My Turn: Safer communities laws are dangerous

February 2, 2006

With the help of Bill O’Reilly, Governor Jim Douglas is flogging public fear of child molesters in the bushes. The Legislature is running scared too – from a perceived mob of angry voters.

But if fear is the greatest political motivator, it is the worst basis for policy. The various proposed Safer Communities laws – whether including longer sentences, broader sex offender registries and stricter ex-convict supervision, or civil commitment– are unlikely to make Vermont’s communities safer. Indeed, they could put us in more danger. Here’s why:

1. Such laws put resources where the problem isn’t.

All but about 7% of sex crimes against children are committed by their families. Sex offender registries do nothing for these victims, who already know where the released perpetrator is. Requirements that ex-offenders stay away from schools and playgrounds are likewise unnecessary. Where molestation is concerned, kids are safest in public.

2. Imprisonment does not significantly reduce crime.

From 1984 to 1998, according to the Sentencing Project, “states with the largest increases in incarceration experienced…smaller declines in crime than other states.” Vermont ’s imprisoned population rose 52% during the ’90s; we suffered 9% -- that’s 11 -- fewer violent crimes. U.S. Bureau of Justice statistics also show that longer sentences have a negligible effect on whether someone commits another crime.

3. Expanded sex offender registries and tougher restrictions contribute to reoffense.

“Research shows that the best way to [change antisocial behavior] is to normalize life,” says Eric Lotke, former research and policy director of the Justice Policy Institute. Offender websites and community notification of neighbors, landlords and employers, coupled with requirements that registrants report their every move to the police, do the opposite. In other words, says offender therapist Robert Longo, “you ban somebody from the community, he has no friends, he feels bad about himself, and you reinforce the very problems that contribute to the sex abuse behavior in the first place. You make him a better sex offender.”

4. Community notification encourages violence.

“Stronger sex offender laws give tools to parents and concerned citizens so they can be more aware of the location of convicted sex offenders, especially sexually violent predators,” Douglas proclaims.

And what are we to do with these “tools?” Muster the good old boys with their shotguns? That’s what’s happening nationwide: harassment, assault, arson. Margy Love, former Justice Department Pardon Attorney, calls the new U.S. sex-offender registry an “incitement to vigilante justice” masquerading as “a responsible public safety measure.”

5. In a free society, you don’t lock people up for crimes you think they might commit. Anyway, it’s almost impossible to know.

Don’t worry, says Douglas , only the baddest of the bad --19 Sexually Violent Predators tops – will be civilly committed. Vermont ’s SVP statute sounds reassuringly stringent. “The standard of proof . . . shall be clear and convincing evidence that the convicted sex offender suffers from a mental abnormality or personality disorder that makes the person likely to engage in predatory, sexually violent offenses.”

Such risk prediction, though, is notoriously unreliable—partly because “personality disorder” is an imprecise diagnosis and a “mental abnormality” is as common as anorexia. And depending on whom you talk to, “pedophilia” can refer to a 40-year-old who rapes a toddler or an 8-year-old playing doctor with his 5-year-old sister.
Using civil commitment as a back door to longer sentences, other states have exceeded their estimates by hundreds, even thousands.

6. Sex criminals reform, and treatment works.

Large studies in the U.S. and Canada have found that sex criminals are among the least likely to reoffend: about 13% do so, compared with 74% of other prisoners. Treatment improves the odds greatly. In 1995, Vermont reported post-treatment reoffense rates of just 7% for pedophiles and 3% for incest perpetrators.

Criminal justice policy has two functions: to punish; and to protect the community. But offender websites and civil commitment are only about vengeance – and votes.

If it’s safety we’re after, we’ll put most of our resources where they work: public education about sexual violence, treatment and community reintegration for offenders.

And what will “get-tough” policy get us? Fuller cellblocks and locked wards. A public that perceives more crime and demands more laws. More laws bringing more arrests. The perception of more crime.

Conjuring monsters in the streets, we will divide communities and leave children defenseless at home. We will feel falsely safer, and all the while, more fearful.

by Hardwick resident Judith Levine is the author of “Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children From Sex” and a director of the National Center for Reason & Justice.