To: military veterans who are on the sex offense registry
Emily Horowitz, Ph.D.
Professor & Chair, Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice
Co-Director, Post-Prison Education Program
St. Francis College
180 Remsen Street
Brooklyn, NY 11201 | 718-489-5446 | ehorowitz@sfc.edu
November 15, 2019
Dear Veterans,
First, we want to thank you for serving our country. We are seeking military veterans who are on the sex offense registry to participate in a research project titled: Veterans with Sex Offense Convictions: A Preliminary Investigation.
The research is being conducted by Dr. Emily Horowitz, Professor of Sociology & Criminal Justice at St. Francis College, in collaboration with Marine Corps Veteran and Doctoral Candidate Shawn Rolfe, from the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of Louisville. Both researchers have extensive experience researching sexual offending policies.
The aim of the study is to better understand what, if any, contributing factors lead to sexual offending among our military veterans. In order to achieve this goal, we ask that you complete our survey. You will be asked questions about past childhood and adult trauma, military culture, mental health, substance abuse, criminal history and sexual offense-related questions, and some demographics.
The survey will take 20-30 minutes of your time. The risk of involvement with this study is minimal. However, we acknowledge and understand that you may find some of these questions sensitive, difficult to answer, or think your answers could incriminate you. Your participation in this study is anonymous and strictly voluntary, and all responses will be kept confidential for seven years. After the seven years, all the data will be destroyed. You are permitted to skip over any question(s) you do not want to answer, or to stop participating at any time, with no adverse effect.
By participating in this study, there are no direct benefits to you. Your responses, however, are very important because it will contribute to knowledge for developing treatment and policies for justice-involved veterans.
Should you have any further questions or comments, feel free to contact me at ehorowitz@sfc.edu or 718-489-5446, or Shawn Rolfe at shawn.rolfe@louisville.edu. You may also direct any questions for this study to Dr. Laura Egan, Chair, St. Francis College Institutional Review Board, at legan@sfc.edu. We thank you in advance for your participation in our study.
Please click here to get started. Again, thank you for your service. Without people such as yourselves, our country would not be where it is today.
All the best,
Emily Horowitz, Ph.D.Professor & Chair (Department of Sociology & Criminal Justice, St. Francis College)
Shawn Rolfe, M.A., ABD Ph.D. Candidate (Department of Criminal Justice, University of Louisville)
Link to Confidential Study: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/justice-involved-veterans
Emily… no survey needed. Gone for months at a time = hate, jealousy, cheating.
The survey is flawed form the outset. As long as every person on the registry convicted under the 40 or more laws deemed “sex offenses” are all lumped together then no accurate assessment can be made. If I say let’s look at the similarities of people who steal, am I comparing the teen who steals make from Target with the person running an auto theft ring? So comparing all the possible categories of sex offenses is ludicrous. This has been the flaw from the outset. All humans have sexual drive, and all humans make errors as they explore their human sexuality. Some people may have serious criminal intent, others may be decent people who became reckless. If they want to survey all people who looked at images on the internet, or all people who inappropriately touched a minor, then they may get closer to having useful information, but even those cases have many variables.
If you are asking questions that could be incriminating, are you saying that mandatory reporting doesn’t apply?
I am a veteran and I don’t mind taking the survey. I do have a concern right off the bat… “The risk of involvement with this study is minimal.” Can you define that please? I have not committed any other crimes but I worry that something could be misinterpreted or something may be stretched to fit something that is not true.
The question about parole/probation/neither needs 2 other options CSL and PSL,
I lost interest when I could not select Full time employed AND VA benefits since I get both and then when the gross income capped at 25k…. eh… if my status cannot be represented, then my input is not important either.
I’m not sure you read what I did. I was easily able to put our finances, which are way over 25k. I am also full time employed, and I have received va benefits (I used my gi bill for example).