New Study Finds Registries are Ineffective

A new study, published this month in the Journal of Experimental Criminology, finds that “SORN policies demonstrate no effect on recidivism.”  The study is based upon meta-analyses of 18 research articles about 474,640 formerly incarcerated individuals in several states.

Read more about the study

Download a PDF of the study:

The-effectiveness-of-Sex-Offender-Registration-and-Notification-A-meta-analysis-of-25-years-of-findings

 

 

Related posts

Subscribe
Notify of

We welcome a lively discussion with all view points - keeping in mind...

 

  1. Submissions must be in English
  2. Your submission will be reviewed by one of our volunteer moderators. Moderating decisions may be subjective.
  3. Please keep the tone of your comment civil and courteous. This is a public forum.
  4. Swear words should be starred out such as f*k and s*t and a**
  5. Please avoid the use of derogatory labels.  Always use person-first language.
  6. Please stay on topic - both in terms of the organization in general and this post in particular.
  7. Please refrain from general political statements in (dis)favor of one of the major parties or their representatives.
  8. Please take personal conversations off this forum.
  9. We will not publish any comments advocating for violent or any illegal action.
  10. We cannot connect participants privately - feel free to leave your contact info here. You may want to create a new / free, readily available email address that are not personally identifiable.
  11. Please refrain from copying and pasting repetitive and lengthy amounts of text.
  12. Please do not post in all Caps.
  13. If you wish to link to a serious and relevant media article, legitimate advocacy group or other pertinent web site / document, please provide the full link. No abbreviated / obfuscated links. Posts that include a URL may take considerably longer to be approved.
  14. We suggest to compose lengthy comments in a desktop text editor and copy and paste them into the comment form
  15. We will not publish any posts containing any names not mentioned in the original article.
  16. Please choose a short user name that does not contain links to other web sites or identify real people.  Do not use your real name.
  17. Please do not solicit funds
  18. No discussions about weapons
  19. If you use any abbreviation such as Failure To Register (FTR), Person Forced to Register (PFR) or any others, the first time you use it in a thread, please expand it for new people to better understand.
  20. All commenters are required to provide a real email address where we can contact them.  It will not be displayed on the site.
  21. Please send any input regarding moderation or other website issues via email to moderator [at] all4consolaws [dot] org
  22. We no longer post articles about arrests or accusations, only selected convictions. If your comment contains a link to an arrest or accusation article we will not approve your comment.
  23. If addressing another commenter, please address them by exactly their full display name, do not modify their name. 
ACSOL, including but not limited to its board members and agents, does not provide legal advice on this website.  In addition, ACSOL warns that those who provide comments on this website may or may not be legal professionals on whose advice one can reasonably rely.  
 

23 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

This new study reiterates all of the other studies before it. NJ did a 20-year study that looked at the stats 10 years before the implementation of the registry and 10 years after the implementation of the registry. The conclusion was there wasn’t a difference in recidivism. Then there’s CASOMB that’s been tracking recidivism rates and it was under 1% for a few years, but then stopped reporting it b/c it’s such good news for us.

The registry is a mental prison and a legal way to keep an individual under custody without legally stating the individual is under custody. You must check-in at least once a year in person, you are tracked online, you must report when you leave a state or enter one, you can be subjected to compliance checks when out of legal custody (parole/probation), and are limited in the job market.

I’m not as strong as others mentally on here, but I’m beat down. I do the same thing out of jail that I did in jail… just focus on the next task to get through the day to see the next day. I’m at that crawl stage and the next stage of standing up just feels so far away.

New Study? Yeah, right.

Dynamic risk assessments, nothing less is acceptable or works. No penal code BS…

I can imagine what the registry supporters are going to say already…

“If the registries are not decreasing recidivism, it must be because they are not strict enough and because they have too many loopholes. Let’s tighten them up even more.”

They’ll never change to do anything else, especially after having gotten elected in part by being ‘tough on crime’ and ‘tough on sex offenders.”

At what point will states actually need to show proof that what they’re doing is effective?

I think this is a great stepping stone to asking Chris Smith what the data is on his IML idea and it actually preventing overseas incidents that he claims would happen without the passport marker and overseas notification being sent in advance.

Any idea that the database machine could really act as a crime condom was always pure fantasy. I told a respected psychologist from NYU that very thing upon its announcement in 1995. Does the notice the database provides offer real protection? Yes, but not without first imposing affirmative restraint upon someone in the equation. A mom may tell her kid, ” don’t play over by that house because….. but this too imposes affirmative restraint upon the kid first. No database will ever stop the determined individual aggressor before action. Just because I know some neighbors voted for the guy in the red hat by the signs in their yard does not equate to me being able to stop them the next time because I knew who they were and what they did. However, I could use a database collective and analysis to figure out which voters I should or could mail ballots out to and which not to for competitive edge. I hear recently a certain ubiquitous Empire is catching flack from mainstream media concerning one particular holding [TEENIG] specifically aimed at growth through direct marketing to children. Turns out the electronic environment prescribed by the popular firm is quite toxic to the youngster user’s mental picture of themselves. An interview with two teen females reported much in the way of negative feedback from others about who they are by various ad hominen attacks upon appearance, social status, state and group affiliation, etc. My point being Congress was holding a hearing and confronting a tech executive and producing evidence from experts declaring the addictive nature and dangers offered solely via social media. Proof enough the broad and unfettered adoption of the database into society has created exponentially more crime then its use has effectively circumvented. Nevertheless, SOR lead the people to intentionally attack EACH OTHER based upon unconstitutional precedent set in DOE03. Keep very much in mind concerning the manifest intent enshrined in the term General Welfare.

I’m shocked, shocked I tell you!

Really, one of the other things that gets me here is the persistent American exceptionalism of not looking at other countries. At best, the US tends to only look at lackeys of the US like the other Five Eyes (UK, NZ, Australia etc.) as if plenty of other liberal democracies do not have experience with the issue and have not adopted registries. The parochialism is truly incredible.

For example, the Dutch considered a registry and rejected it as useless. And while France has a registry, it is 1) law-enforcement only, 2) far more narrow in the severity of offenses it applies to, 3) has a shorter registration duration, 4) the information required is much less, and 5) even then the FTR penalty is much less severe.

EVEN THEN, many EU countries, including Germany and Italy, protested the French registry as a human rights violation. Yet somehow those countries are not hellholes of sexual trauma.

I’m not optimistic about evidence doing much in politics, but I do think there is a possible critical mass where courts get increasingly backed into a corner. Further evidence that can be submitted in court, with further imprimaturs of authority (given that US courts seem to not care about what happens outside the Anglosphere) can only be good. Not to mention, this just further confirms what those of us here already know.

The registry will never be Completely abolished in this country, at this point all we can hope for is a 10-20-30 year off ramp for people who qualify.
California has alot of influence on the rest of the country, if people forced to register in the state of California supported Janice Bellucci and ACSOL like Brittany Spears, fans support her Smith vs Doe would of been over turned years ago

Good luck

I just have a question does anyone know in California if there is anything happening to get 288c to a lower tier i was convicted 30 years ago never went to prison can anyone help with a answer