How can this happen? He was not a sex offender!
Two kidnapping stories made headlines this week. One in Kentucky and one in Florida. In both cases men tried to kidnap teenage girls.
Both news reports, put out by independent news agencies, seemed surprised that the perpetrators were not on the sex offender’s registry. Miami’s CBS affiliate wrote, “Investigators don’t know why Bonello went after the girl. He’s not a registered sex offender” and The Daily Independent wrote, “Daniels said the church had no reason to believe Spence would pursue an underage girl. Spence is not a registered sex offender”!
There’s a false public perception that the people out there committing sex crimes are registrants and if we know who the registrants are, we’ll prevent sex crimes from occurring. That’s about as dangerous a myth as you can get.
In fact, if there’s a sex crime, you have a better than 9 out of 10 chance that it’s NOT someone on the registry and if you’re so hyper-focused on the close to 900,000 people who are very UNLIKELY to be the suspect, you’re misspending resources on prevention and investigation.
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I agree. We have such a hard time even finding a babysitter because of my husbunds registry. His previous probation officer refused to allow him permission to go to a daycare facility. Its a sad day when a child cannot be taken to a safe place during the day so their parents can go to work to support them and pay the legal fees to be able to continue to raise them in a loving home.
We have been actively informing the legislature and the public for almost 10 years now… The fact is 95% of offenses are by first time offenders… THEY ARE NOT ON THE REGISRTY!!!! Which means; only 5% of offenders are known. Its not stranger danger folks its the person you know and trust who is more likely to offend against your child. PLEASE TELL YOUR LEGISLATORS TO IMPLEMENT POLICIES BASED ON THE EMPIRICAL DATA WHICH MAY ACTUALLY PROTECT ALL OF OUR KIDS! Wasting resources on feel good policy is tragic. The tone of this report is alarming as it suggests all who offend are registered, this reporter is so ill informed, I suggest before you do any more reporting on this subject you get yourself educated. To imply its surprising that these clearly disturbed individuals are not registrants… AWFUL! 93%+ of current victims and potential victims are being ignored by our current policies.
THE RECIDIVISM RATES OF REGISTERED CITIZENS IS LOWER THAN ANY OTHER CLASS OF OFFENDER! THAT IS A FACT! Please GET THE FACTS and STOP perpetuating the myths. Its harmful to the safety of your viewers and listeners.
Florida is just going to have to learn the hard way and another child in Florida is going to have to suffer by the hands of a first time offender who of course is not on the registry and who will most likely be a family member. Hopefully it won’t take too many more horrendous crimes for the wake up call to happen that what our state is doing is making us LESS safe, perpetuating the problem.by ruining more families that could are ever ruined by a crime and forcing the public to fear the wrong things and to focus on the wrong people. The has NEVER been about “protecting children” and as more and more research becomes available and as more crimes are committed, the true self-promoting, revenge-seeking, vote-desperate Florida lawmaker will be revealed. Only insane fools ignore valid, nationally accepted research and continue to do the same ole thing expecting a different result.
Feel like talking to a stone wall