Winter Springs Florida’s ABC Affiliate, WFTV, reported about a sexual assault yesterday. In that report they quoted Senator Linda Stewart as saying “The problem that we have with the [sex] offenders is that they are going to offend again.”
Really?!?! Perhaps Senator Stewart and WFTV need an education on actual recidivism rates. If anyone has a moment today, please reach out to them and share your comments here so that others can comment too.
I do believe that we should flood them with corrections. However, the sad thing is that they don’t care. Matter of fact, they very well might know the truth. But the media in Central Florida is far more concerned with getting the story out first and the shock value of the story over the accuracy of the story, the safety of their personnel, and morality in general. I’ve often wondered if they even have a conscience.
I spect 8 years working in Broadcast in Central Florida, and all of the off-air stations were that way. I was sickened by where they placed importance, and how they would just about crucify their own mother to win a Pulitzer. Like the industry says, “If it bleeds, it leads”.
The following was just sent to Robert Johnson, General Manager of WGCU, NPR for South West Florida:
Hello:
WGCU has been a beacon of light, moving beyond the rhetoric surrounding many sensitive issues. You report the truth rather than the hype.
There is often much misunderstanding about, and animosity towards, those persons who are required to register publicly as former sex offenders and who reside amongst us in our Florida communities.
I would like to cordially invite members of your news department to a film screening and panel discussion.
Details are here: http://link.rm0004.net/go/-cGFMjBx01VVLio1ssL6iQ2/
Very Cordially Yours,
Our good Senator Linda Stewart (and she does seem genuinely nice and concerned) has been cordially invited to the “Untouchables” movie screening and panel discussion on the 27th.
Thank you for extending that invitation to her!
Do you have the info on where and what time untouchables movie screening ? I was told the date and that it would be in Broward county Fl but no address of time has been forwarded to me and I do plan on attending so if anyone can please give me all the detail I’d really appreciate it, thank you.
Gina please attend!
Info is is at https://floridaactioncommittee.org/event/
Bring others!
I received the following reply from Senator Stewart:
Thank you for reaching out to me. There seems to be a big misunderstanding of a recent quote in a news story about my proposed bill relating to public exposure. We were talking specifically about serial offenders who expose themselves to multiple victims, not sex offenders in general. My bill (SB 1018: Exposure of Sexual Organs) only addresses that specific offense in order to give law enforcement better tools to catch and prosecute these type of offenders.
Here is a link to SB1018 http://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2020/1018. Thank you again for reaching out to me. Have a great week!
I did not actually view the video clip. If what she is saying is true, it still makes us all shudder as the public thinks that all registrants are like the very few that re-offend over and over again.
This was great – please share her response with our legislative team and hopefully we can keep her engaged.
OK – here’s where we have to be creative. The guy is already on the list for lewd/lasiv (not sexual assault) and here he is at a PARK doing it AGAIN. Indeed this sucks. We like to say this stuff just doesn’t happen at parks and people don’t reoffend and this guy just did both. This is a PERFECT opportunity, for us to say, “We agree with the Senator this person obviously needs professional help, but one of our main involves residency restrictions. As we have said many times before, people who are going to commit these crimes will not be deterred by residency restrictions. This person had a car. We are very concerned about homeless sex offenders in Florida.” That’s how you turn this unfortunate story around.
It’s awesome to think creatively. Maybe these few things too?:
You said the guy was “already on the list”? Is that right? I did not see that in the article. He also doesn’t come up if you search Floriduh’s Registry. But, the GREAT news is that, either way, one thing that we know for sure is that the Registries did absolutely nothing to prevent a crime. That is normal.
Further, I’d say that if he was Registered, that almost certainly helped caused him to commit further crimes. I’m sure Registries increase recidivism and other crimes in general.
Why would the guy need “professional” or “mental” help? I expect the guy knows fully well that what he is doing is wrong and illegal. Frankly, I don’t give a flip WHY he is doing whatever. All we need is for him not to. If he needs help, why doesn’t everyone who commits any kind of crime? Is it just because $EX? Makes no sense.
I would point out that if instead of pointing a penis at the person, if he had pointed a gun, that would not have been so dangerous. It could have been just a trivial, normal robbery and we don’t even need to worry about Registering people who do that every year. We don’t have to worry that they need any professional or mental help either. Because that’s normal and safe.
Reality: The $EX Offender Registries are nothing but a giant pile of excrement. They are clearly not needed or beneficial. That is trivial to prove. There is nothing legitimate about them. They are nothing but harassment by out-of-control Nanny Big Government and the emperor never had any clothes. They are all liars.
Just a heads up: When you email the TV station, you will be asked to give the current year. You have to use 2019.
FAC, can you supply links to the studies and stats so we can readily send them out in these cases so that they are confronted with the facts. You guys have all the ammunition we need to begin to educate people with the truth.
https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/18upr9yfup0514.pdf
Above link states that after 9 years of release across 30 states, those released inmates whose most serious offense was rape or sexual assault, only 7.7% did re-offend. That means that 92.3% over the same 9-years period did NOT re-offend. That is a huge percentage.
Casomb.org/
The above video discusses the research out there on recidivism rates, which are very low.
https://floridaactioncommittee.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Karl-Hanson-Declaration-Summary-5-13.pdf
Karl Hanson found that once convicted, most sexual offenders are never re-convicted of another sexual offense.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2017/03/09/the-big-lie-about-sex-offenders/
This article tells how the lie about high recidivism rates came about and gives some research to debunk this myth.
You can also google “recidivism rates for sex offenders” to find more research.
My experience with talking with law enforcement is , You can show them all the facts in the world, then they just shrug it off and say “yes but none of those statistics are accurate because only a small fraction of sex offences are reported . “
My answer would be , if there not important enough to report than why are we incarcerating people over trivial things that don’t seem to matter to most people. Until sometimes years later when they realize they can make money or notoriety over it. Even though by that time they had practically forgotten about it till an opportunity arrives.
Scales of justice balance weights.
Guy murders someone and gets 10 prison and 25 probation.
Another Guy forgets to register his roommates license plate. Gets 15 years prison , and lifetime on registry without ever being able to get off.
Not me being silly, this really happens sometimes depending on the judge, the lawyers and the jury you get.
I agree. No registries are ever good – ever! Once a person’s sentence is done, it is DONE AND OVER WITH! Debt Paid!!!
When I said “assessed”, I simply meant “Judged” or “looked at by others”. As in, “I visited my neighbor a few times in order to better assess his personality.”
Good catch, though. We must watch how we say things, right?
I read the report and see it a bit differently perhaps. From what I gather, it appears the comments are concerning those who, like this individual, commit these acts and because it’s only a misdemeanor, the punishment isn’t enough to deter them from doing it again. I am also guessing that being charged with misdemeanors doesn’t result in enough supervision and or treatment being provided to properly rehabilitate someone either, is their view.
I do believe that this type of behavior is serious and would naturally cause great concern among parents. My thought as a parent would be that the next step this person is likely going to take if they aren’t deterred is to snatch someone’s child.
We should support efforts that deter and steer individuals away from repeat offenses and get them on a track that addresses their issues.
This person needs to take their actions seriously and get right before he screws up his life permanently and makes our lives harsher as well.
In this age of “me too-ism” Child porn ad infinitum and elected officials convicted in the courts of public opinion, sex offenses have taken the top slot in the division of 3rd rail politics. The surest route to losing an election is to come out in favor of reforms in this arena. Losing an election is far more a catastrophe than ordinary folk who actually work for a living can imagine. It’s more than losing a salary, the elected official is losing status and the control over what amounts to millions of dollars in the annual office expense accounts that go along with that House or Senate seat. All that money is in the gift of that elected Senator or Congressman (or woman). That’s quite an ego boost for anyone to win an election, especially all the benefits and ways to profit from office-holding.
It takes far more guts than the normal person has to give up all that to fight for a despised minority about which is subject to so many lies, deceptions, and injustices that all who belong to that class are in a state of slavery, subjected to Federal and state probation departments through the entire nation. We need a new EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION that covers the entire country, unlike the original, which covered only those states in rebellion. If legislatures and the judiciary keep piling on this class the way they have been…We shouldn’t be surprised to see a few “Nat turners” arise before too much longer. The human can only take so much pain and suffering before turning on those producing it.
go figure all they are are liars and vagabonds attempting to sway public votes and opinions. It will continue until we find strong character in a honest politician if there is such a thing..If we all had money we could fight them like them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
W…WORST
F…F$&*ING
T…ELE
V…ISION
News station in Central Floriduh. They tout themselves as “exposing the truth” while spreading lies.
I had provided her with a link last year to one of the articles posted on this site contradicting what she states. I told her to challenge her thinking by reading it.
Apparently she wasn’t up for that challenge… Sigh.
Thanks for posting this. When I saw the story yesterday on the news I about spit out my food I was eating. I knew I had to share this with everyone who did not see it. So No one can ever be rehabilitated ?
Stories like this is what gets our neighbors all fired up wanting to lynch us.
PS: Here is the Senator’s email for anybody who wants it.
[email protected]
Hello:
I emailed the TV station and the Senator with the following: (I changed the wording slightly for the senator)
Hello:
You recently reported on a story of a man arrested for sexual assault. You stated that sex offenders usually repeat their crimes. This is patently untrue.
According to numerous state-funded and university studies, as well as the United States Department of Justice’s Bureau of Crime Statistics, the actual rates of recidivism for those convicted of sex offenses is the lowest of any other type of crime (except for murder).
Only around 5% or sex offenders go on to re-offend compared to many other types of crime, whose re-offense rates remain around 50-75% recidivism.
https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/rsorsp9yfu0514.pdf
Thank You
my email to the senator:
Recently seen a report on the news station where you made the statement that sex offenders will offend again. I would like where you received that information to state such a fact to make such a statement or is that statement not a fact and something you made up or did you make that statement because it is close to an election in less than a year?
Either way i think you did a disservice to the people you serve as clearly your statement is anything but the truth! and there are plenty of real sex offender reoffence rates that are facts published by the government as well as scholars on the subject.
If you would like to actually do something and protect children and adults you would get proactive about drunk driving as they have one of the highest recidivism conviction rates of all the criminals! god forbid any little Jane goes to soccer practice with little Lisa and little Lisa’s dad (a two time convicted drunk driver) drives them and is involved in an accident.
In closing, I believe that the reason politicians don’t get serious about protecting the public from drunk drivers is do to they themselves drink and drive or there loved one does!
I Pray to god little Lisa’s father or someone like him does not get in an accident and kill or injure anyone but that could help actually be prevented if there was an actual drunk driving public list where little Jane’s mommy and daddy could check to see that little Lisa’s dad is a convicted drunk driver (drunk driving should be a felony) . what is strange is should a person shot and injure someone they go to prison for a long time or even if they missed they just shot a gun at someone but yet a drunk driver kills someone they do very little time in prison if any. A vehicle with an impaired driver such as a drunk is a weapon and there should be laws in place to that fact. Our neighbors to the north Canada understand how dangerous drunk driving is with a true high recidivism rate, unlike sex offenders which you stated do!
This was a stranger in a park, and the legislation she is proposing would have kept him off the street.
We might keep this in mind when we tell her she is statistically wrong.
https://www.wftv.com/news/local/seminole-county/man-accused-exposing-himself-girl-winter-springs-facing-charges/CZTDQYSD7NAHBOI7RAGDOBBXCQ/?outputType=amp
All the more reason to stress the fact that Sos have the lowest recidivism rates. This man was/is an aberration.
We should be assessed individually.
There shouldn’t be any “assessing” at all. Once a person completes a legal sentence of incarceration and/or probation/parole, that’s it. All done. Nothing else is acceptable.
The $EX Offender Registries are nothing but a giant pile of excrement. They are clearly not needed or beneficial. That is trivial to prove. There is nothing legitimate about them. They are nothing but harassment by out-of-control Nanny Big Government and the emperor never had any clothes. They are all liars.