This letter makes many excellent points. Even IF the registry and its attending laws and restrictions worked in keeping people safer from sexual harm--it doesn't, but even if it did--it would only work, at most, five percent of the time. According to the DOJ and other valid sources, approximately 95% of all sexual crime against both children and adults is committed by, as Shana mentions, people who have never been arrested on a sexual charge and are therefore not on the registry.
The registries were a sincere and even legitimate attempt, amounting to an experiment, to prevent sex crime, specifically against children. Initially engaging in this experiment is understandable. Continuing in it after the negative evidence started coming in is stupid. Continuing to continue in it now that we know the harm it does, now that we know that we are ignoring the vast, vast majority of sexual crime against children in order to keep supporting it, is criminal in itself.

Glad the Patch actually prints a voice of reason on occasion. Another site for truth about s*x offenders is oncefallendotcom

Ms. Rowan, I have already agreed with many of your points. Not clear if you are even an expert to comment on survival. I harbor outrage to a system that allows a pedophile to plea down on a 30 year sentence, serve only 6 and get out and offend again. There are so many loopholes. You have spent much time in focusing on the flyers and miss the point...for those "known ones" we should have the option to print a flyer. A convicted and released one in our neighborhood was seen at our elementary school. How did we know, because many of us flyered the neighborhood. Look, the GPS is not going to work, and yes, I'm one of those that say put a tatoo between their eyes that say S.O. for repeat S.O. i've also worked on improving laws and working with kids. Not sure what ur background is, but I have no problem with going to sleep at night with my opinions based on my experiences.

You are.absolutely correct about coaches, and any volunteers that work with kids. Inclusive to those are parents that volunteer at schools and pay a mere $5 pathetic State background search which won't catch anything in the other States where they could have a s.o. Background. Your statement "Those who have never been reported or caught carry on with their lives, untouched and unscathed by any of the laws created to keep predators at bay.". That sounds like complete rhetoric that the ACLU would throw out there. Do u have a psychology degree....how many crisis center kids have you worked with?

Ms. Arena, actually I do have a degree in psychology, but that is not needed to look at facts and know that we aren't doing this right. What is sad is that your rhetoric and your positioning yourself as the expert and everyone else as somehow lacking puts us in opposition to each other when in reality we want the same thing. We want the sexual abuse of children to stop. You look to the registry and known former offenders and as much dissemination of information about them as possible to accomplish our mutual goal. I look at what you want as an impediment to accomplishing the goal. The registry and everything that revolves around it consumes every available resource and focuses 100% of the attention on registrants. The problem is that those registrants are not who are molesting children. You know that. If you have worked with crisis center kids, as you imply, you know that their molesters are their parents, uncles, cousins, brothers, coaches, etc. etc. etc. You know that only an intensive and comprehensive educational program flooded into schools and communities has a chance of slowing and eventually maybe reducing significantly the cycle of child sexual abuse. As long as every penny goes to the registry and maintaining it, where will the money come from for the types of programs needed? It won't. The focus must shift from what we prefer to believe--the bogey man is hiding in the bushes to grab the kids--to what we know is true--the real bogey man is Daddy or Uncle Joe.

Suzanne, I understand where you are coming from and hopefully you have realized by now that we actually share similar goals of effectively protecting children and adults from sexual assault.

That being said, I have done the difficult task of setting my emotions aside momentarily, so I can look at it objectively and uncover the truth behind these crimes rather than how they make me feel. It makes a lot of sense that working with children who have experienced sexual abuse first hand would elicit some pretty strong emotions. BUT, that doesn't mean they are what should govern the way we deal with those who commit sexual abuse.

I have been on all sides of this legislation - I've been a victim, I love someone who is on the registry, and you bet I would do anything to protect my family. That's precisely why I've taken it upon myself to LEARN and be willing to accept all the facts even if they aren't necessarily what I want to hear. The statement you called neurotic and likened to something the ACLU would say is frankly, quite accurate. I'm sure you would be the first to agree that sex crimes are underreported, which would mean that the majority of sexual predators haven't been caught. That means sex crime legislation doesn't affect them or help their victims in ANY way.

Hopefully someday we can figure out a way to collaborate our passions and create a system that replaces the failing one that we have.

I can see all sides of all comments here, and the only thing I can add is, Megan's Law actually was as close to what Suzanne wants accomplished, which I think we all can agree upon. The AWA took all that accomplishment away by (as Shelly states) focusing all resources in the wrong directions. Shana closes with simply EDUCATION, effective implementation of laws, and the TRUTH. I understand from that statement, it is to be everyone that needs to be educated, from the actual children, to all the relatives, then also the public. (Extra-Good parenting will help a lot also!) Awareness is paramount. Awareness to what we need to be aware of, not of everything, or everyone who we need not be aware of, as it is now.

Unfortunetly Ms Rowan, your comment leaves a few things out; First not everyone labed a Sex Offender has committed child abuse, and in most cases people tiered as level one, most often have not committed any sex act at all... Many Level one people on the list are there for having porn, peeing in a park or caught up in questionalble police stings, as well as teenagers with raging hormones... It is time for the Justice department(and I use the term loosely) to repeal AWA and take a hard look at where police resources should be used. Those violent or repeat offenders who will not or cannot be rehabilitated should be given a choice of civil committment or chemical castration.

Good call Chuck. That is definitely an issue, splitting resources between violent, serial offenders and those who are not dangerous and extremely unlikely to re-offend. A quarter of all registrants are children (under 18), and children under 18 also account for about a third of all crimes committed against children under 18. Lots of kids being sent to jail and forced to register as sex offenders under the same laws that supposedly exist to help THEM.

http://setmyfamilyfree.wordpress.com/2011/10/19/reality/

The registry is an illegal, ex-post facto law that does not protect the community and only makes desperate outcasts more likely to re-offend. The idea that the registry protects against kidnapping and rape is ridiculous. First off, those types of crimes are extremely rare. So Suzanne having seen a registered offender at an elementary school means nothing, except his purpose there was probably either inadvertant or for legitimate purposes (like having a child at the school).

But Suzanne feels better thinking that the reason a registered sex offender was at or near an elementary school was for the purpose of kidnapping and raping.

But because Suzanne hands out flyers which makes then makes ridiculous assumptions about LEGAL conduct, it is a RIGHT to flee the registry and do whatever what one can do to avoid it.

See, Suzanne, the registry was created and is controlled solely by a legislature. It has no hearings. You can't make a diagnosis of pedophelia because you have a conviction on a flyer. The fact is, most on a registry are NOT pedophiles.

See Suzanne threw out there that a sex offender was at or near an elementary school, but would be hard pressed to find ANY incidences in the whole of the U.S. in the last 50 years where someone was kidnapped directly from a school for sexual purposes.

Suzanne, has some due process. Without it, you are only looking foolish.

OH and the idea that U.S. culture can protect against sexual assault is ridiculous at its core. You think that you will protect yourself by withdrawing each other from each other. The only thing you tell kids is the difference between good touch and bad touch, and then for many children there is no touch of any kind.

In America there is only one type of touch, and that is sexual. It leads to neurosis in many people and high rates of sexual acting out. America is practically the only country in the world that outlaws prostitution. Why? Because nobody is supposed to need to be touched, and if they do, it is considered deviant and dirty.

A nation of extremes is what America is all about. A nation who will let sex destroy any and all pretenses that they are free.

Treat people like individuals. Each person is different. Your insane laws are making you look stupid and nuerotic.

I think Rudy might want to use my quote that "Aqualung" was a FICTIONAL character. I know a few offenders who wont go near ANYONE after their conviction, for fear of any assumptions of their intentions. What their crime was was statutory and not even against children. They wont even touch their own children like a hug of parental love (of course, fully clothed and in public for those who would add something to that. And yes, they are fully allowed to by law!) He's afraid to touch his 17 year old daughters hand for fear that someone will perceive that as a prelude to him touching her chest or worse! THAT'S what these laws do to OTHER children, they make a father who is scared to emotionally support his kids because of the threat of prison by a parole violation if he does. His crimes weren't against any kids, let alone his own. How fair are the laws to that offenders' kids? Not very much at all!! I feel so bad for those kids, and it's all the fault of the Legislators, because they didn't think ahead. Go research what ALL the collateral damages are versus just "feeling better" because of these laws. Change needs to happen!! Public education of the differences in types of offenses, who/why/where/when REALITY of a specific offense should TRULY come into play in the public's opinion of an offender. And, most of all, the NON-VICTIM, consensual type of offenses, but still statutory crimes should be waived from all PUBLIC listings!! BE concerned for those we need BE concerned of.

FYI: Connecticut (Right next door!) recidivism rates report on SO's dated 2/15/12:
http://www.ct.gov/opm/lib/opm/cjppd/cjresearch/sex_offender_recidivism_2012_final.pdf
I don't imagine that RI's rates will differ much to the pretty mush static rates that CT has found recently that haven't really changed since the early 2000's in the USDoJ stats that everyone quotes.