Much Ado about Nothing

Given all of the hype and hysteria in recent years regarding Registered Sex Offenders one would think that the chances of your child being attacked by one of these so-called boogeymen living in our midst would have to be very high. In fact, listening to the politicians and media would have you wanting to buy a shotgun and go knocking on the doors of those on your list from your local registry. But when you look at the numbers it becomes obvious that even in the WORST CASE scenario all of the hype and hysteria is really much ado about nothing.

To assess the true risk posed by this group to your child you must ask a series of basic questions, which create a formula of sorts to show the real chances that one of these boogeymen will attack your child.

When you plug in all of the numbers the result will surprise you.

Q: First, how many actual child sexual abuse cases are reported every year?

A: According to the U.S. Department of Justice there are some 89,500 annual cases of child sexual abuse.

http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/199298.pdf

Q: How many registered sex offenders are there in the U.S.?

A: As of February 15, 2007, The Center for Missing and Exploited Children states that there are 603,245 registered sex offenders in the United States.

http://www.missingkids.com/en_US/documents/sex-offender-map.pdf

Q: What is the recidivism rate of known sex offenders?

A: Again, different studies yield different results, but even the worst case I have seen is 17% for sex offenders who have undergone treatment. (The U.S. Department of Justice states that it is only 3.3% 3 years after release) Again, let's use the WORST CASE numbers and say 17% but I will also plug in the 3.3% number as well) So, 17% of 603,245 = 102,551, which is the WORST CASE number of registered sex offenders who will recidivate (commit a new sex offense).

Q: How many of those registered sex offenders who recidivate will do so in any given year?

A: This is where the picture has the potential to get a bit fuzzy because we have no possible way of knowing how many of those 102,551 new offenses will occur in any given year. So, I propose we look at the average life span of a Registered Sex Offender, and given that I have no inkling of how one would go about getting an actual number let's just take an extremely liberal number leaning in favor of one who supports the registries as being a good tool for protecting our communities and say ten years. The average is probably more in the range of 40-60 given that most convicted sex offenders are younger, but again, let's look at the WORST CASE numbers.

So, we divide the 102,551 new offenses by 10 years and get 10,255 cases of child sexual abuse that will occur at the hands of known sex offenders each year.

Now, if you divide 10,255 by the number of reported cases of child sexual abuse each year you get .114 - or 11.4%.

Now, if you consider the estimation that some 88% of child sexual abuse cases go unreported every year this means that the actual number of annual child sexual abuse cases is roughly 746,500.

So, if you divide the 10,200 by THAT number you get .013 or 1.3%

If you take the more realistic numbers and use the DOJ's recidivism rate 603,245 x 3.3% = 10,007 TOTAL new offenses - divide THAT number by the more realistic life span of a Registered Sex Offender, let's still use a conservative number and say 30 - and you get 334 new offenses every year committed by known sex offenders. Divide THAT number by the REPORTED cases and you get .003 or .3% (notice the decimal that's POINT THREE PERCENT)! And if you use the TOTAL estimated number of annual child sexual abuse cases (746,500) then you get a fraction that is so small that you need a scientific notation calculator to compute it!

This means that the WORST CASE chance of your child being sexually abused by a Registered Sex Offender is 11%. But the more realistic chance is so small that it is virtually incalculable! And when you consider THIS number in the context of the chance of your child even being sexually abused AT ALL the numbers demonstrate even further that this hype and hysteria is much ado about nothing.

There are some 80 million children below the age of 18 in the United States (by definition anyone under the age of 18 is considered a minor under federal law in this country). http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/usinterimproj/natprojtab02a.pdf So, if you take the total number of child sexual abuse cases (746,500) and multiply it by 50% you get the total number of such cases committed at the hands of adults rather than other children – if you then divide THAT number (373,250) by the number of children in the U.S. you find that your child has a .4% chance of being the victim of child sexual abuse at the hands of an adult AT ALL! Yes folks – that IS a decimal in front of that four – so there is less than one half of one percent chance of your child even ever being sexually abused by an adult to being with! Now factor THAT number by the chance of them being victimized by a Registered Sex Offender and you find very quickly that all of this hype and hysteria and hoopla is TRULY much ado about nothing.

Isn’t it time you demanded that our government stop spending over a BILLION dollars of taxpayer dollars on the HOPE of reducing A FRACTION OF A PERCENT of child sexual abuse cases and START focusing on a solution that will reduce the other 99.9999%?