Will someone please correct this journalist?!?
Yuma, Arizona’s NBC News 11 just posted a horribly misleading article titled, “Released to Reoffend: News 11 investigates the sex offender next door.”
The irresponsible news story makes the absurdly inaccurate statement that “Statistics show 99% of child sex offenders reoffend, yet they are still being released into our community.”
The statistic allegedly comes from an organization called “Amberly’s place” Diane Umphress, who started the family advocacy center, Amberly’s Place in Yuma, 20 years ago. says that “It’s grown into an empire” Of course it’s grown into an empire if you feed people false statistics and scare them into supporting you.
The same story quotes some politician, Congressman Paul Gosar, (R) Arizona who said, “It defies common sense that these offenders receive light sentences, and are often released into society when the data shows high risks of recidivism.”
Released sex-offenders are less likely to be rearrested than other released prisoners, according to new data released by the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). (https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/rsorsp9yfu0514.pdf). The commonly held “frightening and high” myth has long ago been debunked (https://reason.com/2018/11/14/the-frightening-and-high-factoid-about-s/) and we know sex offenders have a LOW rate of recidivism.
Stories like this are responsible for the irrational and ineffective policies that govern persons who have sexually offended. It shows how bullshit statistics perpetuated by a self-interested organization are regurgitated by irresponsible journalists who mislead the public and lawmakers into passing irrational and ineffective laws.
Please take a moment to correct those responsible:
Diane Umphress, Amberly’s Place: dianeumphress@amberlysplace.com
Jenny Day, journalist, KYMA News 11: [email protected]
Ernesto Romero, KYMA News Director: [email protected]
Congresman Dr. Paul Gosar: https://gosar.house.gov/contact/
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The pressure may have worked. The article appears to have been taken down from the station’s website.
Thanks all for speaking out. The Station pulled the story.
Amen! Praise the Lord and pass me a glass of Granny’s special recipe.
The Twitter post is still up though.
https://twitter.com/JennyDayTV/status/1195159698460143617
Hold them accountable… it’s slander.
Anyone considering a lawsuit for defamation should know the difference between slander and libel, as well as the legal standards for bringing a lawsuit and the plaintiff’s burden of proof. It’s no easy task to bring such a suit.
https://defamation.laws.com/defamation-laws/libel-vs-slander
Journalists lol. This guy should be sued. If I have to have numbers stamped on my drivers license that groups me in with those 99 percent He must be negligently slandering me!
Emailed
Oh man this place put itself in the middle of the cops case by taking the victims statement ,I won’t know any dept. That would use someplace like this unless they were Barney fife, Mayberry, I didn’t see any way they could or did do research of any kind , but it looks like they have a good board of directors and a very fine thrift store.
Well on top of this article being full of falsehood propaganda, its also not written very well. Several grammatical and spelling errors. For me, when I read those, it lessens the legitimacy of the article in my eyes. But anyway, this was a dumb article written by a newbie it looks like. RSO issues are easy pickings for them, so I’m sure that’s their first assignment story when they first get hired!