Here’s a novel idea; why don’t the parents take the kids to the bus stop and pick them up there. Or teach them what to do if a stranger approaches, or teach them self defense, or entrust a responsible adult to make sure they arrive at the bus stop safely? Too many parents nowadays don’t want to step up and take actual responsibility for their children.

hmmm wouldn't picking your kid up at the bus stop make them less "street smart" (in reference to the post about elizabeth olten I am being sarcastic, I do pick my kids up at the bus stop, but to some that means I am over protective)

The study you pulled it from is over 8 years old and if you look at when they were established it was June 1997 and the report was done in May of 2001..hardly the 25 years they claim to have stats on.

The study focused on sex offenders from 1972 to 1997 – 25 years. Upon completion in ‘97, they released a report. Studies are dated by when the report was released. The PDF I linked to was a report released in 2001 that compared various older studies, one being Prentky, Lee, Knight, and Cerce (1997), where that chart came from. That doesn’t mean that the time period being studied was between ‘97 and ‘01. See what I’m saying?

Never mind the fact that no state or province has even had a RSO program for 25 years. You can’t tell me that they were able to follow enough people with sex crime convictions to be able to make a accurate study considering the fact it would have been all voluntary, no requirements to check in or have your address listed..nothing. There is no way for you to accurately follow someone for 25 years without them offering to allow you too.

Do you know what “RSO” stands for? “Registered Sex Offender”. These studies have nothing to do with registries, though. If Ricky Bobby was popped for child molestation back in ‘86, you don’t need to “follow him” to find out if he reoffends. You just check his criminal record at established intervals, say 1 year, 5 years, 10 years and 25 years. It’s all public information.

Taking that into account of course things won’t ever match up to reality, but in all honesty no study comes close to matching numbers. Take 10 studies done on the same subject and all 10 will have varying answers.

Actually, depending on a study’s methodology, studies can be VERY accurate. That’s why the methodology should be reviewed. If a study was put together illogically or if it failed to control for certain factors, it’ll be inaccurate. If 10 studies are done on the same thing using the same methology, their results will be quite similar in most cases.

I agree completely with what you said. I’m pro death penalty and personally think if they can prove 100% that a person committed a rape,etc then they shouldn’t even have jail time..it should be right out to the firing squad for them. But I also believe they need hard evidence, DNA,etc to convict people for these crimes. To many people fall between the cracks the way the justice system is set up now. Everyone is out for there own personal gain right down to the lawyers and judges.

Also you make a valid point about following them longer for more accurate results. The study you pulled it from is over 8 years old and if you look at when they were established it was June 1997 and the report was done in May of 2001..hardly the 25 years they claim to have stats on. Never mind the fact that no state or province has even had a RSO program for 25 years. You can’t tell me that they were able to follow enough people with sex crime convictions to be able to make a accurate study considering the fact it would have been all voluntary, no requirements to check in or have your address listed..nothing. There is no way for you to accurately follow someone for 25 years without them offering to allow you too. I think there’s a huge difference between being charged with a sex offense and being labeled a RSO, especially in the way people look at you and the way you react to the public in general.

The stats I gave are the stats since we started our RSO program in 2004, that’s a short 4 year span for them to gather info before that article was released. Taking that into account of course things won’t ever match up to reality, but in all honesty no study comes close to matching numbers. Take 10 studies done on the same subject and all 10 will have varying answers.

Also, I read duncan’s the fifth nail or what not, that was some messed up shit. Made my skin crawl. By my statement above I in NO WAY support actual guilty RSO’s. The danger is, as Athena, said thinking all RSO’s are pedophiles. As in the case of the child just found, Somer; 75 RSO’s within a 5 mile radius…that doesn’t mean pedophiles though.

Please understand none of this is personal, so I would appreciate if you refrain from personal attacks.

Someone who shows up here telling people who disagree, “Well, fuck you,” really has no grounds on which to request civility, now, do they? If you want happy people holding hands, you might want to rethink your entrance next time.

I think that many points of the RSO programs need to be revamped; however, I see no reason to get rid of the sex offender registry. It certainly does not make communities any less safe. While it is not all that effective in stopping many if not most sexual predators, it does not aid sexual predation in any way.

What kind of logic is this? Unless you can think of a way to revamp registries to make them effective, then, yes, we need to get rid of them, for two reasons:

1.) Registries contribute to a false sense of security. Some experts suggest that parents who are focused on registries are distracted from more immediate threats, thinking that, because they can “see” the predators in their neighborhood, there’s nothing to worry about.

2.) Registries cost money to maintain. In an economic atmosphere that is resulting in slashed budgets for law enforcement nationwide, we can’t afford to maintain ineffective programs simply because, hey, they’re not helping predators!

I’m going to assume you understand the concept of ROI, or “return on investment”. Registries have an incredibly poor ROI. They cost a lot of money for minimal to no benefit, and may even hinder us in social ways.

Chronic you made a comment about my ignorance when it came to lingering threats among RSOs. While the overwhelming majority of sex offenders do not reoffend, there is nothing that shows that a person is less of a threat or a non-threat after a certain amount of time. A child molester is a child molester for life. The majority do not reoffend after their first time, but that does not mean they don’t want to or wouldn’t in a second if they thought they wouldn’t get caught and go back to prison. Many end up feeling guilty, but there is no way to determine a person’s feelings of guilt and I would rather stay on the safe side under the assumption that they will reoffend. I don’t believe there is a thing that rehabilitation or time can do to a persons sexual urges.

Dude… don’t just agree with her statistics! Do your own research! You’re a law student, for christ’s sake! Frankly, I’m surprised you haven’t already.

When articles cite “studies” without listing the specifics, it’s often misleading. When it comes to recidivism rates for sex offenders, you would not believe the extent to which the results vary. Because of the different methodologies used, some studies are a lot more meaningful than others.

For example – A study that measures the re-arrest rate of 162 sex offenders after 4 years might find that 87% do not re-offend. Sounds legit, right? It’s a longitudinal study that used a healthy sample. But this is a worthless study for your purpose, for three reasons. 1) They failed to define “re-arrest”. It doesn’t matter to us if he was picked up for marijuana possession or car theft, does it? 2.) They failed to define “sex offenders”. They could have used 162 “sex offenders”, none of whom were convicted for rape or child molestation, the specific offenders you’re interested in. 3.) They were only studied for 4 years.

Now, here’s a study that is far more specific and useful:

As you can see, it details the recidivism rate (as it pertains to sex offenses specifically) of rapists and child molesters over a 25 year period of time… and as you can see, they both boast rather high recidivism rates when followed for a long enough period. Still not as high as some might think, but, ultimately, these statement that the vast majority don’t reoffend is patently false.

Incidentally, Chris, if you click on that chart, it will take you to a very helpful PDF that reviews a number of sex offender recidivism studies in depth. It would be helpful for you to review, I think.

While I generally have only limited sympathy for RSO’s – we have to admit that their lives are basically ruined once they get that “tag”. They have almost no options, even if they have paid their “debt” to society and are trying to go straight. Which, is kind of unfair – especially for SO’s who are not predators.

Anyway – if this daycare plan actually went down, and these RSO’s were given 24 hours to do the impossible – to find a new place to live – don’t you think that at least ONE of them might snap? If they snapped, who might they target? Yeah – the center. BAD IDEA.

If anyone of you ever read the online journals of Joseph Duncan (the perv who kidnapped the Groene children) you can watch the deterioration of a mind – because (in his eyes) of the immense pressures he faced by being a RSO. (Not that that is any even minute excuse for what he did – but you can’t argue with a crazy person).

Anyway – overall horrible idea, no matter what you think about RSO’s.

No one said anything about the RSO’s in the report being pedophiles. People see registered sex offender and automatically fear the worst. Life isn’t always black and white you can’t just clump people together because a flawed legal system deems so. Your more likely to die from a drunk driver then you are to be molested by a RSO, are you going to quit driving because of that chance?

And a side note..I don’t know what being gay has to do with being a RSO. It’s not even comparable, just because your gay doesn’t mean you hurt people or break the law. If a homosexual chooses to hide who they are then they have no one to blame but themselves for how they feel on the inside. This isn’t the 50’s people need to open their eyes.

Athena, I have contacted state representatives. I am in law school and I am studying so that hopefully one day I can have an impact on the many flawed laws when it comes to RSOs. I think for the most part we are all in agreement on this issue, and it probably boils down to misunderstanding.

First, I agree with all of the stats provided by Chronic as well as the critics of the sex offender registry in the article. I think that many points of the RSO programs need to be revamped; however, I see no reason to get rid of the sex offender registry. It certainly does not make communities any less safe. While it is not all that effective in stopping many if not most sexual predators, it does not aid sexual predation in any way. If everyone is on the same page as I am, I apologizing for not getting that.

Chronic you made a comment about my ignorance when it came to lingering threats among RSOs. While the overwhelming majority of sex offenders do not reoffend, there is nothing that shows that a person is less of a threat or a non-threat after a certain amount of time. A child molester is a child molester for life. The majority do not reoffend after their first time, but that does not mean they don’t want to or wouldn’t in a second if they thought they wouldn’t get caught and go back to prison. Many end up feeling guilty, but there is no way to determine a person’s feelings of guilt and I would rather stay on the safe side under the assumption that they will reoffend. I don’t believe there is a thing that rehabilitation or time can do to a persons sexual urges. Ask anyone whoever has tried desperately to erase their own homosexual tendencies in order to rejoin the Mormon church (there’s a lot). I believe most of you are on the same page as me for that one, since you all are in favor of giving child molesters life in prison. I am ALL FOR THAT.

And I want to make one thing clear. Offenders who are “no longer a threat” are STILL A THREAT. You all read this website enough and should know that time and rehabilitation do ABSOLUTELY nothing to a pedophile or rapist except put the fear of prison in them. You can’t change a person’s sexual urges. If you disagree with me, well fuck you.

Here’s some stat’s from where I live (Canada). Ignorance isn’t always bliss, you should try removing the stick from your ass before making assumptions about subjects you obviously know little about. Fear fuels irrational and idiotic thinking in my belief.

Before I post the stat’s I just want to point out some flaws in Canada’s sex offends registry. We the public don’t have access to who is and who isn’t a RSO. If they’re a RSO because of being a pedophile they put out news releases on the media stating who they are, what neighborhood they are moving into etc when they are released from jail so that the public can stay informed.

In B.C., there are 1,607 sex offenders with an obligation to report to the registry. Over the past two years, 60 per cent of those have been investigated by the RCMP for failing to report.

Currently, 152 convicted sexual offenders have still not reported themselves — that’s nearly 10 per cent of the offenders on the registry.

But even that figure is misleading. The 90-per-cent compliance rate doesn’t take into account that some offenders register with a false address or phone number.

For a registry that’s only as effective as it is accurate, things are not looking good.

But it’s not just accuracy that’s the problem. The registry also falls short when it comes to accessibility.

Another of the RCMP’s complaints is that local police detachments are not given access to the database unless a sex crime has actually been committed.

For example, if a young girl has been abducted by a suspected pedophile, investigators can write to the registry asking for assistance.

But if a suspicious character has been seen lurking around schools, that doesn’t cut it.

Emerslund is not only baffled but deeply troubled by the thought that B.C.’s 15,000 police officers have no idea who is or isn’t on the registry.

“I think that a police officer on the street who ends up checking somebody at two in the morning because he’s been lurking in someone’s yard should have information that this is a convicted sex offender who’s required to report to the National Sex Offender Registry,” he says.

Critics says it’s little wonder that the registry has not helped solve a single sex crime in B.C.

Given that studies suggest the majority of convicted sex offenders do not reoffend (anywhere from 73 to 87 per cent), some deplore the attention paid to the minority of offenders who fail to readjust to lead crime-free lives.

Research has also shown that the majority of sex crimes — an estimated 77 per cent — are committed by someone the victim knows.

All of this begs the question of how useful a sex-offender registry actually is.

Here’s what critics say is wrong . . .

1. Registration isn’t mandatory

A Crown prosecutor must ask a judge to add a convicted sex offender to the database. The RCMP believe that some dangerous offenders are falling through the cracks. They want registration to be mandatory for every convicted sex offender, period.

2. Police can barely keep track of the sex offenders ordered on to the registry

The system relies entirely on the honesty of offenders to

(a) report themselves and (b) give accurate information, such as their current address.

3. Vacation without notification

Registered sex offenders are allowed two weeks’ vacation without telling authorities of their plans. In the case of Steven James Petiquan, police had no idea he was in Calgary when a woman was assaulted.

4. The sex offender registry isn’t retroactive

Thousands of sex offenders who committed crimes before 2004 are not on the registry.

5. There is no proactive use of the registry

Police are not allowed access to the sex-offender registry unless a sex crime has taken place. It means that police can encounter suspicious characters lurking near schools and have no way of finding out if he is a convicted sex offender on the registry.

6. The registry is not allowed to document a convicted sex offender’s vehicle registration

This is a key piece of information police need to know when searching for suspects in a sex crime — especially in cases of child abductions.

All in all I’d be more worried about those closest (friends/family/etc) to you then those you don’t even know or live by

Those are 2008 stat’s btw.

Here’s a novel idea; why don’t the parents take the kids to the bus stop and pick them up there. Or teach them what to do if a stranger approaches, or teach them self defense, or entrust a responsible adult to make sure they arrive at the bus stop safely? Too many parents nowadays don’t want to step up and take actual responsibility for their children.

EXACTLY.

Honestly I doubt anyone of them was a pedo, other wise they would have had the condition on them they can’t live/be within a certain radius of children

Exactly. And as I stated in the article, the news reported that the school district did not find any “conditional” RSO’s in the area or they would not have placed the bus stop there in the first place. RSO does not equal pedophile