While this analysis by Radford is not in error, it is being posted to explain a comment he made which some may consider that Harrell was a prior sex offender.3-26-2010 Florida:
Highlighted below points to unrelated "sex crimes," what Radford means is the child pornography crimes which Harrell had been arrested for; one must look at the time frame that Radford's analysis was published. After Harrell was arrested in Mississippi, but before being charged in Somer's murder.
It was a horrible crime against a young child that made headlines around the world: A seven-year-old girl named Somer Thompson vanished while walking home from school one day in October 2009.
Her parents suspected the worst—partly because of high-profile news stories about other missing kids. Indeed, only a few years earlier in the same state, a convicted sex offender named John Couey abducted, raped, and killed a girl named Jessica Lunsford. The Thompsons hoped their daughter’s disappearance would end differently, but tragically few days later Somer’s body was found in a Georgia landfill.
Police immediately questioned registered sex offenders living in the area. According to Florida’s sex offender registry, about 80 offenders live within three miles of the Thompson home, and over 160 live within five miles. The public expected a child molester to be arrested any day; one ABC News headline read, “Dense Population of Sex Offenders in Fla. Case is Alarmingly Typical.”
Today a man named Jarred Harrell was charged with the abduction, rape, and murder of Somer Thompson.
Predictably, Harrell is not a convicted sex offender.
Why “predictably”? Because most people who abduct, molest, and kill children have no previous criminal records for crimes against children.
According to Department of Justice studies and professor David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire, sex offenders have a lower recidivism (re-offense) rate than people convicted of other crimes (the idea that sex offenders can’t be cured, or often commit further sex offenses, is a common myth).
Jarred Harrell is a far more typical perpetrator than John Couey. It may seem counterintuitive, but the fact is that a convicted sex offender is far less likely to assault a child than a person who has never been convicted of a sex crime. The vast majority of crimes against children are committed by the child’s parents, family, or friends—not a stranger. (Though Harrell had been arrested for unrelated sex crimes, he had not been convicted and therefore did not appear on any sex offender registries.)
When looking for a suspect in a child abduction or molestation, it’s natural for the police and public to focus first on convicted sex offenders. But more often than not the concern about sex offenders only distracts from the more likely suspects. Children need to be protected, and that means understanding where the real dangers lie. ..Source.. Analysis by Benjamin Radford
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