So Why are the Reconviction Rates So Important?

Why the actual re-offense rates are important pertaining to the total number of people who are already on the registry compared with the percentage of those who are then later reconvicted of a new sexually related crime. This is a simple one, the fact is that the registry and community notification laws are based on the premise that people who have been convicted of any type of sexually related crime are going to commit more. In fact, most states have within their statutes their reasoning for the laws existence and that is this high possibility for re-offense. So if it doesn’t exist than their rationale and justification for the laws evaporates and the government’s purpose for the law becomes arbitrary and capricious based on nothing more than a desire to restrict the liberties of a given group of people based on fear and bigotry.

Normally the second reason used by the government to justify the existence of the law is to help law enforcement track down people involved in new sex crimes. That naturally makes the assumption that people on the registry are the ones going to be involved in any new crimes.

So it is important that these two issues related to re-offense rate that must be dealt with. The first one is; of the people that are on the registry, what is the percentage that are involved in new sexually related crimes, and the second question is, what is the percentage of the people on the registry that are involved in a new sexually related crime in comparison to the ordinary citizen who have never been convicted of a sexually related crime? If in either case, there is a high re-offense rate for people on the registry, than the justification for the law could exist, if not than the justification evaporates.

The problem is government has done its best to hide the truth, thereby taking away the possible challenges to the laws. The legislators, suppose victim’s advocates and special interest groups that financially benefit from the myth of high re-offense rates have promoted these biased laws. But even their own studies that only look at selected groups and not the entire registry, have continually shown low reconviction rates In new sex crimes for people with prior sex crimes. Two studies have recently come to light that have actually looked at all the people on the registry. One is the Nebraska sex offender registry study completed July 31st 2013 which was actually commissioned by the Nebraska Legislature, where it shows that the re-offense rate for people on the Nebraska Registry is 6/10 of one percent. The second one was done in Ohio where they tracked 21,750 people that were on their registry for 10 years in any given year. The re-offense rate was less than 3/10 of one percent “Note: Re-offenses in one year. There are more RSO registered than shown above for this data is only for the ten years from 2000 to 2010. Ohio has had their registry since 1996. During the following four to five years, there has been an additional 5000 RSOs who have now been on the registry from 10 to 15 years and they only add about 1 re-offense a year at the most. The re-offense rates for each year after released is based form the information found in ODRC Ten-Year Recidivism Follow-Up Of 1989 Sex Offenders Releases ; By Paul Konicek Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections, Office of Policy, Bureau of Planning and Evaluation; ” at the end of the study comparing the people who did not reoffend against the people who did . They came up with the re-offense rate of 1/100 of 1% so there doesn’t seem to be a high reoffend rate for people who are on the registry as bias.government officials and special interest groups would have us believe.

The second part of it is to aid law enforcement when new sex crimes happen. First of all most of that reasoning has disappeared simply because there is no high re-offense rate, so there is no need to aid law enforcement. Many people point to the Department of Justice study done in 1997 on prisoners released in 1994 and followed for three years. A graph has surfaced, that was supposed to be in this study that was removed before it was printed. The primary reason this was done is that it shows information that is not in this study, and one would assume that this information was also removed from the study, that is, the number of people in the last two-years during this study that were involved in new sex crimes within those states that were in the study. That total according to the FBI statistics showed that there were 187,132 new convictions for sex crimes related to this time, and the states within this study. (The last two years of the study) only 50 people who who had prior sexual convictions were involved and that means that of the new sex crimes committed in 1995 and 1996 99.973% were done by people not on the registry so why waste the time and resources running around disrupting and destroying the lives people and their families who have low reoffence rates and only have a 27/1000 of 1% chance of having been involved in a new crime? The answer is simple from my point of view, it is because of fear and bigotry. I wonder if that the message that the legislators want to convey to their constituents is that the Constitution means nothing, and that it’s okay to pass legislation based on fear and hatred? I wonder who will next fall victim to these legislators.

Click on graph for clearer view

The question has been asked why was this graph removed along with the supporting information from this study I believe the reason that this graph was removed was for a number of reasons . First of all, the statement that is in the 1997 study that says sex offenders are four times more likely to be involved in a new sex crime than other inmates released from prison. Which has since been proved to be a manipulation of the statistical data, with the fact being that inmates who had no prior sexual charges were responsible for 90.9% of the new sex crime convictions of people released from prison. So that statement is proven to be not at all true or supported by the data and the fact is that the graph quite clearly shows that.

So when we talk about the Department of Justice study that was done in 1997. The main thing that needs to be pointed out is that 99.973% of new sex crimes committed in 1995 and 1996. Where done people who had never been convicted of a sex crime before. one other thing that it shows is that during that two-year period (. Note that the study was done for three years and came up with a re-offense rate of 3.5% re-conviction of the small specified group that it tracked) the graph clearly shows that for the second and third year combined of the study time only 5/10 of 1% of the registered citizens reoffended. That is, I believe why this table/ graph/ information was removed by the government or authors of the study before it was printed if the government is trying to prove that sex offenders have a high re-offense rate. This table by itself blows that theory clear out of the water.

Remember one thing all these studies of prisoners being released from prison, or people in therapy groups do not give a true picture of what is going on on the Registry . They only gives somewhat of a picture of what is going on with people being released from prison. The only two studies that I know of that actually looked at all people that were on the registry and track their re-offense rate was the Nebraska one they came up with the re-offense rate of 6/10 of one percent . Another similar study was done in the state Ohio with an overall re-offense rate of less than 9/10 of one percent.

Laws must be rationally related to serving some government purpose A law must not rely on classification and whose relationship to the asserted goal is so attenuated as to render distinction arbitrary or a irrational. “The desire to harm a politically unpopular group is not a legislative state interest.” “mere negative attitudes or fear of a given group will not suffice as legitimate governmental purpose for legislation” “legislation imposing special disabilities upon groups disfavor by virtue of circumstances beyond their control suggests a kind of class or caste is treatment that the 14th amendment was designed to abolish..” “characteristics like race and gender.illegitimacy or national origin, is determined by causes beyond the individual’s control and bears no relationship to the individual’s ability to perform or to participate in or to contribute to society and especially where the class has suffered a history of discrimination based on stereotype notions of that characteristic s. Any legislation resting upon such and the relevant characteristic . A likely reflects nothing more than in invidious stereotypes beyond the scope of any permissible governmental purpose, while most legislation enjoys a presumption of constitutional ity. legislation based on invidious characteristics is not entitled to that presumption and must be carefully scrutinized by the judiciary. Equity foundation of Cincinnati versus Cincinnati 860 F Supp 417 1994

it is not necessarily to demonstrate that the action challenge was taken solely for discriminatory purposes it is necessarily only to demonstrate that a discriminator purpose was a motivating factor Village of Arlington Heights versus Metropolitan housing development Corporation Id.256, 97 S.Ct. At 563 also legislative intent need not be taken into consideration at all. Legislative intent is irrelevant when Congress adopts a law that: (1) violates a constitutional prohibition; or (2) falls outside the constitutional authority granted to Congress. The bottom line is that mere intent to comply with the Constitution will not save an otherwise unconstitutional law.

The U.S. Supreme Court found a number of laws violating the U.S. Constitution. And in each instance the Court did not inquire about the motives of lawmakers – it was not relevant. See United States v. Doremus, 249 US 86 (1919),  Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections, 383 US 663 (1966),  Roe v. Wade, 410 US 113 (1973),  Printz v. United States, 521 US 898 (1997).

Having pointed out, these discrepancies in the rationale and justification for the laws and that the information being provided by the special interest groups with a vindictive or fiduciary interest in keeping these laws in place are in fact either myths or outright liars as well as the constitutional deficiencies of these type of laws, do we have any patriotic legislators, who will uphold their oath to defend the Constitution and put an end to this type of outright discrimination.

footnote added December 14, 2014

Another three-year study has come out of Michigan looking at the number of people on parole that were returned to prison for new crimes they found that of the sex offenders who were released from prison and found that they were involved in the new sexually related crime at 8/10 of 1%, or in other words, that 99.2% DID NOT Reoffend in the new sex crime. And that they had the lowest reoffend rate of all the criminal classes released.  the full report is here  http://nationalrsol.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/CAPPS.pdf


State studies

AK 03% page 8 Criminal Recidivism in Alaska Alaska Judicial Council January 2007
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AZ 05.5 % Sex Offender Recidivism Arizona dept. of corrections note bottom of page 03.3%
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CA 00.8% The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) “2014 Outcome Evaluation Report“  http://californiarsol.org/2015/08/new-cdcr-report-reduces-rate-of-re-offense-to-less-than-1-percent.

CA 05.0 % fig 12 California Department of Corrections And Rehabilitation
2010 Adult Institutions Outcome Evaluation Report
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CA 03.5% table 3-2 California sex offender management Board January 2008
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CA figure 11 01.9% California sex offender management Board 2012 in looking at this one I realize that this is another attempt to increase the visual concept of a higher reoffend rate than actually exists you will note in table 11 , that there are 8490 released sex offenders and that 5870 are returned to prison or 69.1% going onto figure 11. The pie chart does not represent the 8490 but rather represents the 5870 . When you take this into account and do the math. 1.9% of 5870 comes out to 111 and 111 people involved in the new sex crime, out of 8490 comes out to an actual reoffend rate of 1.3% . This is just another way that the government is using razzle-dazzle techniques. In doing their statistical analysis.
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CA 01.9 % figure 11 California Department of Corrections And Rehabilitation 2012 Outcome Evaluation Report
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CA 5 year study 03.2% RECIDIVISM OF PAROLED SEX OFFENDERS – A FIVE (5) YEAR STUDY
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CA 10 year study 03.3% RECIDIVISM OF PAROLED SEX OFFENDERS – A TEN (10) YEAR STUDY
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CT page 9 01,7% And prisoners with no prior sex crime are six times more likely to be involved in a new sex crime Recidivism among sex offenders in Connecticut, State of Connecticut
Office of Policy and Management, Criminal Justice Policy & Planning Division, February 15, 2012

DE Table 26 03.1% REARREST 6 offenders and on table 27 3 Offenders were not found guilty of a crime that makes the percentage of people convicted of a new sex crime. 01.5% Rearrest should never be used as a determining factor. Delaware Sex Offenders, Profiles and Criminal Justice System Outcomes, January 2008
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DE 3.8% rearrest table 7 Recidivism of Delaware Adult Sex Offenders Released from Prison in 2001 July 2007
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DE 5% rearrest table 8 after 5 years Recidivism of Delaware Juvenile Sex Offenders Released in 2001 September 2007
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FL 4.2% page10 Figure 2 10 year follow up SEX OFFENDER RISK AND RECIDIVISM IN FLORIDA
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HI RECIDIVISM/REOFFENDING BY SEXUALLY ABUSIVE ADOLESCENTS: A DIGEST OF EMPIRICAL RESEARCH STUDIES Years: 1943-2008 85 RESEARCH STUDIES MEAN RECIDIVISM RATE FOR ALL STUDIES = 7.73%
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IA page 7 #4 “With the overall recidivism for sex offenses as low as 2% “ Iowa Sex Offender Research Council Report to the Iowa General Assembly January 22, 2009
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IA table 4 03% new sex crime THE IOWA SEX OFFENDER REGISTRY AND
RECIDIVISM Iowa Department of Human Rights Division of Criminal and Juvenile Justice Planning and Statistical Analysis Center
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IA ARREST 02.3% page 7 Iowa Department of Corrections Report to the Board of Corrections
Third in a series of reports highlighting issues contributing to corrections population growth April 2006 Sex Offenders
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IN bottom of page “1.05%of identified sex offender’srecidivated for a new sex crime within 3 years.” Indiana Department of Correction Recidivism Rates Decrease for 3rd Consecutive Year

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IN page 22 05.7% Recidivism Rates Compared 2005-2007 Indiana Department of CORRECTION
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ME page 12 03.8% Returned to prison for sex offense SEXUAL ASSAULT TRENDS
AND SEX OFFENDER RECIDIVISM IN MAINE 2010
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MI 8/10 of 1%  three-year study has come out of Michigan looking at the number of people on parole that were returned to prison for new crimes they found that of the sex offenders who were released from prison and found that they were involved in the new sexually related crime at 8/10 of 1%, or in other words, that 99.2% DID NOT Reoffend in the new sex crime. And that they had the lowest reoffend rate of all the criminal classes released.  the full report is here  http://nationalrsol.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/CAPPS.pdf

MN 5.7 % over 12 years Table 2 page 21 Sex Offender Recidivism in Minnesota April 2007
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NY 04% profile and follow-up of sex offenders released in 1986 this one is another attempt to hide the facts . I finally found this information on page 19. They state that there were 556 offenders released below that on page 19. They show a table 14 the number of people related to each of those crimes that were returned to prison. If you look at the numbers for a new sex crime. You will see that they are 5,6,5 and 7 totaling 23 , when you do the percentages 23/556 UN that with the re-offense rate of 4% . If you look at the other graphs that they have provided they have shockingly high numbers . The problem is that they are only looking at the people that are returned to prison and ignoring the people that stayed out of prison. So their numbers are skewed because they did not include people not reoffending in their statistical data.
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OH report to the Ohio criminal sentencing commission, January 2006 sex offenders Sex offenders in Ohio have a lower recidivism rate than the recidivism rate of all offenders (38.8 percent). A 10-year follow-up of a 1989 cohort of sex offenders released from Ohio prisons found that only 8 percent of sex offenders were recommitted for a new sex offense
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OH Ten-Year Recidivism Follow-Up Of 1989 Sex Offender Releases EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Recommitment for a New Crime Sex Offense 8.0 % after 10 yeaars
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WA03 07% Re-offended Department of Corrections Public Safety Update What is the re-offense behavior for sex offenders under supervision in the community? •Of the 264 offenders who committed a re-offense:•83% or 218 were unemployed •73% or 192 DID NOT have stable housing

WY again I have to dig through the research to find the numbers . The end result is that between 2000 and 2005 , 545 sex offenders were released and of that 24 reoffended it in a new sex crime . That makes the reoffend charade of 04.4%

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