Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Sex Offenders Provide Accurate Info to Law Enforcement, Study Finds

iowaindependent.com: Sex Offenders Provide Accurate Info to Law Enforcement, Study Finds.

Despite the lies told to you by the media, the large majority of sex offenders comply with registration as they are required, even though these laws are violating their constitutional rights.

Federal authorities who double-checked addresses of Iowans required to register as sex offenders discovered that only a small percentage provided erroneous information to authorities.

U.S. Marshals teamed with local law enforcement to conduct the Sex offender Tracking And Registration (STAR) project in the 52 counties that comprise the Northern District of Iowa. The teams checked all registered sex offenders in the district, a total of 1,745 individuals, and discovered that only 155 — or roughly 8 percent — had provided false addresses. Charges have been made against 63 of those found to be in non-compliance, and there might be more charges made in the future.

If 155 are providing false information, then why only charge 63? Because their definition of compliance includes those who can make human errors, or try to comply but get caught up in a technicality. This is why you should not trust their statistics on compliance, recidivism, ect..

The project comes on the heels of national criticism that the sex offender registry isn’t working as well as it could because offenders are lying about their addresses and/or switching addresses without notifying authorities. Law enforcement officials for municipalities and counties have also argued that they have been provided mandates to check on registered sex offenders, but have not been provided the funding necessary to complete the task. Those same officials have also gone on record, at least in Iowa and a few other states, to explain that strict residency restrictions can sometimes be counter-productive to keeping track of known offenders due to limited housing opportunities.

Yet, despite the arguments and estimates that perhaps 25 percent or more sex offenders have wrong addresses on file, authorities conducting the home checks found most individuals provided correct information. Tim Junker, U.S. Marshal for the Northern District, said at a press conference Monday, however, that there is no way of knowing if the Iowa figures will translate to other federal districts.

Of course, statistically, the numbers will be similar across the nation. That is how statistical estimations work.