The Missing 100,000 Sex Offender Myth: Are we today chasing Political ghosts?

9-17-2011 National:

"The Missing 100,000 Sex Offenders," the Political call to action myth. The myth originates from a 2003 telephone survey by Parents for Megans Laws. A 2003 CBS News article explains exactly what transpired back then, it says:

"It (Parents for Megans Law)found that states on average were unable to account for 24 percent of sex offenders supposed to be in the databases. ..."

In other words there were former offender who the states believed should be in their databases, but were not. i.e., missing sex offenders.

At that time it was reported that there were between 400,000 and 500,000 registrants: see "Parents for Megans law estimates that 24% or between 100,000 and 150,000 aren’t even registered, meaning over 100,000 sex offenders are roaming the streets unknown to local law enforcement." Sen Schumer's website (July 2005). Also eAdvocates list of "Assorted Quotes of Missing Sex Offenders also that time frame; 2005-2006"

PML also found that, many former offenders who were registered (i.e., in state databases) had not updated their addresses. These folks are not the focus of this discussion, here we are focusing only on the "Missing" i.e., roughly the claimed 100,000 sex offenders missing and not in data bases.

Since that time Congress has appropriated millions and millions of dollars so that States and the U.S. Marshals could find the missing 100,000 and that war cry has been used to get law after law enacted, including the Adam Walsh Act.

Daily I read news reports and I am always looking for any comment with respect to the capture of someone who "MAY BE" one of the alleged 100,000 missing. Never have I found a single comment eluding to the capture of such a person. Yes, there are many comments about capturing folks, who were in a registry but failed to update something they were required to update, but these are not the missing 100,000 folks (remember they were not in any state database, according to PML 2003 report). So the myth lives on.

Dr. Jill Levenson has addressed the myth in two of her papers and also concluded she could not find anything to substantiate the myth. see "100,000 Sex Offenders Missing . . . or Are They? Deconstruction of an Urban Legend" and "Who are the people in your neighborhood? A descriptive analysis of individuals on public sex offender registries.."

Remember, we know that the 100,000 are not in any database. Are these folks ghosts and if so, why do we continue to chase ghosts, or dead people? Reality, these are the Politicians' Ghosts, thats why, and they need them to enact further laws!

Lets roll forward in time to the enactment of the Adam Walsh Act, the Final Guidelines - pages 6-7 which seems to address former offenders who are no longer in the system. See the following:

C. Retroactivity
The proposed guidelines require the application by a jurisdiction of SORNA’s requirements to sex offenders convicted prior to the enactment of SORNA or its implementation in the jurisdiction, if they remain in the system as prisoners, supervisees, or registrants, or if they reenter the system because of subsequent criminal convictions.

Moreover, the specific provisions of the guidelines relating to ‘‘retroactivity’’ incorporate some features that may limit their effect on sex offenders with older convictions. While SORNA’s requirements apply to all sex offenders, regardless of when they were convicted, see 28 CFR 72.3, the guidelines do not require jurisdictions to identify and register every such sex offender. Rather, as stated in the guidelines, a jurisdiction will be considered to have substantially implemented SORNA if it applies SORNA’s requirements to sex offenders who remain in the system as prisoners, supervisees, or registrants, or reenter the system through subsequent convictions. So the guidelines do not require a jurisdiction to register in conformity with SORNA sex offenders who have fully left the system and merged into the general population at the time the jurisdiction implements SORNA, if they do not reoffend.

Guess what, states are not required to register them because they are no longer in the criminal justice system, so sayeth SORNA. Only if they commit another crime will they be brought back under the harmful umbrella of SORNA. Why are we spending millions (by now Billions) of dollars looking for people (Political Ghosts) who are not required to register because they are out of the system, or have died?

Further, Congress has yet to prove, or even try to prove, that these folks even exist, remember it was nothing but a "state's belief that they existed." But we also must remember, Congress needs a bad guy, a group to perpetuate fears, and pass newer laws.

For now have a great day and a better tomorrow.
eAdvocate

PS: Stay tuned for my next commentary: Congress has recently addressed these missing sex offenders! You will not believe what Congress has done!

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Sessions and Blumenthal Introduce Finding Fugitive Sex Offender Act of 2011

Lawmakers do it AGAIN! This has been tried in previous sessions of Congress and each time it has died in committee. Today, 2011, lawmakers are losing their audience so they AGAIN RAISE the MISSING SEX OFFENDER issue to garner public support. The details of the bill are not yet published, but this has been tried before! When details are published I will review it in my blog "Bills in Congress."

3-31-2011 Washington DC:

WASHINGTON- U.S. Senators Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) introduced a bipartisan bill yesterday that would create subpoena authority by which the Director of the U.S. Marshals Service could authorize administrative subpoenas specifically for the investigation of sex offenders who have failed to register as required by the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act.

Note: Attempts to get administrative subpoenas authority has been tried in various contexts, missing sex offenders and even terrorism cases, and also tucked into other sex offender bills (Ahhh, the infamous "And for other purposes"). Below are the most recent with respect to sex offenders, each has died in committee. There must be something inherently wrong with this power, maybe because it requires no notice to the person it is about. Don't know. But they are trying AGAIN!

EARLIER ATTEMPTS at ADMINSTRATIVE SUBPOENAS:

111th Congress: S-2972 "Arresting Child Predators Act of 2010"

111th Congress: S-2925 "Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking Deterrence and Victims Support Act of 2010"

110th Congress: HR-3148 "Child Pornography Elimination Act of 2007"

109th Congress: HR-4170 "Fugitive Apprehension Assistance Act of 2005"

109th Congress: HR-3726 "Child Pornography Prevention Act of 2005"

Cosponsors of the bill include Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), John Cornyn (R-TX), Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Mike Lee (R-UT), Susan Collins (R-ME), John Thune (R-SD), Tom Coburn (R-OK), Richard Burr (R-NC), and Saxby Chambliss (R-GA).

The administrative subpoena power granted by the Finding Fugitive Sex Offenders Act of 2011 would allow the Marshals Service the ability to track unregistered sex offenders in real time across jurisdictions. Sadly, sex offenders often fail to register precisely so they can evade detection and in many cases, find new victims.

“As offenders circumvent the law to hide their location, every second could mean the difference between life and death for a new set of victim,” Sessions said. “Marshals must have the ability to quickly obtain vital information in these fast-moving investigations of unregistered sex offenders, so they will be able to find missing predators more easily and greatly curb the threat of future offenses. When I served Ranking Member of the Judiciary Committee in the 111th Congress, I worked closely with my Democrat and Republican colleagues to create language that would grant the Marshals Service the ability to quickly act to find sex offenders.”

“Granting the Marshals Service this authority to track down fugitive sex offenders will help keep our children and our communities safe,” Blumenthal said. “I’m proud to work with my Senate colleagues on both sides of the aisle to ensure law enforcement has the tools and resources they need to pursue and prosecute these dangerous convicted criminals.”

"Missing sex offenders" and they are "Dangerous." Folks notice they should no proof or authority that either is true. For years we have heard the cry "Missing = recidivism = Dangerousness" used to support getting more funding, for more federal jobs and similar jobs at state levels through grants. First see the TRUTH about "Missing Sex Offender claim." Also, Dr Jill Levenson recently reported "Results fail to support the supposition that sexual offenders who fail to register are more sexually dangerous than those who comply with registration requirements." in her 2009 study on the topic: Failure to Register as a Sex Offender: Is it Associated with Recidivism? Lawmakers are losing the public support and AGAIN are grasping at straws to get it back, no matter whose rights are taken away.

The Adam Walsh Act of 2006 was passed to create a more uniform and enforceable sex offender registry system. A key component of the Act gave the U.S. Marshals Service primary enforcement authority to locate and arrest unregistered sex offenders who had moved in interstate commerce or had earlier been convicted under federal law. This provision will help the Marshals Service perform this vital task.

S.671, the Finding Fugitive Sex Offender Act of 2011, was introduced to the Senate March 29, 2011. ..Source.. by Sen. Blumenthal Press Release

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"Fugitive Sexual Offenders" by Jill Levenson Guest Blogger at Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment

Folks may remember how the fictitious 100,000 came into being, see historical reports saved.

11-27-2010 National:

Apparently, on Novenber 16, 2010, Dr. Jill Levenson was a Guest Blogger over at the Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment (SAJRT) blog.

Robin J. Wilson, Ph.D., ABPP is a long time ATSA member, of the SAJRT blog reported the following from Dr. Jill Levenson, with respect to reports about "Fugitive Sex Offenders" found at http://www.scrippsnews.com/projects/fugitive-sex-offenders:

Dr. Jill Levenson, Dr. Andrew Harris, Dr. Alissa Ackerman, and Dr. Kristen Zgoba are currently embarking on a series of research projects exploring the make-up and utility of U.S. registries as well as the intended goals and outcomes of the Adam Walsh Act. In a recent article submitted for publication to a reputable social science journal, we analyzed data on 445,127 registered sex offenders obtained directly from the public registries of 49 states, Washington, DC, Puerto Rico and Guam. In contrast with the homogenized perception about registered sex offenders that permeates much public discourse, the analysis illuminated the wide diversity of registrants across a range of demographic, offense-related, registry status, and risk-oriented variables.

Specifically, we attempted to clarify the repeatedly cited statistic that 100,000 sex offenders are "missing." Curiously, we were able to identify only 17,688 RSOs who were designated by states to be transient, homeless, absconded, non-compliant, or whose address or whereabouts are otherwise unknown. Nationwide, a total of 5,349 offenders were officially listed as absconded; 1,264 were listed as missing/unable to be located and 4,152 were listed as having failed to comply with registration requirements. We had no way of specifically confirming the number of fugitive sex offenders, since states had a wide variety of methods for classifying absconders, registration violators, and others whose locations are uncertain. Despite the NCMEC report that "at least 100,000 sex offenders are noncompliant and no one knows where they are" (National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, 2007), we have been unable to ascertain NCMEC's formula for their calculation of missing sex offenders. Using the data downloaded directly from public registries, and utilizing the inclusive figure of 17,688 offenders described above (approximately 4% of our total sample), we found no evidence to support the notion that one-sixth (or about 17%) of the nation's sex offenders are missing or unaccounted for.

It is unlikely that all sex offenders who fail to comply with registration are willful violators, and despite the claims of the U.S. Marshall's Service most noncompliant offenders do not appear to have absconded. Many "missing" sex offenders are not truly missing; they may appear to be missing due to inadequate or incomplete address information, data entry errors, lag times in updating registry information, unauthorized travel, or homelessness. Some might be confused by complex registration laws, carelessly neglecting to fulfill registration requirements but continuing to report to parole or probation agents and remaining in their known locations despite their lapsed registration.

Through our data analysis, we were also able to extrapolate and draw some general inferences about the relative risk of the U.S. RSO population. Through our data collection process, we know that approximately 33% of the RSOs reported by NCMEC are not listed on public registries. Thus, we presume that about one-third of the nation's sex offenders have been assessed by their state's sex offender management procedure to pose low risk for future offending, and therefore they are not subjected to community notification. Even among those found on public registries (ostensibly higher risk offenders from some states and all offenders from other states), a distribution of risk exists, with a minority designated in most states as high risk, predator, or sexually violent.

Another notable finding is the considerable number of RSOs who are not residing in the community. All told, approximately 12% (N=52,248) of RSOs appear to not be living in the community, with a total of 47,978 people incarcerated or civilly committed, 1,028 listed as deceased, and 3,251 listed as deported.

Interestingly, in several published studies, failure to register as a sex offender was not associated with an increased likelihood of sexual reoffending.

Public internet registries were designed to alert citizens to the presence of sex offenders living nearby so that action can be taken to potentially prevent victimization. It is unclear why deported or deceased offenders remain on public registries, as the public safety value of this information seems dubious. As well, the funding allocated for tracking the nation's sex offenders is based on the registry count reported by NCMEC -- an inflated figure that includes individuals for whom no tracking is needed because they are institutionalized, dead, or deported. In one particularly illuminating example, out of over 54,000 sex offenders registered in Florida, more than half are not actually living in Florida communities. About 28% are institutionalized and about one-quarter are living in other states. This information is not readily apparent in the data reported by NCMEC; rather, it was evident only after downloading a publicly available datafile from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement website and speaking with the state's registry data manager to resolve discrepancies. In other words, many publicly identified RSOs may not be living amongst us.

As for the Adam Walsh Act, which sought to introduce greater uniformity of sex offender registration and notification systems, we concur that standardized definitions and measures across states would help close gaps that currently exist and provide for needed consistency in policies. However, the rules by which AWA seeks to impose jurisdictional uniformity – rules that rely on a common offense-based classification scheme and ignore other germane risk factors – are far more likely to obscure important differences among registered offenders than to shed more light on them. Offense-based designations cover a wide and diverse spectrum of behavior patterns, and accordingly obscure important distinctions impacting a given offender’s public safety risk. Researchers from NY have already found that the Adam Walsh tiers did a poor job of predicting reoffending. Many states have adopted more refined approaches (e.g. utilizing empirically derived risk assessment methods) to distinguish the most dangerous offenders and to assist in the efficient allocation of resources concordant with an offender's threat to the community. The tier system under the Adam Walsh Act, however, will potentially render certain aspects of those systems obsolete, mandating increasingly more inclusive public internet disclosure that ultimately might prove to be less informative for concerned citizens. This problem is one of the controversies impacting nationwide compliance with federal law.

Prevention of repeat sexual violence is a complex endeavor not easily solved with statutory solutions. The current emphasis on publicly identifying and tracking known offenders may do a disservice to the public, since over 90% of sexually abused children are victimized by someone well known to them with no previous sex crime record, not a stranger found on a registry. Recidivism rates are much lower than commonly believed; the U.S. Dept of Justice reported a 5.3% sexual recidivism rate over 3 years and Canadian researchers report about 14% over 4-6 years. Even over longer follow-up periods of 15-20 years, research indicates that about three-quarters of sex offenders are NOT re-arrested for a subsequent sex crime (in stark contrast to this statement: "These guys are dangerous," Anderson said. "They have a sexual appetite that can only be satisfied by going after who they deem to be sexually arousing — such as kids, minors, toddlers, infants — and doing it by rape. When they want sex, they want it then.").

Certainly, a subgroup of sexual offenders IS dangerous and likely to reoffend. But the quickly growing population of registered sex offenders (now nearing one million) obscures our ability to identify the most high risk individuals, and spreads resources quite thin. A more targeted approach using risk assessment methods would help to allocate resources more efficiently to provide closer monitoring of those more likely to pose a threat to public safety.

Jill Levenson, Ph.D.

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