A not-so-uncommon story: The sexual assault victim — a girl of 16. She’s now 37 years old, happily married to the love of her life, and the mother of three children.
That’s right — the victim and her attacker got married soon after the girl’s mother, learning of the couple’s romance, reported the “assault” to prosecutors.
Although he has a master’s degree, the attacker couldn’t find a teaching job because he was listed in the sex offender registry for life. His wife had to work multiple jobs to help support the family. Full Opinion Piece
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The attacker — a man who was unaware his victim was just shy of the age of consent and had consensual sex with her. As a result, he had to register with the Texas Public Sex Offender Registry. He’s now married to his teenage sweetheart and is the father of the victim’s children.
This is such a perfect example how registries are all punishment and nothing more……..but since were all in this together so we must fight back. The conference should be a great kickoff…….we are not silent.
Yep they are attempting to fall in step with other states as well in that they can claim they are a risked based system like they are already doing when the tiers have nothing to do with risk. This is going to make it harder to defeat or change the laws. I think this is nothing but a money pit for attorneys that will be filing these petitions and for the courts who will be charging court fees. This will also be a money grab by so called therapist and other personal that will be hired or appointed to either represent the petitioners or the courts or state. It is a useless bill as it makes possible a maybe 5% group able to petition off in after ten years and the 40,000 that is proclaimed, do not know how accurate that is, that can petition after 20 years. It is absurd, I bet if you have a parking ticket or have not done therapy, or have not done any number of things the DA and judges are going to deny anyways. Then we are hearing 30 years for all level III. 30 years for a single non-contact, non-violent offense right along with habitual rapist. That is a insane proposition or stand to make. Not to mention that the cops are going to be focused more on the level IIIs which includes first time non-contact, non-violent offenses when I know for a fact that if these people are like me they have zero chance of re-offending. I am already registering 4 times a year going to college so what am I going to have to start registering frigging every quarter now so 8 times a year or more? I am sure they are going to bump up the registration requirements just as every other state has. Bout ready to go postal I can tell you that. Just as Will Allen stated they better hope I do not get a incurable disease or god forbid something happens to my son or grandchildren that makes me snap. Be a lot of people not liking the outcome from this…
Like I’ve said countless times, the registry is not a “public safety” tool, it’s a re-electiion campaign tool geared towards the female-voter demographic. It gives parents to illusion of control over their children’s safety; the LEOs and lawmakers reap the rewards by pandering fear and distorting facts while we’re maligned, bad-mouthed and vilified online.
Please define “risk.”
If one is to use pseudo science like the Static-99R Scam, how is that any better?
In my opinion, there is no way to assess risk for anyone. Nobody will ever be able to predict if someone who has committed a crime in the past will do so again, and nobody will be able to predict if a person who has never committed a crime will commit a crime in the future. If we can predict these things, we would be very futuristic mind readers.
A well written and well intended article, but still flawed.
First, the risk assessments the article calls for are certain to be based primarily (if not entirely) on the violated statute (versus individual circumstances) due to the number of cases that would be assigned to whatever state office tasked with them, as shown in the states that already have some form of risk assessment for its tiering system. Such assessments are not “individual” and defeat the entire purpose of conducting them.
Second, there’s still no reason that even accurate assessments need to be made public via the registry. As Gerald pointed out, actual risk of nearly all registrants is already nearly zero (based on actual vs. perceived recidivism analysis). It’s pretty oxymoronic to provide public “warning” of individuals who in all likelihood pose no threat, regardless of previous offenses.
Third, even LE doesn’t require a separate registry of those who have convicted of sex offenses. There’s nothing on the registry not already available in NCIC and state counterparts or a suspect’s own criminal record, both already immediately available to them. It has never provided a lead into the investigation of new sex crime. Even in (the very, very few) cases where the accused in the new crime were a registrant, he is either identified at the time or through DNA, and his status as a registrant is never known until after identification or arrest.
LE claims that the registry is a “good tool” do so for one reason – money. Federal and state grants to maintain it are based on the number of registrants. That’s why registrants who have died, left the area, or are presently incarcerated remain on it, despite posing no threat to any community. Personally, I’m willing to bet that a significant part of such grants are spent elsewhere in any given agency.
In my service days, risk assessments were used to determine whether or not certain actions or operations should take place. For example, if a mission called for an airborne insertion during bad weather, the commander would have to determine if the presumed success of the mission was more important or hindered by the decreased safety to his soldiers. But over the years, they have morphed into a presumed ability to foresee the future. The results of current risk assessments are by design fraught with a lot of “maybe”s, “possibly”s, “potentially”s, and “could”s for the sole purpose of allowing the assessor to be correct regardless of what actually happens afterward. The effect is quite similar to carnival fortune tellers or horoscope readings, and ultimately serves no purpose.
They are claiming an 82% accuracy rate. We know how they skew all these studies, but I have to go with it since I am using Hanson and CASOMB as reliable recidivism sources. They appear to have used scientific data from CDCR, and if they did then it is empirically sound. Of course it appears that this was just one year 2014 that they studied so far. And they are also pushing for more funding of course so that is suspect. I find it interesting that they are claiming probationers and transients have higher rates than parolees. The transient is really interesting since they are attempting, or are inadvertently causing, to make everyone transient with their laws.
http://www.saratso.org/index.cfm?pid=1360
Any method sought for assessing risk will not be effective after the fact. The only risk assessment worth developing is prior to anyone becoming a perpetrator or victim. If societies seriously wish for a significant reduction in non desirable conduct the most efficient prevention methods are identifying the paths lead to those acts and diverting people away from disaster as early as possible. Rather than view individuals as victims or perpetrators step in way before anyone risks becoming either to set them down different and far less dangerous paths. Granted successfully doing this at the scale necessary will require far more resources than are currently devoted to most other endeavors in the world combined.
With all of the legislation and new rules for all crimes, it is only a matter of time before they legislate themselves into a corner. Some feel good new law to protect everyone’s rights and not intended to be extended to SOs will open up an avenue. The nice part is they are only 1 mistake away in an unbelievably complex system of laws from screwing themselves. It’s a statistical fact
Anyone have news the Texas SC decision on Texas not honoring plea deals?
I don’t understand how things like this can happen. Laws are in place to protect people. I have a friend that had a similar situation gosh over 20 years ago, in Florida. He also married his sweetheart and had three children. Due to the fact he has to register as a sex offender for life his family has suffered greatly! He has had years of trouble finding employment. They been assaulted coming home from picking up there children from school. If this wasn’t enough someone set his home on fire which lead to the death of one of there children! Laws protect people. The arsonist was never caught so this person is still out there causing hate crimes while this family lost everything and more. What about the tragedy they suffered because they had young love and her mother was mad she was having consensual sex! So very sad.Something needs to be done to protect everyone involved in these situations.