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Hazardous Harry wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:

One might have thought that sex offenders, being on a register, would be more easily caught second time around.

As far as I know most countries and US states do not have a public sex offender registry. Unless you mean just a sex registry in general?

Taking your 15-25% and averaging with your 40%, we get a reoffending rate of 25%.

It's more like 30%, which is still pretty high. On top of that Mercado also admits that these are pretty conservative estimates which only included second offences that resulted in an arrest or being charged. If they investigations into victim reports counted the rate, as would be expected, would definitely be higher.

If you take the average of the three figures it's 26.6 recurring %. 30% is not vastly higher than that. Naturally I would be open to new research, updates and corrections of these figures.

The UK has a sex offender register. Whether it's open to the public I don't know. That would be irrelevant to its use by police forces, though.

d-usa wrote:

Hazardous Harry wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:

One might have thought that sex offenders, being on a register, would be more easily caught second time around.

As far as I know most countries and US states do not have a public sex offender registry. Unless you mean just a sex registry in general?

I know in Oklahoma our sex offender registry is public.

Here is the list of folks in my town:

http://docapp8.doc.state.ok.us/servlet/page?_pageid=230&_dad=portal30&_schema=PORTAL30&SearchMode=Basic&city=Oklahoma%20city&stateid=30658&county=oklahoma&SearchAll=ALL

Texas has one as well.

I believe all states have one. They vary slightly from state to state, and most don't list the specific crime that a person was arrested for; it's usually listed according to the category (e.g.: "Class A Felony", "Class 2 Misdemeanor", etc.) They are somewhat useful tools in the hands of police, nigh-useless and easily abused in the hands of your average citizen.

There was a case in the UK when a popular daily newspaper did an anti-paedo crusade and published the home address of a paediatrician. This resulted in pitchforks and torches at dusk.

Kilkrazy wrote:There was a case in the UK when a popular daily newspaper did an anti-paedo crusade and published the home address of a paediatrician. This resulted in pitchforks and torches at dusk.

Already been linked a few pages back, needless to day though, it hasn't got any less amusing.

Death to podiatrists!

Kilkrazy wrote:
If you take the average of the three figures it's 26.6 recurring %. 30% is not vastly higher than that. Naturally I would be open to new research, updates and corrections of these figures.

20% is halfway between 15-25%. Take that number and average it with the 40% estimate and you have 30%. I'm not sure why this matters though, as the actual rate of reoffence is still likely to be much higher.

The UK has a sex offender register. Whether it's open to the public I don't know. That would be irrelevant to its use by police forces, though.

I don't know about the UK, but a couple of US states (I think Washington was one after several sex offenders were killed) and Australia are now leaning toward GPS systems for risk offenders rather than a public registry. It has all the advantages with little risk of resulting in vigilantism.

Frazzled wrote:

d-usa wrote:

Hazardous Harry wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:

One might have thought that sex offenders, being on a register, would be more easily caught second time around.

As far as I know most countries and US states do not have a public sex offender registry. Unless you mean just a sex registry in general?

I know in Oklahoma our sex offender registry is public.

Here is the list of folks in my town:

http://docapp8.doc.state.ok.us/servlet/page?_pageid=230&_dad=portal30&_schema=PORTAL30&SearchMode=Basic&city=Oklahoma%20city&stateid=30658&county=oklahoma&SearchAll=ALL

Texas has one as well.

As does Michigan

Looks like the case is now officially closed:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/19/us/texas-abuser-father/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

Hazardous Harry wrote:I'm not sure where you got that percentage from.

There are a lot of studies into the issue, and they don't differ greatly in their results. I've looked up studies to make this point dozens of times, and any study I've linked to gives the same results. I typed sex offender recidivism into google and opened the first four results.

The first link stated; “Examining the findings of 17 studies both in Australia and internationally, Lievore concluded that the studies clearly indicate a low base rate for sexual recidivism: a number of studies reported rates below 10%, with few studies reporting rates higher than 20%” http://www.sentencingcouncil.vic.gov.au/sites/sentencingcouncil.vic.gov.au/files/recidivism_of_sex_offenders_research_paper.pdf" target="_new" rel="nofollow"> http://www.sentencingcouncil.vic.gov.au/sites/sentencingcouncil.vic.gov.au/files/recidivism_of_sex_offenders_research_paper.pdf
The second gave me this; "A review of the international literature revealed that rates of sexual recidivism varied from as low as two per cent in some studies, to as high as 35 per cent in others."
http://www.aic.gov.au/documents/C/7/5/%7BC75FBED3-38E3-4FB2-AA62-5E94CE775717%7D2003-06-recidivism.pdf
The third link gave me this; "In Australia, sexual recidivism rates range from "two percent in some samples to as high as sixteen percent in others" (Lievore, 2005, p. 2). Overall, this is considered low in comparison to other types of offences." http://www.aifs.gov.au/acssa/pubs/newsletter/n25/n25-3.html
The fourth link gave me this; “But his review of available research in Canada and the U.S. finds the typical rate is 25% to 30% over 20 years”. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120122376053515485.html

That is the first four links that popped up on Google.

The sources I've been looking at point to the rate of re-offence resulting in conviction being roughly 15-20%, however the actual rate of reoffending may be as high as 40% if you take into account arrests and victim statements. And we really can't dismiss the fact that repeat offenders are going to get better at avoiding arrest.

Yes, but there's no point wildly exaggerating the level of under reporting. And more to the point, they remain an excellent guide in showing us which groups are more likely to re-offend, and which groups are less likely. Vulcan's extremely broad claims make any kind of programs targetting those most likely to re-offend harder to put in place.

This is miles above other types of criminals with different offences reoffending, even going past violent offenders.

If your claim above is implying what I think it is, your understanding of the rates of re-offence couldn't be more wrong. Re-offence drops as the crime becomes more severe. That is, shoplifters are very likely to re-offend while murderers are not.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160252706001038
You might not be able to access it if this was one of the articles paid for by the uni.

I can't access the article, unfortunately. Interesting that I used to have access to a lot of this stuff through my old uni job, but not now I'm at a TAFE.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Hazardous Harry wrote:It's more like 30%, which is still pretty high. On top of that Mercado also admits that these are pretty conservative estimates which only included second offences that resulted in an arrest or being charged. If they investigations into victim reports counted the rate, as would be expected, would definitely be higher.

High compared to what? High compared to 'we'd like it to be zero because that would mean no-one ever suffered an attack ever again'? Then yeah it's high.

High compared to other less serious crimes? No, it's much smaller than re-offence rates in other crimes.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Hazardous Harry wrote:20% is halfway between 15-25%. Take that number and average it with the 40% estimate and you have 30%. I'm not sure why this matters though, as the actual rate of reoffence is still likely to be much higher.

The actual rate is believed to be somewhat higher, with exactly how much higher depending on judgements made by individuals. And even then it is sure to be far below the figures bandied about in the media, which in turn produce beliefs like those shown by Vulcan earlier in the thread.

And the rate matters because it remains the only objective information we can produce on this, and while we should keep in mind the limitations of the study we shouldn't ignore the very useful information gleaned from the studies'
1) Sexual crimes do not sit outside all other crimes, they in fact appear to sit quite comfortably in the general trend of 'more serious crimes have lower rates of re-offence'. As in, the rate of re-offence is less than petty theft, but more than murder. And this same pattern follows when you break sexual crimes down into their sub-categories - more serious sexual crimes have much lower rates of re-offence, more minor sexual crimes have higher rates of re-offence.
2) We can pick out a number of indicators that give a pretty good guide as to who is likely to re-offend and who is not.
3) Court ordered treatment, in and of itself, does little.

d-usa wrote:Looks like the case is now officially closed:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/19/us/texas-abuser-father/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

Yep the grand jury no billed him. You know this is all proforma when the prosecutor appears with the defendant and quotes the Texas Code on self defense.

Interestingly no one mentioned the offender wasn't a citizen.

Frazzled wrote:

d-usa wrote:Looks like the case is now officially closed:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/19/us/texas-abuser-father/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

Yep the grand jury no billed him. You know this is all proforma when the prosecutor appears with the defendant and quotes the Texas Code on self defense.

Interestingly no one mentioned the offender wasn't a citizen.

Does not being a US citizen make it more likely you will commit a crime?

Kilkrazy wrote:

Frazzled wrote:

d-usa wrote:Looks like the case is now officially closed:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/19/us/texas-abuser-father/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

Yep the grand jury no billed him. You know this is all proforma when the prosecutor appears with the defendant and quotes the Texas Code on self defense.

Interestingly no one mentioned the offender wasn't a citizen.

Does not being a US citizen make it more likely you will commit a crime?

Only if you're from Australia. The lack of natural disasters and crazy assed killing machine fauna tends to play with their heads here, and they sort of freak out....
Note to all Aussies in the US. We currently have major wildfires in NM and Corolado, and the heat is breaking 100 in Austin this weekend, should need to schedule a quick trip to get your head back right and calm you down. Also I've heard Florida is now breeding some sort of Anaconda python supersnake if you need a new pet. Hands off chupacrabra though! Leave our goatsucker alone!

Kilkrazy wrote:

Frazzled wrote:

d-usa wrote:Looks like the case is now officially closed:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/19/us/texas-abuser-father/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

Yep the grand jury no billed him. You know this is all proforma when the prosecutor appears with the defendant and quotes the Texas Code on self defense.

Interestingly no one mentioned the offender wasn't a citizen.

Does not being a US citizen make it more likely you will commit a crime?

In Texas? it's almost a certainty, since their very existence in the state is a crime.

SlaveToDorkness wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:

Frazzled wrote:

d-usa wrote:Looks like the case is now officially closed:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/19/us/texas-abuser-father/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

Yep the grand jury no billed him. You know this is all proforma when the prosecutor appears with the defendant and quotes the Texas Code on self defense.

Interestingly no one mentioned the offender wasn't a citizen.

Does not being a US citizen make it more likely you will commit a crime?

In Texas? it's almost a certainty, since their very existence in the state is a crime.

Riiiiight. Being a citizen isn't a crime. Being here illegally...well that is a crime. The problem is anytime the state tries to do something big brother comes in and throws a fuss about it, even private citizens can't do anything without big bro getting up in arms.

All in all though I'm glad nothing happened to the dad. Hopefully the daughter can recover and isn't scarred from this whole thing!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/19/father-kills-molester-texas-no-charges_n_1610465.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular

Interesting account of the 911 call--it seems the father did come out of the red haze and attempt to save the man's life. Also it seems forensic evidence corroborates the molestation claim.
However what I found most entertaining about this article:

Huffpost wrote:The family ranch is so remote that on the 911 tape, the father is heard profanely screaming at a dispatcher who couldn't locate the property. At one point, he tells the dispatcher he's going to put the man in his truck and drive him to a hospital.

"He's going to die!" the father screams, swearing at the dispatcher. "He's going to f------ die!"

The tense, nearly five-minute call begins with the father saying he "beat up" a man found raping his daughter. The father grows increasingly frazzled, shouting into the phone so loudly at times that the call often becomes inaudible.

I see that bold!

Frazzled, its not just a job. Its a lifestyle choice.

Frazzled wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:

Does not being a US citizen make it more likely you will commit a crime?

Only if you're from Australia. The lack of natural disasters and crazy assed killing machine fauna tends to play with their heads here, and they sort of freak out....

Its a known fact that Aussies are genetically disposed towards crime, we intentionally set them up that way.

Probably as a contingency in case you needed to steal the Empire back. India, Pakistan, China concessions, Hong Kong, Zoinks!

India would be nice, you are welcome to Pakistan.

Even drones dont like being seen there.

Hong Kong all the way man, so long as you're not poor its a great place.

Have no sympathy for the guy who died. Feel sorry for the dad and girl.

Called it. No charges. Dismissed. Whatever.

And yes, being illegally in a country is a crime, so by default you are a criminal.

In the state of Oregon it is estimated that 50% of Latinos in the state are illegally here. You can not go a week without hearing of a major drug bust, molestation, rape, etc happening in our state that the offender is not an illegal alien from below our southern border.

Glad to hear the outcome on this, and have some faith in the justice system again. At least in the country of Texas.

I'm glad he didn't get in trouble.

I'd prefer this outcome for more child rapists, honestly.

I always said they should've given Chris Hanson a shotgun.

"Hello, why don't you have a seat over there... Lemonade?

BLAMMO!!!!"

Pulitzer stuff, man.

Frazzled wrote:Only if you're from Australia. The lack of natural disasters and crazy assed killing machine fauna tends to play with their heads here, and they sort of freak out....

It's true. Without the ever present threat of drop bears to keep me on my toes, I needed to find something to keep the danger up, and the only thing I could find to replace it was assaulting Americans. When I was in the US it took about a week before I just started punching random passers by.

Note to all Aussies in the US. We currently have major wildfires in NM and Corolado, and the heat is breaking 100 in Austin this weekend, should need to schedule a quick trip to get your head back right and calm you down. Also I've heard Florida is now breeding some sort of Anaconda python supersnake if you need a new pet. Hands off chupacrabra though! Leave our goatsucker alone!

Wow, I hadn't heard about the fires. Normally US bushfires get pretty extensive coverage in Australia. I guess there's just so much else going on right now, with Egypt, Greece and all the rest.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Orlanth wrote:Its a known fact that Aussies are genetically disposed towards crime, we intentionally set them up that way.

But only awesome crimes like bushranging and, if I understand the song correctly, sheep stealing and suicide.

Shadowseer_Kim wrote:Called it. No charges. Dismissed. Whatever.

And yes, being illegally in a country is a crime, so by default you are a criminal.

In the state of Oregon it is estimated that 50% of Latinos in the state are illegally here. You can not go a week without hearing of a major drug bust, molestation, rape, etc happening in our state that the offender is not an illegal alien from below our southern border.

Glad to hear the outcome on this, and have some faith in the justice system again. At least in the country of Texas.

The dead guy was here legally, had a green card and everything

treadhead1944 wrote:

Shadowseer_Kim wrote:Called it. No charges. Dismissed. Whatever.

And yes, being illegally in a country is a crime, so by default you are a criminal.

In the state of Oregon it is estimated that 50% of Latinos in the state are illegally here. You can not go a week without hearing of a major drug bust, molestation, rape, etc happening in our state that the offender is not an illegal alien from below our southern border.

Glad to hear the outcome on this, and have some faith in the justice system again. At least in the country of Texas.

The dead guy was here legally, had a green card and everything

I'm sure thats a relief.

Am I the only one amazed that it looks from the conclusion video that Texan lawyers wear their big hats in the courtroom? What a silly, messed up state.
Fraz, please tell me you own one of those bucket-hats.

timetowaste85 wrote:Am I the only one amazed that it looks from the conclusion video that Texan lawyers wear their big hats in the courtroom? What a silly, messed up state.
Fraz, please tell me you own one of those bucket-hats.

I went through nine years of secondary education so I wouldn't have to any more. On Western Day I think I'm the only one in this city that doesn't pretend they are cowboys. Been there. Done that. Got a belt buckle.