Since 1996, sex offender laws have been ineffective in reducing sex offenses!

UPDATE: A reader asks, What about other violent crimes? See new chart below comparing sexual assaults to other violent crimes.

Note: I have dropped the word "totally" from the post title, because it was inconsistent with my findings.

1-2-2010 National:

The National Judicial Reporting Program (NJRP) compiles detailed information on the sentences that felons receive in state courts nationwide. The survey excludes federal courts and state or local courts that do not adjudicate adult felony cases. NJRP surveys have been conducted every 2 years since 1986, the latest bulletin is "Felony Sentences in State Courts, 2006."

In the DOJ bulletin there is a table which shows the number and percentage of the total crimes that each crime type represents. Before going further it is important to note that the individual crime numbers are not the actual totals for the nation, but are estimated based on a sample of selected counties that are representative of the nation.

For sex crimes I wondered what percentage of the total felony crimes they represented and whether the number of them has changed given the enactment of dozens of laws since 1994. In the DOJ 2006 bulletin it shows 33,200 sexual assaults, which represents 2.9% of the total felony crimes reported (1,132,290).

It dawned on me that, given this bulletin is generated every 2 years, it would certainly show what effect all the sex offender laws had on those numbers if I traced this bulletin back in time. Hence the following chart was constructed:

CHART: Constructed from
"Felony Sentences in State Courts" for dates shown.

Date of Bulletin	Sexual Assaults** Reported	Total Felony Offenses*	Sexual Assault Percentage
2006	33,200	1,132,290	2.9%
2004	33,190	1,078,920	3.0%
2002	33,500	1,051,000	3.1%
2000	31,500	924,700	3.4%
1998	29,693	927,717	3.2%
1996	30,057	997,970	3.0%

* Total Felony Offenses means all types of felonies.
** Sexual Assault includes rape and other sexual assaults.

Shocking, from 1996 through 2006, the percentage of total felony crimes that sexual assaults represents has hovered around 3.0%, and the number of sex crimes has actually increased approximately 10% which is consistent with a 12% increase in total felonies over the same time period. Our national population has also increased during that period.

The federal government and states have poured millions and maybe now billions of dollars into tracking former sex offenders and it has not affected the percentage of total crimes committed. In fact, the actual number of sex offenses has increased.

First there was New Jersey's Megan's law, then federal laws, the 1994 Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Act, then the 1996 Pam Lychner Sexual Offender Tracking and Identification Act, then in 1998 amendment to the Jacob Wetterling Act calls for stricter registration requirements, and then in 2000 the Campus Sex Crimes Prevention Act, (including a host of state residency laws, proximity laws, employment laws, housing laws, etc.) and none of them have REDUCED the number of sex offenses. The federal laws mandated states to enact their guideline changes or face a loss of federal funding.

True, the effect of the Adam Walsh Act is not reflected in these numbers because it wasn't enacted until mid 2006 and states have yet to implement its provisions. However, I doubt AWA will affect these numbers at all since it is mandating nothing new to reduce sex offenses; behind it is still the erroneous belief that TRACKING former offender will PREVENT future sex crimes. The 10 year chart proves TRACKING is not PREVENTION.

Lawmakers, wake up and smell the roses, if you want to PREVENT future sex crimes you must start programs which are preventative, such as sex offender therapy! Lawmakers have approved funding for the DOJ to generate these statistics, but, they never read them, they follow "it sounds good" logic, in enacting new knee-jerk laws, in response to a few high profile crimes.

eAdvocate

UPDATE: A reader asks, what about other violent crimes?

CHART: Comparing Violent Crimes.

Date of Bulletin	Total Felony Offenses	Sexual Assault	Murders	Robbery	Aggravated Assault	Other Violent Felonies
2006	1,132,290	33,200 (2.9%)	8,670 (.76%)	41,740 (3.6%)	100,560 (8.9%)	21,980 (1.9%)
2004	1,178,920	33,190 (3.0%)	8,400 (.77%)	38,850 (3.6%)	94,380 (8.7%)	19,750 (1.8%)
2002	1,051,000	33,500 (3.1%)	8,990 (.85%)	38,430 (3.7%)	95,600 (9.1%)	18,510 (1.8%)
2000	924,700	31,500 (3.4%)	8,600 (.93%)	36,800 (4.0%)	79,400 (8.6%)	17,000 (1.8%)
1998	927,717	29,693 (3.2%)	9,158 (.98%)	38,784 (4.2%)	71,060 (7.7%)	15,889 (1.7%)
1996	997,970	30,057 (3.0%)	11,430 (1.1%)	42,831 (4.3%)	69,522 (7.0%)	13,984 (1.4%)
Total	Over 10 years:	+3,143 (-.1%)	-2,760 (-.43%)	-1,091 (-.7%)	+31,038 (+1.9%)	+7,996 (+.5%)

Is there any doubt that, sex offender policy has had the least effect, and may have caused an increase nationally. Excepting for the "Total-Line" all figures come from the respective "Felony Sentences in State Courts" bulletins.

Footnote:
At the DOJ website they also had reports for 1992 and 1994, but these could not be used because the numbers for "Other Sexual Assaults" were mixed in with "Other Violent Felonies," it wasn't until 1996 that "Sexual Assault" included both rape and other sexual assaults.
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