How much do you REALLY know about the sex offense registry?

INCORRECT!

There are currently about one million people on sex offense registries in the U.S.  The latest figures released by The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) were in 2018, which showed 904,000 registrants. With the average yearly growth, that would put the current number of registrants at slightly over one million!

INCORRECT!

A recent study done by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2019 found that  there is a 7.7% sex offense recidivism rate among people with prior sex offense convictions within 9 years. There is a general misconception among the public that reoffense rates are exceedingly high for people on the registry and that "once an offender, always an offender," but Justice Department statistics disprove this myth.

INCORRECT!

Numerous studies show that over 95% of all sexual offenses arrests were committed by first-time sex offenders... In other words, people who are not on a sex offense registry. Registrants are responsible for only about 5% of sex crimes.

INCORRECT!

In 2017, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Packinham v. North Carolina that people on the sex offense registry do have a constitutional right to the internet and social media. Many states continue to require registrants to list their internet or social media accounts as part of their registration process, but outright bans have essentially been struck down by the high court. Some private companies like Facebook and Tinder do ban registrants as a matter of policy, but using those services isn't fundamentally illegal.

INCORRECT!

There are dozens of ways people can end up on the sex offense registry. Not every state is the same but, in many states, prostitution, urinating in public, public nudity, and sexting or sending nude photos to a minor (even if you, yourself are a minor!) are just a few of the ways. And legally, an intoxicated person cannot give or get consent, so even if both partners were drunk or high, each could be convicted of a sex crime!

INCORRECT!

According to RAINN (The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) about 93% of all sexual assaults against children are committed by someone known to the victim, often a family member or acquaintance.

INCORRECT!

Juveniles account for more than one-third (35.6 percent) of those known to have committed sex offenses against minors. Juveniles who commit sex offenses against other children are more likely than adult sex offenders to offend in groups and at schools and to have more male victims and younger victims. The number of youth coming to the attention of police for sex offenses in­creases sharply at age 12 and plateaus after age 14.  A small number of juvenile offenders— 1 out of 8—are younger than age 12.

Juveniles comprise 26% of the sex offense registry.

INCORRECT!

A study by Dr. Emily Horowitz of St. Francis College found that the number of all newspaper stories containing the terms “sex offender” or “sexual predator” as a prominent part of the story rocketed from 107 in 1991 to 5,006 in 2006 — a factor of nearly 50 times! In addition, the number of all newspaper stories with the term “sexual predator” in the headline leaped from 536 to 15,558 during the same period.  Horowitz said an obvious explanation would be a corresponding increase in sexual offenses over this period. However, her research showed the incidence of rape and child sexual abuse actually declined “significantly” during the same period. In fact, crimes of all categories have been on a steady decrease for decades.

INCORRECT!

Those who are shunned because they are on a registry are made increasingly desperate and excluded, resulting in a lack of reintegration into society, which can make the likelihood of reoffending more likely. Although we have allowed registrants to be “released” from prison, our laws and society have made it impossible for them to live normal lives. They are ostracized and marginalized regardless of the nature of their crimes or the risk (or lack) they pose to society. Removing support networks, making it harder to gethelp, limiting what they candoto earn a living, and even limiting their ability to attend religious services makes general recidivism more likely.

INCORRECT!

The Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act (the Wetterling Act) is a  federal law that required states to implement a sex offense and crimes against children registry. It was named for Jacob Wetterling, a Minnesota eleven-year-old who was abducted in 1989, and remianed missing for 27 years until his remains were found on September 1, 2016.