Which children are worth protecting?

Yesterday morning I participated in a discussion in response to - oh, what a surprise! - the "clustering" of sex offenders living in trailer parks, roadside motels and other stereotypically rural, poor, shady areas. As usual, many of the posters who had gotten there before me were sounding off about how child molesters should be dragged out behind the barn and shot, sent to Guantanamo Bay or stay in jail forever. Although I strongly desired to point out how hypocritical it was for them to be judging people who had committed crimes by suggesting violent or ignorant punishments, for the most part I held myself back and instead, replied as factually as possible. The results were slightly better than usual.

For the most part, I started out my responses clarifying that the term "sex offender" is not a synonym for "pedophile". I went on to say that if, in fact, the registry was only a list of diagnosed pedophiles, individuals who had committed crimes against children or who were very violent and shown to have a high risk of re-offense, it would be a valuable tool and no argument would be heard from me as to its value. However, considering that recidivism rates for sex crimes in general have been consistently shown to be very low - 3.5 to 8.5% - and that 93-95% of children who are sexually abused are victimized by someone they know and trust, who has never been convicted of a sex crime and therefore not on any registry - our laws fail to protect the high majority of current and future crime victims. Why not remove the non-dangerous individuals from the registry, those that will very likely never re-offend, and re-delegate those resources to better tracking and monitoring of the truly dangerous and education/prevention programs for children and their parents?

Instead of being chastised for defending and loving sex offenders, for the most part my views were acknowledged, but considered difficult to implement. One individual said that prevention was impossible, and that there was no way to know who would commit a sex crime until it was too late. Another said that in a perfect world, that would happen, but it would take too long to make the changes. And of course, there were the inevitable few who were angry with me for providing the facts that as usual, the article didn't provide, and refused to believe them.

Although it was a welcome break from the typical personal attacks and blatant ignorance, it was still frustrating. Even when the topic was approached in a more socially acceptable, less emotionally charged manner, for the most part people still did not want to listen. In one particular interaction, a fellow poster took issue with the way I phrased something and claimed that in order to look at things from my perspective, one "had to be a sex offender or know someone who was." It's very rare that I allude to my personal experience as the girlfriend of a sex offender in online commenting, since it often is misinterpreted and all my credibility is lost. However, in this case I was unable to hold back and fired back that yes, I did happen to love a sex offender, who was a 13-year-old child being horrifically abused by his sex- and pornography-addicted mother in every conceivable way, forced to do something he did not want to do with a younger sibling, and then tried and convicted as an adult several years later by the same mother and was sold out by a wealthy step-father who had the funds to sway the district attorney, the judge and child protective services. For good measure, I added that one quarter of the 750,000 individuals on the sex offender registry are juveniles - CHILDREN - 18 and under.

After some weak attempts on the part of the poster who had extracted my story to gather more information about the situation and backpedal slightly, another individual jumped in. He was apologetic and acknowledged the tragedy of G's circumstances, but was sure that situations like his were unusual and that he was an unfortunate victim of a system that must act in the interest of what is best for the majority. He also asserted that a recidivism rate of 3.5 - 8.5% is still too much and in order to protect the best interests of all children, that the non-violent, non-child molesting sex offenders would just have to deal with the consequences of the system.

I responded to both of these men that while I understand and agree that laws need to address the needs of many, not a few - our laws fail to do this. Our laws don't do a thing to prevent sex crime because they only target those who have been caught. Maybe the best way to illustrate how incomplete and ineffective sex crime legislation is is to do it with numbers.

There are upwards of 750,000 registered sex offenders in this country. If the worst case scenario occurs, and 8.5% of them commit another sex crime - that's 63,750 new offenses. And since some offenders have multiple victims, let's just round it up to 70,000 new crime victims.

We know that many child molesters are never caught or convicted. The same goes for perpetrators of rape, incest, and sexual assault. Although there is no confirmed number or percentage of how many sex crimes go unreported each year, many victim advocacy groups claim it is as high as 90%. Much lower percentages have also been reported and we haven't talked about false accusations, so let's under-assume here and say that the 750,000 people on the registry represent a quarter of all people guilty of committing some type of sex crime. That means that there are 2,250,000 additional sexual predators living among us who are undocumented and completely unaffected by sex crime legislation.

The 8.5% recidivism rate is for individuals who have been caught and convicted of a sex crime - we don't know what the recidivism rate is for those who have never been caught. It would be reasonable to assume it is higher, however we don't want to assume so we'll just use 8.5%. 8.5% of 2,250,000 undocumented sexual predators committing just one crime per year is 191,250 new crime victims - not rounded up. That's over 273% more than the 70,000 who may or may not be victimized by a registered offender if they re-offend at the highest rate possible and have multiple victims.

Suddenly, the needs of the few versus the needs of many looks strikingly different. It's impossible to ignore. And my calculations are not taking into account the number of juveniles on the registry - remember that if those same juveniles were victims of a sex crime, they would be considered children. One quarter of 750,000 means there are 187,500 children sitting in prisons around the country whose lives are irrefutably changed forever - much like childhood victims of sex crime. Parents of children of registered sex offenders report that their children experience social difficulties, loss of friendships, and discrimination from teachers, schools and other children. So, which children are we protecting? How many are we really protecting? Is it really "impossible" to implement education and awareness programs to prevent and reduce sex crime towards kids, or is it just too hard?

Obviously, it's easier to protect a relative few children than it is to protect a few hundred thousand. But is it worth it?