Sex Offender Recidivism--100%?

[Jackpine Radical]

Inevitable recidivism—The origin and centrality of an urban legend


Tamara Rice Lave1, a,
a University of Miami, School of Law, 1311 Miller Drive, Room G268, Coral Gables, FL 33146, United States

Available online 19 May 2011.
Abstract
This paper examines the pervasive conviction that sex offenders – particularly child molesters – will continue to re-offend. This belief in inevitable recidivism turns out to be absolutely essential to both the justification for, and the structure of, the sexually violent predator laws. When actual evidence of sex offender recidivism is examined, however, a huge gap exists between what is assumed and what the data actually show because most sex offenders do not in fact re-offend. Thus there is a galaxy of sexually violent predator laws and an entire branch of Supreme Court jurisprudence that is founded upon a demonstrable urban legend.

International Journal of Law and Psychiatry
Volume 34, Issue 3, May-June 2011, Pages 186-194

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160252711000264?_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_origin=gateway&_docanchor=&md5=b8429449ccfc9c30159a5f9aeaa92ffb

[snooper2]

1. I still think if an adult rapes a baby they should be killed...

Don't need scum like that around...

Not sure about the cutoff, but if a 40 year old rapes a 2 year old, we don't need him on the planet.

Maybe grind them up for cattle feed? Some use out of the corpse?

Oh' on edit, then we don't have to worry about recidivism with that scum.

[Occulus]

6. Would you sacrifice the lives of those actually innocent of the accusation as well? n/t

[snooper2]

15. you have a case of an adult raping a baby that was later found

innocent?

[femmedem]

21. There have been plenty of cases of adults convicted of raping or molesting young children

if not babies, and later having the convictions overturned. Some of the allegations were due to false memory syndrome and others due to very young, suggestible children thinking they were giving the answers adults wanted to hear. You can read about one case here:

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mcmartin/michaelsevil.html

There was also a recent case of a conviction--later overturned--of a father accused of raping his autistic daughter for years, beginning when she was a child. The evidence consisted of facilitated communication-sort of like being convicted by a Ouija board.
http://www.theautismnews.com/2011/06/17/finally-together-wendrows-try-to-heal/

[alcibiades_mystery]

2. Ouch...get ready for spittle-strewn attacks

The only thing more sacred than this myth for some on DU is the scientific "validity" of the "sociopath" as a type. Indeed, pretty much anyone who commits a violent crime will be labeled a "sociopath" on these boards at some point or other. Of course, these are all people who break down in tears upon hearing Red's "rehabilitated" speech at the end of The Shawshank Redemption, but never mind all that. They've been watching 48 Hours Mystery and reading Ann Rule, and therefore they're qualified to pass on the latest bit of phrenological brain-scan "evidence."

[originalpckelly]

3. Ah yes, the ever present paywall.

No scientific paper should be paid for. A government independent non-profit should finance the paper and the research done. And the information should be free to all.

I love this, why post it if we cannot see any actual information here. What does the paper say?

[AngryAmish]

4. Oh, I would like to be a scientist then

Government job for life and crank out a paper every few years...nice.

[Occulus]

7. Um.... look at the byline....

The both of you are way off base.....

[originalpckelly]

9. No, I want to see NUMBERS.

OK, so it's not true that it is constant, but there is a recidivism rate for any crime, how high is it?

This information is not available in the abstract.

[Occulus]

11. "there is a recidivism rate for any crime"

I'm pretty sure the recidivism rate for suicide is zero. ;)

I've heard for years that it's actually lower than for other violent crimes, but I've never seen the actual numbers (or perhaps they vary greatly from source-to-source). I would want to see the end result of a rigorous scientific effort, though, and not one whose experimenters can be said to have a political bias.

I don't trust either "side" to report the truth on this one. I want a neutral party.

[snooper2]

16. sucide is not a crime

[Occulus]

23. that was just a snarky historical example, but you went and made me look it up

From the Wiki:

United States

Historically, various states listed the act of suicide as a felony, but these policies were sparsely enforced. In the late 1960s, eighteen U.S. states lacked laws against suicide.<8> By the late 1980s, thirty of the fifty states had no laws against suicide or suicide attempts but every state had laws declaring it to be felony to aid, advise or encourage another person to commit suicide.<9> By the early 1990s only two states still listed suicide as a crime, and these have since removed that classification. In some U.S. states, suicide is still considered an unwritten "common law crime," as stated in Blackstone's Commentaries. (So held the Virginia Supreme Court in Wackwitz v. Roy in 1992.) As a common law crime, suicide can bar recovery for the late suicidal person's family in a lawsuit unless the suicidal person can be proven to have been "of unsound mind." That is, the suicide must be proven to have been an involuntary act of the victim in order for the family to be awarded monetary damages by the court. This can occur when the family of the deceased sues the caregiver (perhaps a jail or hospital) for negligence in failing to provide appropriate care.<10> Some American legal scholars look at the issue as one of personal liberty. According to Nadine Strossen, former President of the ACLU, "The idea of government making determinations about how you end your life, forcing you...could be considered cruel and unusual punishment in certain circumstances, and Justice Stevens in a very interesting opinion in a right-to-die raised the analogy."<11>

Physician-assisted suicide is legal in some states.<12> For the terminally ill, it is legal in the state of Oregon under the Oregon Death with Dignity Act. In Washington state, it became legal in 2009, when a law modeled after the Oregon act, the Washington Death with Dignity Act was passed. A patient must be diagnosed as having less than six months to live, be of sound mind, make a request orally and in writing, have it approved by two different doctors, then wait 15 days and make the request again. A doctor may prescribe a lethal dose but may not administer it.<13>

In many jurisdictions, medical facilities are empowered or required to commit anyone whom they believe to be suicidal for evaluation and treatment. See Code 5150 for example.

[Jackpine Radical]

18. That information is available from other sources. Try this:

http://www.sexual-offender-treatment.org/1-2009_02.html

This is a freely accessible online peer-reviewed journal.

See the Wollert & Waggoner article.

Their Table 1 reports recidivism data from about 17,700 sex offenders who had been at large for a mean period of 4.8 years. The recidivism rate was 6.5%.

And as for the pay barrier with professional journals, I agree entirely with you. Here is where I ranted about it a little in a blog post:

http://jackpineneedles.blogspot.com/2009/07/another-take-on-freedom-of-information.html

[Jackpine Radical]

22. You may also be interested in this Minnesota data.

It shows the decline in recidivism rates across the last couple of decades. Each bar represents the 3-year recidivism rates observed for those released in a given year. The most recent 3-year recidivism is in the 3-4% range. This is quite consistent with recent data from other states.

[originalpckelly]

10. Government independent.

And why not? What's wrong with that? Doing science and publishing about it, what's wrong with that?

[Occulus]

12. I saw "school of law" near at that link

I don't think I would trust a lawyer to tell the truth about sexual offender recidivism rates, either.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

17. lol

do you know the process that a scientific article has to go through to be published? its not an op-ed in your local paper

[Occulus]

24. I'm not arguing that the journal isn't a valid source.

I'm arguing that a lawyer is not qualified to speak to this subject.

Lawyers are professionally biased. That is their job. They are the last people we should turn to for truth and unbiased scientific opinion.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

25. its psychiatry of law, and she has a phd in psychology and law

it makes her amply qualified to speak on the issue

lawyers are not biased about science. thats an illogical argument

[WhiteTara]

5. I know that in my work at CASA it seems that this

number is true. It must have something to do with brain chemistry. I had a friend who worked with molested/perpetrator boys and it was an incredible struggle.

[Fearless]

8. Well when we focus on punishment instead of reform this may be what you get...

[La Lioness Priyanka]

13. This thread reconfirms the study which found that when people are presented

Scientific arguments against their beliefs, they become even more convinced that they are right,

[Redbear]

14. This appears to be a free copy of the article.

http://www.law.miami.edu/facadmin/pdf/tlave/IJLP797.pdf

[originalpckelly]

19. The paper says that only 5.3% of individuals who commit a sex offense...

go on to commit another one. That's fairly low when compared to popular belief. It's interesting to note, however, that they will go on to commit another crime of some type 43% of the time. It's lower than non-sex offenders, but still a very high number.

I guess the problem here, is that even if the number is not statistically very large, how can we live with ourselves if we allow another human being to be treated in such a way?

How would you feel to be the victim of such a crime and you knew that this person went to prison, and it was possible to keep them from ever having done it?

But then on the other hand, how would we all feel if we were sick like these people and we did something like that, and we could be treated and we might not ever do it again, but for a widely held false belief, we were permanently destroyed goods?

Do we believe in punishment or reform or a little of both?

Shouldn't someone who does something wrong receive some kind of bad treatment, like the loss of their freedom?

These are some huge questions.

[Jackpine Radical]

26. How many people are you willing to put away for life

in order to prevent one rape?

And by "put away for life" I'm including the several thousand people now locked away in secure treatment facilities after they completed their prison sentences.

[ImNotTed]

20. Big Surprise

After all, most of our laws are based on the fucking Bible, the book of rural legends and fables.