Know thy neighbor

[pegkerr]

Newsweek mentioned in this article a website that is now available to inform parents about sex offenders living in their neighborhoods. This site, mapsexoffenders.com worked well for me; it is free, requires no registration, and is very easy to use and includes the offenders' stats and photograph. They have 34 states mapped so far.

Comments

[graygirl.livejournal.com]

Brilliant link, thank you!

[mayakda.livejournal.com]

*icon love*
permission to steal?

[graygirl.livejournal.com]

Considering this is my default icon, I would really rather you didn't.

[mayakda.livejournal.com]

will keep my hands off then. very pretty.

[channe.livejournal.com]

The answer is, yes, I do. There are seven within five or six blocks of my house. Good lord!

[cloudscudding.livejournal.com]

In Minnesota they have this mapped by zip code from the city website, with links to the offender's picture and information. It's a relatively new thing, and if you buy a house right now, there's a little paragraph of information about where to go to find the information. From a right-to-privacy standpoint, I think it's a bad thing, but I have to admit that I used it as a tool without compunction.

[callunav.livejournal.com]

It makes me feel very strange, using something like that. I feel invasive. I question my assumptions and the legitimacy of my prejudices - they /are/ prejudices, the question is whether or not they're valid ones, and...I think they are. But accepting that they may be valid is very strange, very uncomfortable.

It's pragmatic. I don't know of any kind of crime with a higher rate of recidivism, aside from those involving addictions. If someone is convicted and serves time for shoplifting, or for assault and battery, maybe they'll have changed over the course of time. Sex offenders--not so much.

And yet...and yet.

There aren't any registered, living near me. I clicked on the few who showed up living a few miles away....I was worried I'd recognize them from work, but I didn't.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Do you know some decent survey articles on recidivism rates? Because some other friends are telling me that sex offenders have among the very lowest rates. And I don't know who to believe just yet. I'm asking not to challenge it/you, but simply because since you seem to know, you may also know where you learned it, i.e. a decent reference. And it's not like you're the only person who has expressed the opinion you have there. Have you noticed how bizarre messages start to look when you try to preemptively disclaim all possible offensive interpretations?

[callunav.livejournal.com]

Have you noticed how bizarre messages start to look when you try to preemptively disclaim all possible offensive interpretations?

Heh.

It's all right. I was half-expecting some much harsher responses; yours is entirely polite.

Unfortunately, I /don't/ have good references to give you, because my information comes mainly from classes and workshops, reinforced by the statements of colleagues when I've been working in the field, and not from reading. I could try to find references, but I wouldn't have any more tools than anyone else for doing so. A year ago - and possibly a year from now - I might be working with people I could ask, but at the moment I'm not.

I have to say that, although I'd be interested in any findings, initially I'd have a hard time believing something that claimed low rates. It's not just that everything I've encountered so far has been pretty much unanimously of the opposite opinion. It's also that, to the extent that I'm able to try to understand the nature of the offense, it makes sense to me that it would be nearly impossible to change entirely.

(I should say, especially in light of redbird's comment, that I'm talking about subtly or overtly coercive sexual encounters, which use/abuse an imbalance of power. There may be other things defined as 'sexual offenses.' That's what I mean.)

This is an area I've worked in, studied in, and thought a lot about, for personal as well as professional reasons. Most of my work has involved the effect of the offense on the victim, rather than the perpetrator, but the two are linked in complex ways. And with children - which is the group I work with most - it's often easy to see both sides in the same person, very clearly.

Which all comes down to saying, "I believe it to be true because I have been told it by many, many people whose knowledge and expertise I trust, in many different settings, and because my intuition doesn't rebel against what they've said. But I don't have any good sources I can point you toward."

I'm sorry. I wish I did.

[mayakda.livejournal.com]

What's your definition of decebt survey articles?
I googled "sex offenders recidivism rate" and got 82000 hits.

The top five were:

http://www.johnhoward.ab.ca/docs/sxoffend/page1.htm
http://www.csom.org/pubs/recidsexof.html
http://www.sexoffender.com/sorecidivism_review.html
http://www.corr.ca.gov/SexOffenders/Sex%20Offender%20Recidivism%20Rates.ppt
http://www.dshs.state.tx.us/csot/csot_trecidivism.shtm

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Making "sex offender" a phrase rather than two separate words, and leaving off "rate", brings it down to 45,000 (which is what I was browsing through when notification of your reply showed up).

The CSOM paper, your #2, seems to be fairly wide-ranging and doesn't show obvious signs of rabid political opinions overriding the science. And it appears to say, reading between the lines, that reporting is so sporadic that we can't really know just yet.

[redbird]

The key question is, how do they define "sex offender", and do they specify on the website? Someone I know has a child who is a registered sex offender because of consensual sex with someone a year or two younger than she is, because of the details of Wisconsin age-of-consent laws, but there's no reason to believe that, because a 17-year-old had sex with a consenting 15-year-old, than she's going to be a threat to anyone.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Yep, that's very much a key question!

The Minnesota site gives the specific statute they were convicted under (just by number, so you have to then track it down), so you can find out what it is they're registered for doing.

The whole thing makes me feel rather slimey.

[mayakda.livejournal.com]

We found out a couple of months ago that the guy who did a minor repair job on our house was a registered sex offender. Lesson learned: check megan's law website before hiring contractors.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

What do you think he should do, now that he won't be able to get any work?

If we're sentencing these people to be unable to work forever, do you think we ought to give them pensions after we let them out of prison? It seems wrong, somehow, but if we're going to refuse to employ them at anything, ever, I can't think what the alternative is.

[mayakda.livejournal.com]

Well, I am guardian of two minors. It would be irresponsible of me to employ him, don't you think?
Seriously, without the kids being around, I don't think it would matter to me much.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

I see more reason to be concerned about contractors who you have come into your house to do work than about, say, an auto mechanic or something. But I agree with you that the way we're treating these people does not seem to lead towards reintegration with society; or even being able to earn a living legitemately.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

I've thought about this. Being a Christian, I'm a big one for redemption and the hope of getting a second chance. I don't think I would throw a fit if, say, a sex offender bought a house on my block. I agree; people do deserve the chance for a fresh start. But I would want to know, and if the record is bad enough, to be able to warn my girls. I'm not interested in pelting eggs at the house, but in keeping an eye out.

[mayakda.livejournal.com]

What I worry about is -- my spouse and I have pretty typical frail asian frames. This guy was at least 6 inches taller than my husband, probably outweighed him by at least 50 lbs (maybe 75), and looked very strong/fit. (Neither of us have guns, never will). The guy's offense was listed as aggravated sexual assault. If it came down to it, I am not confident either of us can defend our kids against him if we were taken by surprise.

[diony.livejournal.com]

I always feel horribly awkward saying this, but -- with the proper training, you would in fact be able to physically fight off an attacker. Of course whether or not pursuing that training is something you'd be interested in is entirely up to you, but (as a self-defense instructor for women) I see so many of my students who think that size is what counts. It's not; it's a) knowing how to use the strong parts of your body against the vulnerable parts of an attacker, and b) being committed to defending oneself in spite of the very normal reactions of fear, anger, sadness, etc that occur in violent situations.

I think being informed about people who might be a danger is common sense; I would let a registered sex offender into my home, either.

[boniblithe.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link. My state isn't mapped yet, but my parents' is, and I was shocked to see someone's father that I knew growing up is in the registry. The address and picture is legit as far as I still know. Man, go figure.

[dejaspirit.livejournal.com]

Even as a mother of two young girls, I really am not a fan of Megans Law. I think sites like this do very little good and frankly, make people who have been released or served out their sentences potential targets.

I entered in my address, because, lets face it, it's pretty hard to resist doing and came up with a sex offender only a few blocks away. A man convicted for a sexual encounter with a 15 yr old. It would have been easy to be judgemental, but I checked out his age. He's 18.

Does he deserve to pop up all over the internet for a consensual sex act with someone he was likely in high school with? This is my issue with things like this.

You cannot keep your child safe from all harm. You educate them, love them, give them good values (and street smarts). And when they are minors, you watch them like a hawk.

I think things like this end up doing more harm than good.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

This exemplifies why I am opposed to these sorts of laws.

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/012181.html

B

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

After this past week's news, my opinion of my fellow Americans has sunk so abysmally low that I am saddened but not surprised.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

My opinion of my fellow Americans has risen.

My opinion of my government has fallen, if that were possible. My opinion of the apologists who follow in lockstep behend my government has fallen.

B

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Okay, upon further thought, that's a more accurate assessment of how I'm feeling, too.

As for an example of how my opinion of my fellow Americans has risen, here's an amazing first-person account of one of the nurses who was evacuated Friday from Methodist Hospital in NO.