Are Teachers the New "Boogeyman"?

In a post last week we asked the question, ‘how many registered sex offenders have been arrested for committing crimes on school campuses in the last year?’. Or the last ten years, for that matter? How about; how many registered sex offenders have even been suspected of committing crimes on school campuses ever?

Municipalities have been in this frenzied rush to pass residency ordinances, preventing registered sex offenders from living near schools despite large bodies of research saying they are ineffective. One would think that the urgency of getting these laws in place would be in response to an urgent problem, but does a problem even exist? How many registered sex offenders are committing crimes on school campuses?

Today, on WUSA in Washington, there is a report on the number of teachers arrested for sex offenses and it’s shocking. (Here is the data from the Virginia Department of Education with the details). In fewer than 5 years, 62 teachers in a limited study area of Virginia have committed sex offenses (including many with students)! Exactly how many registered sex offenders have committed sex offenses on school campuses during that time?

Clearly the vast majority of teachers are not predators and everyone will agree that the teachers who commit sexual crimes against there students represents a very small percentage of the overall teacher population, but it still happens. The instances of stranger abduction, for which we have residency and proximity restrictions also represent a very small percentage of the overall number of sex offenses, but we pass laws as if this was commonplace. Shouldn’t we pass laws to protect children from the predators who are far more likely to abuse them at school than a sex offender; their teachers?