What would you do if a “sex offender” moved in next door?
Confront them? Warn the neighbors? Move?

Most of us would, at the very least, be wary. After all, that is exactly what the sexual offense registry was designed to do. It breeds panic and fear so that those on the registry are marginalized and shunned by their communities.

But to what end? Are we any safer because of these registries? Thirty years of research shows we are not. There isn’t a single study showing any benefit to public safety as a result of the registry. And, in fact, the outcome has been much worse. Instead of being harmed by strangers, children as young as 8 years old are being charged with sexual offenses and placed on the sexual offense registry.

To prevent sexual harm, we have cast a net so wide that people, especially young people, are caught up in ways that were never intended, and their lives and families are destroyed as a result.

Meet John. In 1986, when John was 18, he had a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old girl. He was convicted in 1987 on a non-dangerous, non-repetitive, class 5 & class 6 felony offense for sexual abuse and sexual conduct with a minor. John served only a year in prison, yet he remains on the sexual offense registry to this day, more than 30 years after his conviction.

“I have been turned down for jobs with big name businesses due to being a registered sex offender. I have been turned down by rental agents at apartment complexes…. I have had people follow me who received flyers in their mail box … and tell me to move or they would shoot me, which has put my life and the life of my family in a great amount of danger, especially due to the fact that I have had to live at home with my mother for most of the 30 plus years that I have been a registered S.O.” said John.

It is unlikely that John will ever have a meaningful job or raise a family. Being on the registry will forever affect his ability to live a productive and fulfilling life.

Colin has a similar story. As an 18-year-old senior in high school, Colin had a sexual encounter with an underage teenage girl whom he met online. She invited him over for a rendezvous at her house and sent him videos and naked pictures of herself as enticement. The teenagers kissed, hugged, and got naked together when the girl’s father discovered them.

After hearing the story from the police officer, Colin’s parents were somewhat surprised at the fuss, “considering the two kids mutually consented, no sex occurred, and that they both seemed to have a role in this encounter. Frankly, we first thought this was a matter that could have been resolved with two sets of parents talking to each other. … We had no idea how much trouble our son was in. We were just about to be sucked into a vortex.”

Colin lost his job, his friends, and his church community, and nearly lost his scholarship because of the stigma associated with sexual offenses. He suffered from deep depression and anxiety. He was sentenced to 20 years on probation under the extremely oppressive sexual offense terms.

How did we get here?

The laws that regulate people who have committed sexual offenses came about after three high-profile cases involving children who were tragically kidnapped, raped and murdered. Because of these heinous origins, people assume that all those on the registry have committed similar crimes and are sexually violent predators. This is not true. Because of the wide net cast by our sexual offense laws, many are caught up who pose no danger.

Studies show that your child is more likely to be placed on the sexual offense registry than to be harmed by someone on it. The graph below shows the highest rate of offenders committing sexual assault are 14-year-olds. One third of all sex crimes against a minor are committed by another minor, and 23% of those prosecuted for a contact sexual offense are juveniles themselves. Most of these children are simply participating in age-appropriate, consensual sexual exploration.

Bureau of Justice Statistics – Victim, Perpetrator, and Incident Characteristics of Sexual Victimization of Youth in Juvenile Facilities, 2018 – Statistical Tables

One justification for these laws is the belief that those who commit sexual harm cannot be rehabilitated. But study after study confirms the opposite is true. The recidivism rate for those who have committed sexual offenses is in the single digits, lower than for any other class of crime except murder.

In his paper, “Frightening and High”: The Supreme Court’s Crucial Mistake About Sex Crime Statistics, Professor Ira Ellman demonstrates how these recidivism claims are unfounded, based solely on pop-culture references and political speeches.

We now have more than 30 years of evidence showing that only 3.5% of those convicted of sexual offenses are reconvicted of another sexual offense within three years. That’s compared to a 40%-70% rate for other crimes, making those who have committed sexual offenses the least likely to commit another sexual offense.

Patty Wetterling, whose son Jacob was kidnapped and brutally murdered, and who fought for a national registry, has now acknowledged that such registries do not work.

First, in most states “sex offender” covers anyone, including juveniles, convicted of any sexual offense, including consensual teenage sex, public urination, and other non-violent crimes. Second, Jacob was the exception, not the rule: more than 90 percent of sexual violence is committed by someone the child knows. And third, most shocking to me, sex offenders are less likely to re-offend than commonly thought. A Department of Justice study suggested ex-offenders have a recidivism rate of 3 percent to 5 percent within the first three years after release.

The hidden danger in basing our public policies on these fear-based myths is that it harms us all. The social isolation of a life on the registry can actually increase recidivism. And, since 90% of victims knew their offender before the crime, draconian policies can make victims less likely to report sexual offenses.

As Judith Levine and Erica R. Meiners point out in The Feminist and the Sex Offender, “The sex offense legal regime does no good and much harm. It displaces real child protection with a false sense of security at the same time as it incites terror to justify itself…. It exiles a permanent class of sexual pariah—now nearly a million—from the rights of residency, citizenship, and humanity itself.”

The stories of John and Colin are just two examples of the over 14,000 people living on the sexual offense registry in Arizona. All these men and women have paid their debt to society, yet they are branded for life out of misplaced fear.

This legislative session several bills will make our sexual offense laws in Arizona even more onerous. Meanwhile, the American Law Institute, academic research, behavioral health professionals, social workers, children’s advocates, and others are asking to scale back these draconian laws that harm children and separate families.

Arizonans for Rational Sex Offense Laws believes that if we want safer communities, it’s time for a new direction in sexual offense policy.  Write to your legislators and urge them to vote no on fear-based measures with no basis in evidence.

For more information about the harm caused by sexual offense laws, visit azrsol.org and learn the facts before judging your neighbors.