The collection of laws and restrictions that regulate people categorized as “sex offenders” has been punctuated by names such as Megan, Jessica and Adam. These are the names of children, all victims of heinous crimes that sparked high-profile campaigns aimed at creating “get tough on crime” legislation. Today you can go online to your state’s Megan’s Law website, where all convicted sex offenders are required to register, and probably find clusters of red dots on the map of your neighborhood, each dot representing an individual convicted of a sex crime.
In California, approximately one of every 375 adults is a registered sex offender. Full Article
Good article, but it’s a shame the stigma of sex offenders will keep most not on this side of the topic from changing their views. It would have been nice if the actual recividism rates stated by the CA DOJ (1.3-1.9%) vs the recividism rates quoted by politicians (60-70%) had been addressed.
Exactly …the politics of untruth vs facts……..deceptive public
policy takes in alot of taxpayers resources …..truth is…facts
are the next “sex crime” more likely than not will be from
someone NOT in registry list…..how bout public safety be
that clear…..like 98 percent clear.
“In California, approximately one of every 375 adults is a registered sex offender.” Sounds ridiculous? Skin the cat this way:
Some simple math…
RSO in California: 100,000 (NCMEC)
% of CA RSO Male: ~98% (personal estimate from sampling Megans Law web site)
Population of California: 38 Million (Wikipedia)
% of general population Male: ~50% (Wikipedia)
% of general population Adult: ~75% (Wikipedia)
38 Million * .5 * .75 / 100,000 * .98 =>
1 out of ~145 Adult Males in California is on the Sex Offender Registry.
For life, and growing every day. Far from special, eh?
Yes, good article. But from the headline, I thought it was going to give a fuller discussion about imposing SOR on minor offenders and whether it should be imposed on them at all.
Too bad only few will see it at that Website.
BEST. ARTICLE. EVER.
Wow….
Is there a study of what percentage of registered sex offenders are minorities or poor. Our local paper printed the names of people in the area and about 80% had Spanish last names.
I can’t say anything as to how many, but I can say that when I was in LA county jail, they keep all sex offenders together, and it was about 60-70% Mexican/hispanic. White men were around 10%, if that. African Americans were usually around 20% of those in the sex crime sections.
I forgot to mention that Hispanics make up about 20% of the population in our community. Of course the newspaper could have picked any group of names they wanted to publish off of the Megan’s law sight to make one group of men look more culpable. I couldn’t check it out, not having access to the site. Nonetheless, my therapy group was mostly white. One African American, but he disappeared early. A couple of Mexican Americans that went to jail and didn’t “graduate”, and a Chinese American that dissappeared. I got probation and therapy as most in our group. In… Read more »
Great article. I plead to a wobbler 18 years ago. I received Summary Probation. I plead due to the fact my attorney stated I would no longer have to register after it was reduced to a misdemeanor? The laws have changed and its getting nuttier every day!
Yep, same thing happened to me. Six months into my probation, the CA DOJ changed it with no elections and without a vote in the Legislature and what was only registerable as a condition of probation suddenly became registerable no matter what I did right.