I respect your field of work and your opinion Sir.
But the villagers are tired of lawyers and *pros* in the field that by worrying more about the predators and having limited success in keeping to bad guys away from our families and then telling us we should not worry about it!
AKK
The problem is the general public has little accurate information about the offender population. They get their information from TV and Law and Order Special Victims Unit or vigilante websites. We should always worry about predators, but they are the small minority of sexual offenders, and most thankful are civilly committed because they are unable to show that they will not re-offend. And many predators never get caught because they are smart and careful. Many other non-predatory offends can and do succeed in the community if given the chance. These guys are the one you would classify as reformed. (Personally I would rather have a guy succeed in the community instead of dropping the 20K a year to house an inmate. A guy in the community has to pay taxes instead of being a tax burden. As a whole we are seeing a decrease in sexual assaults, which is good.) There is an increase in child pornography sadly.
Now again, I do not have a problem Disney having a policy of not allowing known (to them and the public) offenders in the parks, in fact it is a good policy. And as I have stated previously for many of these offenders they should know better, but they should always think about their risk until the day they die. Back to Disney, I am sure that given past incidents on site they do their best or protect minors. They do not want a black eye here on this subject. There is no best way to do this than you use a blanket policy. What needs to change is the registries themselves. There is talk among some states to remove certain types of offenders (internet, mostly) and some talk of some states allowing offenders to be removed once they can show their low risk via some assessment by guys like me.
Now let me do a quick education. Folks like me assess these guys risk to re-offend. Some smart people all over the world have complied information to develop several different risk assessments. We then use this information to assess and predict likelihood of re-conviction of both sexual offenses and general criminal recidivism. Things we assess are both dynamic (changing) and static (not change) risk factors. So we looking at age, relationship stability, previous criminal and offense history, victim demographics, impulsivity, empathy, sexual preoccupation, sex as coping, hostility towards others, alcohol and drug use, social supports, etc. It is a long list. So we take that information and tell you over 5, 10, or 15 years the likely hood of re-offence. But then we want to factor what the guy actually says or does in group and details of the offense to truly get an accurate picture of an offender's risk.
Many of my client's biggest issues are not related to their risk to re-offend. Their risk issues are good places to live, stable employment, sobriety, healthy and positive supports. Those who work hard in these areas or have access to support in these areas do much better.
Why I think the thread should be shut down. Sexual assault is a hot topic. Most of the public cannot begin to grasp what goes on in an offender's mind that can allow them to offend particularly against minors. (Sadly, i do. and at times it haunts me.) So we are ready to burn the castle down and the discussion frequently turns into shouting matches because no one ever wants to listen. Read through this thread, people are practically calling each other out or calling each other liars. This is a topic that gets heated quickly like religion or politics because of the strong beliefs on it.