Sex Offender Registry should be eliminated

7-27-2012 Guam:

The way the forum question is asked reflects an unfounded bias in favor of the Sex Offender Registry's existence. Rather than increasing the reach of the registry, Guam should lead the nation by eliminating this registry. The defense of the Sex Offender Registry is based on two false premises, increased recidivism and other crime, and is extra-judicial punishment.

Most sex crimes are benign. It would be poetic justice for a man who pushes for the use of this registry to be arrested for relieving himself behind a bush that is not as thick as it should be. For a woman, the poetic justice would be an arrest for an upper garment mishap. Both are sex crimes! Would anyone believe that their young son should be put on the Sex Offender Registry for life for mooning or their young daughter be so placed for flashing her bare breasts?

For serious sex crimes, the three-year re-arrest rate for prisoners released in 1994 in 11 states for rape is 2.5 percent and 5.9 percent for other sexual assaults. Whereas for property crimes, the rearrest rate is over 70 percent. Similar relative results are found in New Zealand, where the measure of recidivism is not defined.

Yes, a recent local report of a repeat rapist provoked the forum question. He is equivalent to the serial killer, where the overall rearrest rate for homicide is 1.2 percent.

I have found no statistics for sex crimes involving minors. A priori, unless the perpetrator carries a considerable weight of authority, recidivism for such crimes, when not involving force, will be limited by the perpetrator becoming less attractive with age. As examples, a pre-adolescent is less likely to cooperate with a grisly old man than a young one in mutual genital fondling and a teenage lovely would less likely have an interest that could lead to statutory rape in an old man than in a young one.

The use of the Sex Offender Registry increases recidivism or committing of other crimes by those on the registry. It is a standard premise of the economic analysis of crime that making it difficult for a released criminal to live a respected life and to make an honest living increases recidivism and the performance of other crimes.

Consider the later arrest rate for rapists for illegal means to make a living: within three years of release from prison, 6.2 percent are arrested for theft and 11.2 percent for drug offenses. The Department of Justice figures do not specify the percent of the drug offenses that are for dealing in drugs. The Sex Offender Registry, by restricting means to make an honest living, increases former sex offenders' participation in property crimes and drug dealing.

That the Sex Offender Registry is extra-judicial punishment requires no explanation. ..Source.. by Peter C. Mayer, Ph.D. (Taituba), is an economist who lives in Mangilao.