Sex Offender Response

In response to this morning's blog post on Privacy and sex offenders, I received this comment from Craig Jones, who wrote the letter to The Province, mentioned in my posting.

Thanks for ths, Craig.

Comments: RE: your blog ...

From the same article on sex offenders:\

"But given that studies suggest the majority of convicted sex offenders do not re-offend (anywhere from 73 to 87 per cent), some deplore the attention paid to the minority of offenders who fail to readjust to lead crime-free lives.Research has also shown that the majority of sex crimes -- an estimated 77 per cent -- are committed by someone the victim knows.

All of this begs the question of how useful a sex-offender registry actually is.

To make matters worse, a two-year review of the registry, promised by Ottawa, has never been carried out.\"--Why, you wonder, has Ottawa not carried out the review of the sex offender registry?Because the evidence -- does evidence matter? -- from Canada and the U.S. shows that sex offender registries don\'t work.Why don\'t they work? The answer is above: \"an estimated 77 per cent (or >3 in 4) -- are committed by someone the victim knows.\"And the victims don\'t report.

We don\'t endorse what doesn\'t work to make communities safer and reduce victimization.

Show us something that actually works according to the EVIDENCE, not according to what feels good, and we\'ll look at it.

Sound reasonable?--

Craig Jones, Ph.D.,

Executive Director

The John Howard Society of Canada