Sex Offense: the Most Heinous of All Crimes?
That's the way each night's serving of Law and Order, Special Victims Unit begins. Sex offenses are the most heinous crimes imaginable and in some cases they may be. But I would have thought genocide, pervasive and inescapable racism, war, torture and terrorism might place higher on the list of heinous crimes. Maybe it's because we as individuals can do little about these large issues but we can persecute sex offenders. Are they really the most heinous of all criminals?
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Sex Offense Is a Very Broad Category of Different Crimes
A sex offense requiring lifetime registration resulting in an almost out right ban on participation in society covers crimes in California that range from indecent exposure to oral copulation with a child under 10 (PC 288.7(b)) Certainly someone who exposes himself in an attempt to induce a sexual response is not an exemplary character. He is not, however, the same type of person who would rape or sodomize a child. Our laws punishing sexual offenders make no distinction between the offenses and each sex offender becomes a pariah for life.
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Are Sex Offenders Always Repeat Offenders?
The evidence that one sexual offense is an indicator of sexually predatory behavior for a lifetime is unsupported by any scientific evidence. An adult who has sex with a 17 year old minor is not certain to repeat that act, particularly if the two are close in age. The strongest evidence that such people are incorrigible comes from tabloid newspapers that prey on public fears. The laws addressed to recidivism are based on two false assumptions. The first is that every sex offender always re-offends and the second is that our children's greatest danger comes from strangers. Both propositions are worthy of P.T. Barnum who said that no one ever went broke overestimating the stupidity of the American people.
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Who Does Your Child or Daughter Really Have to Fear?
Every statistic and every study shows that 99% of the sexual offense are committed by family members or close friends of the victim. Every sex case that I have handled involved children left in harm's way from an immediate family member. Although there are famous cases involving strangers who prey on children the number is minuscule compared to the the number of offending fathers, uncles, brothers and cousins. The simple truth is that persecuting those who have had a sex crime in their past does very little to limit the spread of sexual molestation in this country or any other.
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