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While browsing the Internet, I got a strange notion to go camping for no apparent reason. While checking out sites for prospective camping locations, I noticed a link snuggled in the middle of a page for "rules and regulations." I've never read the "rules and regulations" for a park before, and I was curious what could be so un-obvious that it required a whole PDF file called "rules and regulations." Seriously, what on earth could possibly not be covered by good old fashioned common sense? Don't make an ass of yourself, respect other people, don't set things on fire, don't screw with the wildlife and the plants...you get the idea. Lo and behold, I clicked and ended up with an 11-page sort-of-legalese monster: a city ordinance for parks and recreation areas. Okay, okay, I understand that if it's a law, it's going to be lofty and wordy and all that, and there were a lot of interesting things such as geocaching which I had never thought of and that I could see a need to regulate in a public park.
Then I found something which ticked me off thoroughly:
16. SEX OFFENDERS
No person registered with the State of North Carolina and/or any other state or federal agency as a registered sex offender shall enter into a public park or recreation facility. Violators will be prosecuted. Each offense is punishable by a fine of $500 and/or incarceration for up to thirty (30) days.
That's right, a sex offender who wants to go on a camping trip to relax for a couple of days isn't allowed to do it at a public park, under the threat of a month-long jail sentence and a fine twice as high as a citation for speeding 20 MPH over the posted limit.
This illustrates the problem with the entire concept of a "sex offender" label in the first place. Why would a sex offender who wishes to molest someone choose a state park? Aside from the rangers on patrol, there are always adults nearby and there's not much that can be done to conceal one's actions in such a place. Sure, there's a good chance that kids are roaming free in such a place, but to think that getting away with committing a sex crime in such a place is easy is to deny common sense. Background noise is lower and awareness of surroundings is heightened in a camping environment. Parents watch children far more closely because of the real risk of getting lost in the woods or injured. Why would a sex offender choose such a place to commit a new sex offense? Ignoring the low sexual reoffense rate of convicted sex offenders and ignoring the fact that around 90% of sex crimes are committed by people who are known to the victim, a state park camping facility seems like it would fall on the bottom of the list of places to find a victim to assault!
Think like a person who wants to have sex with prepubescent children and not get caught for a second! Why not rape someone you can groom first so you can more easily conceal the assault? And how many such people are on a random campground? How can you groom a child you don't know?
If you want to molest a complete stranger and not get caught, wouldn't you want to be in a much more advantageous situation than a campground full of adults in a state of heightened awareness?
We don't even have to look at the truth about sex offenders overwhelmingly not committing a second sex offense post-release. We can pretend that the false truths and misunderstandings about sexual recidivism are true, and common sense still proves that this ordinance is stupid. Even if 40% of sex offenders were GUARANTEED to commit a new sex crime before their death, a campground is an awful place to do it. It's just too easy to get caught! Thus, we have established that sex offenders camping doesn't pose any realistic threat to other campers, and that's assuming "stranger danger" and sex offenders waiting behind every bush are the reality of the world...which they simply are not.
We need the truth to remain anchored in reality, though. All we've proven so far is that sex offenders stalking kids at a campground is pretty unlikely, and there's more to the story. This article is titled "40 Percent and Other Myths," and by now you're wondering where the title came from. This article in The Smoky Mountain News came up when I searched for "sex offenders in public parks" and is the source of the title. Why? Check out this tidbit of text from the article: "Recidivism rates among sex offenders are high, however, particularly among those who molest children, Beckner said. Of released sex offenders, 40 percent had committed a new sex crime within a year of being discharged from prison, according to statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice. Those numbers are too high maybe to even make exceptions for those who may truly be free of a desire to commit another sexual offense." Because the study that this information comes from is well-known by now, I sought out the original information. As of today (2010-10-21), Wikipedia's article on "sex offender" contains a duplication of the USDOJ study's bullet-points on their findings. Remember, the article clearly states that the USDOJ reports that "40 percent [of sex offenders] had committed a new sex crime within a year of being discharged from prison." Funny, because here's the exact text used in that study (emphasis added):
Of released sex offenders who allegedly committed another sex crime, 40% perpetrated the new offense within a year or less from their prison discharge.
The article says 40% of ALL sex offenders had committed a new sex crime within a year of being released, but the USDOJ didn't say anything like that. They referred to a subgroup of sex offenders: those who, during the study's time span, allegedly committed another sex offense. The 40% figure refers to 40% of that group, not 40% of ALL sex offenders. Why does that distinction matter? Because only 5.3% of sex offenders in the study committed another sex crime within the term of the study! Let's do some math here. 40% of 5.3% of sex offenders (9,691 were involved in the study) probably will commit another sex crime in their first year of release. Hmm... (0.053 * 0.4) = 0.0212 = 2.12%.
That's a 37.88% difference.
One needs only to refer to the studies done by the US Department of Justice and Human Rights Watch to confirm the rest of my statements: offenders overwhelmingly target people they know over strangers, convicted sex offenders overwhelmingly don't sexually reoffend, and preventing convicted sex offenders who haven't broken the law since conviction from being free to build and maintain a normal life increases the risk that they will commit another sex crime. The only reason that this inequality doesn't get more press is that sex offenders can so easily ignore the ordinances and laws preventing them from exercising their freedoms, and because the vast majority won't ever hurt anyone or give off a "bad vibe," no one will ever arrest them for doing so. Think about that for a minute. A sex offender could be the nicest person you've ever met and pose no threat to you, and as long as you don't know about the label attached to that person, they don't have a reason to feel outcast or isolated and behave desperately.
And if a short camping trip once a month keeps a sex offender relaxed and stops them from offending again, why would you want to prevent that from happening? If you know that making it illegal for sex offenders to go camping will make you feel safe, but letting them camp actually DOES make you and everyone else safer, why would you choose the first option?
Questions? Comments? E-mail the Offender and let him know what you think!
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