View Single Post
Old 09-24-2006, 12:59 AM   #20
Seraph
Quintesson
 

Join Date: September 12, 2001
Location: Ewing, NJ
Age: 43
Posts: 1,079
Quote:
I am for a registry for a simple reason: sex offenders have a much higher rate of recidivism than other offenders do. From a 2003 Department of Justice study:

[Snip some facts]
Your facts seem to be designed to muddy the issue, rather then prove your point. The use of arrests rather then convictions is a common tactic in studies to drive up recidivism rates. If you look at convictions rather then arrests that 5.3% turns into a 3.5%.

Digging thru that DoJ study you mention actually was pretty interesting. Ome more fact:
Only about 13.9% of the sex offenders had a previous conviction for any sexual offence. For child molesters specifically that number was 11.9%.

In other words, the vast majoirty of the people in the study wouldn't have shown up on a sex offender list. I think that there are too many people think that the abscence of regestered sex offenders makes their kids safe. Personally I think the whole registry idea is stupid, because if you're going to classify someone as having a high risk of recidivism then they should still be in jail, and I worry that people who should be in jail are going to be let out because some list is supposed to keep them in line.

On a seperate note: Going way back to Larry's first post. Where exactly did you see that google was sponcering this? I can't find anything suggesting that.
Seraph is offline   Reply With Quote