeat their offenses at rates up to 35%.
1. See above. Also, this study found that rapists repeat sexual crimes at a rate of 18.9%, not 35%, and rapists repeat general crimes at a rate around 46.2%. 
10. Sex offenders who are attracted to boys are the most likely to re-offend in some sex crime which may include rape, molestation, or a violent act.
1. Sex offenders who are attracted to children in general works out to be .05764% of the entire US population (compared to .262% of the population that are sex offenders, and .17292% of the population are sex offenders with an offense against a child). 17% of girls are abused, and 7% of boys are abused sexually, so the percentage 
11. The percentage of second sex offenses that occur while the offender is living in a supervised community: 60%.
1. Again, there is no source for this, and given that most sex offenders do not reoffend sexually (most being, on average, 88%, see number 8), this would be talking about 7.2% of sex offenders if true.
12. It costs $22,000 per year in order to incarcerate a sex offender.
1. According to this source, it costs on average, $31,307 to incarcerate an inmate, and according to The New York Times, that same figure is $31,286. Suffice it to say that this figure seems low, and without a study or jurisdiction, I call hogwash.
13. For children between the ages of 12-15, about one third of all the sex offenses that occur are from a male perpetrator who is of the same age.
1. At what point to we call this a sex offense? Is it the child or children who has a problem with this same-age sexual behavior, or the parents and the police? In some states, any sexual activity between two children of the same age is illegal no matter what.
14. 43% of the sexual assaults that occur happen within a 6 hour window that begins at 6pm and ends at midnight.
1. No source, and I am unfamiliar with statistics about sexual assault.
15. The percentage of sex crimes that occur to children under the age of 6 by an adolescent under the age of 18: 40%.
1. According to this study, page 7, 57.1% of such crimes are perpetrated by offenders 12 years old or younger, and 21% of such crimes are perpetrated by offenders 12-18 years old.
16. The average amount of jail time that a sex offender will serve out of their average 8 year prison sentence: 3.5 years.
1. In other words, it takes the justice system an average of 3.5 years from the time they are first arrested and go to jail, to convict a sex offender and send them to prison? This is either poorly worded or wrong. If true, it would mean that most justice systems are violating sex offenders' right to a speedy trial, and I doubt that kind of constitutional violation is occurring on such a wide scale.
17. 30% of the children who are abused sexually will become sex offenders later on in their adult life.
1. See next fact, and answer this: If a third of victims actually go on to abuse, why are only one-third of sexual abusers found to have been abused? Those numbers do not add up.
18. Although two thirds of sex offenders during an interview state that they were abused as children, only 29% of them are found to be telling the truth during a lie detector test.
1. This has been shown by research to be correct, only the number is 50% and drops to 30-40% depending on which study you consult. Relying on one study for a statistic like this is deceptive at best.
19. 80% of the girls who are sexually molested had a perpetrator that was someone which they new.
1. First, please learn how to spell, folks. New is not knew. Second, 90% of child sexual abuse victims know their abuser, not 80%. 
20. The percentage of boys who knew the perpetrator that molested them: 93%.
1. See above response.
21. Approximately 47% of people are victimized by their family or their extended family.
1. The last I looked at this figure, it was 30%, not 47%. 
22. Repeat sex offenders in one study used romantic relationships with women to gain access to the women’s children.
1. One study does not make the norm, and given that most new sex offenses are not committed by registered sex offenders but by those new to the criminal justice system, this is questionable. 
23. Only 2.7% of the total number of sex offenders are estimated to commit another sex crime after being released from jail.
1. If only 2.7% of sex offenders reoffend after being released from jail, then they contradicted their own fact- number 8, which claims that sex offenders have a 37% recidivism rate.
24. The percentage of sex offenders that will commit another crime, non-sexual in nature, after being released from jail: 70%.
1. Most studies on recidivism show that a sex offender will usually recidivate with a non-sexual crime, so this is likely true. I do not see how it is a scary repeat sex offender statistic, however.
25. The state of Delaware has the highest rate of sex offenders, with a rate of 517 per 100,000 in general population.
1. The state of Delaware has 507 per 100,000 people, and the highest rate is actually found at 718 in Oregon. 
26. It isn’t just men who are sex offenders. 2% of the sex offender registry in New York State are women.
1. Women have always accounted for a small percentage of sexual crimes. What is not here is that they typically receive more lenient sentences also.
27. Pennsylvania has the lowest rate of sexual offenders: 94 per 100,000.
1. 157 per 100,000 people, and the lowest rate within the 50 states is actually 113, and that is in Maryland.
28. Studies have found that contemporary cognitive-behavioral treatment does help to reduce rates of sexual re-offending by as much as 40%.
1. This means that sex offender treatment is effective at reducing recidivism. How is that scary, I wonder? I have seen studies that claim much the same, so this is actually a fact.
29. Over a 5 year period, recidivism rates can be as low as 14% in some jurisdictions.
1. Which jurisdictions? Cite your source, and frankly, given the numbers I have seen in individual jurisdictions (for example, Wisconsin is 6% after 15 years and 1.5% after 3, and Minnesota is 7% after 8 years)
30. First-time offenders are less likely to create a repeat sexual offense than those who have already committed a second or third repeat sexual offense.
1. Again, I fail to see how this is a scary repeat sex offender statistic. However, this is true and verified by the statement of R. Karl Hanson.
31. Only 10% of all sex crimes actually result in a criminal conviction.
1. Sex crimes are well-known for having low conviction rates because of the myth that victims are lying, and the fact that victim testimony is usually the only evidence available. 
32. The cost savings per year to place a sex offender into a comprehensive treatment program instead of jail: $15,000 per offender.
1. Without a source, I cannot verify this. But given that their earlier fact 28 shows a significant drop in recidivism with treatment, and low recidivism overall, this is a good thing: Treatment, as they just showed, is better than incarceration. 
33. The average number of victims for a pedophile who prefers boys over girls: over 100.
1. See fact number 6, and this source. This is wrong.
34. It is not unusual for a sex offender to spend years developing a trustworthy reputation so that they can be near children and commit an offense that many just cannot believe.
1. Around 66% of sex offenders, as discussed in fact number 3, have offenses against children. Also, most sex offenses are committed by first-time offenders. So this "fact" is not only not true for all sex offenders, this is not true for most child sexual abuse cases, because sex offenders are not responsible. It is true that sexual abusers (not sex offenders) spend anywhere from weeks to years grooming their victim, and the signs of grooming are a reliable indicator, but looking only at sex offenders is a mistake.
35. Only 33% of the sex offenses that occur to children between the ages of 12-19 are ever reported. This is half of the amount of sex offenses that are reported when the victim is between the ages of 35-49.
1. Most studies put the reporting rate for child sexual abuse at 38-50%, not 33%.
36. Although 50 percent of violent crime victims over the age of 12 contact police, only 36 percent of sexual assault victims over the age of 12 report the crime to authorities.
1. So what? This is not scary, what is scary is that, according to their own statistics, child sexual abuse is not reported more than it is reported, which means that the bigger risk comes from people who have never been caught.
37. Only about 30% of rapes are ever reported to police. Research indicates that sex offenses are one of the most underreported crimes that happen.
1. According to RAINN, this is true. It is also true that of the 310/1000 victims of rape, only 6 will result in an incarcerated rapist, and only 7 will result in a felony conviction.

The Rest Of Their Information

The rest of their information is shady. They state that no one is safe from being targeted by a sex offender (as if sex offenders are the biggest threat, when they are not), and discuss what qualifies as a sex crime and the effects victimization can have (very, very briefly). They state that "virtually every pedophile will become a child molester" (which, as I have discussed before, is a myth that does not stand up to looking at the facts and statistics available on the matter: At worst, only 3-5.2% of pedophiles do molest children, and adjusting for underreporting, at least 74.4% of pedophiles do not molest children).

They discuss underreporting as the most significant issue to sex crimes (while it is a big deal, the bigger deal is that we spend a hugely disproportionate amount of our efforts on a population that does not commit sex crimes: Sex offenders). They discuss being vigilant, and note "listen for your kids in your backyard" and "don't let them wander off in a store all alone" when 80% of child sexual abuse happens in the residence (page 3) of the victim or perpetrator, not outside or in a store. So their idea of vigilance, and the bulk of their facts, do not stand up to reality.

I conclude that whoever wrote the article had no idea what they were talking about, and while they seemed to be well-intentioned, spreading myths about sex crimes is a surefire way to enable them to happen. When we listen for our children in the backyard rather than focusing on the warning behaviors in potential abusers, we fool ourselves into thinking everything is okay. Facts protect children. Myths do not.

Kare 11's Botched Investigation Into Sex Offenders

To anyone living in Minnesota, Kare 11 is a household name in news. They are largely a reputable company with many investigations and news articles under their belt. However, a recent investigation into sex offenders, and the follow-up to that investigation, should appall you. Why? Because their investigation not only was extremely incomplete, but touts a single example as the legal norm in Minnesota for sex offenders, and argues that all sex offenders are dangerous. In fact, their opening headline for the primary investigation reads:

KARE 11 Investigates: Minnesota's Secret Sex Offenders

A LITTLE-KNOWN LEGAL LOOPHOLE IS ALLOWING HUNDREDS OF CHILD SEXUAL PREDATORS IN MINNESOTA TO SLIDE UNDER THE RADAR, LEAVING PARENTS IN THE DARK ABOUT THE DANGER THEY MAY POSE.

Hundreds Of Predators?

If you read very far into their report, however, you see that "hundreds of child sexual predators" includes a fair amount of juveniles who received a stay of adjudication and 210 other adults 22 years old and older. A stay of adjudication means that an offender must complete a series of requirements, and their crime is not available in public databases unless they do not complete the requirements.

Some of the requirements, for example, are to complete a lengthy probation sentence and complete sex offender treatment (treatment which usually requires at least two years to complete). Standard probation requirements for sex offenders typically involves no contact with anyone under 18 years old, and no pornography. 

What their investigation completely ignores is that Minnesota is home to 17,654 registered sex offenders as of December 6th, 2016. The ability to find out just how many of those 17,654 offenders are considered "high-risk" by the state is challenging at best. To the best of my recall, the amount of level 3 sex offenders in the state does not exceed 2,000 people. 210 people, compared with these numbers, is miniscule. The worst thing about risk level in Minnesota is that it is not determined by an actual risk-assessment administered by a trained psychologist: It is determined based entirely on Minnesota's own criteria, which was developed by studying sex offenders released from prison.

To the average person, that may sound like a good thing... until you realize that many low-level sex offenders, including those convicted of child sexual abuse and sexual abuse material crimes, are frequently given probation if they are a first-time offender. The screening tool that Minnesota uses to determine the risk level of its sex offenders does not have as much reliability as other screening tools, like the Static-99R. More work is needed.

What About Recidivism And Megan's Law?

To make these matters worse, Minnesota's Department of Corrections has done two "recent" studies on sex offenders that would matter to the average person: The 2007 report on recidivism, and the report on Megan's Law in 2008. Both of these reports are as flawed as the system they use to assign risk level: The 2007 report on recidivism looks at 3,166 sex offenders released from a correctional facility (read: prison) between 1990 and 2002, which means their report does not look at the vast majority of sex offenders, only those released from prison. 

The report discussing Megan's Law is also extremely narrow in its scope, and contains methodological errors that would shame any statistician: They conclude, based on their study of recidivism rates of 155 level three offenders subject to notification and 125 who were not, that notification has a strong deterrent effect and reduces recidivism. They essentially claim that correlation proves causation, with no control methods used to distinguish  between the results of these groups. 

Overall Sex Offender Statistics

The statistics discussed in the aforementioned reports are shockingly incomplete, and give the public just enough data to shut up. However, a plethora of other studies have also been done on sex offenders. You have heard me mention them here numerous times: A study done in New York on 21 years of arrest data found that 95% of new sexual crimes were committed not by registered sex offenders, but first-time offenders new to the criminal justice system. Other studies have yielded similar results, usually finding that at least 90% of sex crimes are committed by first-time offenders. This means that the numerous processes we have to address sex offenders attempts to answer approximately 5-10% of new sex crime. 

That study, combined with the numerous meta-analyses done on sex offender recidivism, point to the idea that sex offenders are not nearly as dangerous as people believe: Around 12% of sex offenders will re-offend with a sexual crime, and around 30-40% will reoffend with any crime. That contrasts to the national average for criminal recidivism being around 60-75%. It has been said in media articles on the subject that the only crime with a lower recidivism rate is murder. 

Cost

I know from previous experience with the Minnesota legislature that Minnesota spends a few hundred thousand on preventing sexual assault, and I learned recently that we spend $93 million on managing and tracking sexual offenders. I believe this is very imbalanced, and makes it clear that our focus is not on preventing sexual crimes, but on reacting where they do occur.

The Take-Away

Kare 11 focuses on a miniscule fraction of 5% of new sex criminals in the making. Already, some of Minnesota's legislators, including Gov. Mark Dayton and Rep. Tony Cornish are promising to fix how stays of adjudication are used. But nothing is being promised to address and prevent 95% of new sex crime, which is not committed by sex offenders, but by those new to the criminal justice system. Minnesota, like so many other states, is focusing its efforts on endlessly punishing those who pose the smallest amount of risk in terms of future sex crimes, and focusing next to nothing on preventing sexual crimes before they can happen. Indeed, Minnesota spends $93 million a year on SORN policies, and only $300,000 on sexual assault prevention. Our priorities are not on keeping the public safe.

As an advocate pushing the end of child sexual abuse before it can happen, I am outraged that not only Minnesota's leaders, but also its major media outlets, are doing nothing about the majority of sexual crimes in Minnesota. We are weak: The only statement worth supporting in Kare 11's investigation is that Minnesota has created an atmosphere of legal tolerance of sexual violence. While that statement was intended to address how sex offenders are treated in the legal system, I think that statement is used far too narrowly. 

I am ashamed to call myself a Minnesotan.

Alternative Solutions

There are several solutions that many of my readers may already be familiar with, like knowing the facts and the warning behaviors in potential abusers, and many of my other suggestions center around reforming sexual offender laws to be more effective at protecting the public. Some of them concern educating families, and educating children.

Sex offender registration needs reform, primarily because it lumps low-risk and no-risk offenders in with high-risk and recidivist sex offenders, which means law enforcement has a harder job investigating sex crimes. Instead, it would be best to use the money currently allocated to the sex offender registry in each state to perform psychological risk assessments on each offender. These risk assessments would divide only into low and high risk. These assessments would be done by an independent board of expert psychologists in each state, and only those who score as high-risk will be registered with law enforcement. The specific statute being charged and convicted should have no bearing on risk level, and the circumstances of the offense and risk assessments should be used as the determining factor for risk. As risk level and offender registration are not punitive measures, they could only be used as a factor when determining a criminal sentence. 

The trend in research identifies several issues with publicly identifying sex offenders in the community, commonly known as sex offender notifications. Many of these issues can be solved by only notifying the community in certain special circumstances: Multiple sex crimes, a high-risk score on risk assessment, release from prison, and two or more psychological disorders could be some of the criteria. The compliance patrols that are currently aimed at low-risk and no-risk offenders could instead be aimed at those who meet enough criteria to warrant public notification. Not all high-risk offenders would warrant public notification, only those who meet enough criteria would qualify. Anyone subject to sex offender notifications would be incarcerated for life if they commit another offense of any kind.

The research surrounding residency restrictions is nearly unanimous in saying that they do not keep the public safer, and in some cases, can lead to increased homelessness. This increased homelessness has been shown to increase risk factors for further offending, as well as making it more difficult for offenders to reestablish themselves as productive members of society. Therefore, residency restrictions should be completely abolished except for those warranting community notification, as covered in the heading "sex offender notifications". As such, any such offender committing another offense of any kind would be subject to a life sentence.

In many states, sex offenders are restricted from random things that do not have any effect on public safety. For example, sex offenders in some states cannot use the internet, or cannot use certain aspects of the internet, such as for gaming, social media, or even commenting on the news. In other places, sex offenders cannot participate in Halloween or attend the state fair. As 95% of new sex crime is perpetrated by those without criminal convictions, these restrictions do nothing to keep the public safer and put onerous enforcement requirements on supervising corrections officers and law enforcement that could be better spent detecting new sex crimes or educating the community regarding safety and prevention. 

Some funding originally directed at sex offender registration in the past must be directed to educating families about appropriate safety plans, facts around child sexual abuse and sexual assault, warning behaviors in potential abusers, resources for individualized help on a variety of topics, and normative vs. atypical sexual behavior in children and teenagers. This education plan would be created using accurate terminology, research-based factoids, and produced by experts in these areas. 

In line with the aforementioned education of families, schools and families should have access to age-appropriate sexual education covering a wide variety of topics to prepare each child for life in the adult world. Such education should be covered both at school and at home, and the standards for this education should be a principled skeleton of topics. It would then be decided on the local level how to cover each principle, so that each community has a say in practicing this education. These principles should include:

• Legal and ethical specifics on the subject of consent
• Anatomical health practices including STD's, safe sex, and physical boundaries
• How to form and keep social and emotional boundaries
• Resources that a child can use for a variety of situations including but not limited to, sexual abuse, mental health disorders, physical health concerns, and relationship health.