Sex offenders and the YMCA

I will from time to time receive columns or op-eds written by others with requests to print them on my blog. I have complied a time or two, but generally I do not. This one can be added to the times I complied.

I received an email from someone requesting anonymity. He explained that he was a registrant in New Jersey. He included this link, which led to a message to “the community” in the form of an open letter from the executive director of the West Essex YMCA, which is in Livingston, New Jersey. It is the standard public relations fare put out by businesses in order to familiarize communities with their products and services.

My anonymous correspondent included his own open letter with a request that I try to have it printed in the same online neighborhood newsletter that printed the one from the YMCA. I found the request valid, and I zipped it off to the editor the same day. After several days of no response, I emailed her again telling her that if she would not be using it, I would be printing it elsewhere and asking for an acknowledgment. I received none, and therefore I am printing his letter to the ED of the West Essex YMCA.

Ms. Helen Flores
Executive Director, West Essex YMCA

Dear Ms. Flores,

My family and I have recently moved to your community. I was pleased to see your letter to the community about what your facility offers. My wife and I have three children, and we have been recently discussing the value of the many programs that YMCAs offer. In fact, we had reached the conclusion that a family membership would be a good investment, and then I read something that stopped me in my tracks.

Apparently you have installed a program that screens for sex offenders for the purpose of preventing their entry into the Y and, I presume, preventing their becoming members.

Since the vast majority of those who are currently engaged in sexual offending, especially against children, have never been identified or charged, this confused me. How could your system alert on them? And then I realized that you mean those who are required to register on a sex offender registry, almost none of whom are still sex offenders.

Let me tell you my story. When I was a high school senior, 18 for a portion of my senior year, my girlfriend was a sophomore and 15. We became sexually active and became pregnant with our first child. I was charged with sexual crimes against a child and required to register as a sexual offender.

Sadly, we lost that child in a miscarriage. Her parents moved away, taking her with them, to prevent our seeing each other. Of course we communicated, and after she graduated from high school and I from college, we dated again and then married. Today we have a wonderful marriage and three great children. It took a while, but her parents forgave our bad beginning. I, however, am required to register as a sex offender for life.

Everyone where we lived knew our story, and we were fortunate to suffer only minimal collateral consequences from being registered. Our wonderful family more than made it worthwhile.

My work has now brought me here, and we have had some rocky patches. I am sure though that we will work through them. We cleared a big hurdle recently when we finally found a church who would accept us as a family.

If my wife or I applies for a family membership at your YMCA, what will the outcome be? Will you accept our application? Will you exclude me? If so, will I be allowed to enter to pick up the children on those occasions where my wife’s business takes her out of town and one of our children may have an activity at the Y?

I would very much like to know. I don’t want to put my children in the position of facing embarrassment or ridicule if their father is treated like a criminal and refused entry.

Thank you for your time.

A very concerned father who is NOT a sexual offender.

Shelly here – I have nothing to add.

Well, there's lies, and there's damn lies, and then there's statistics

Please read this opinion piece/political advertisment before continuing.

If I were writing a flippant or sardonic piece here, I would commend the author for his jamming a record number of misleading and misused "facts" and quasi-statistics into his article, and I guess that can be my sub-text, but the growing tendency to do this and the public’s glazed-over acceptance of anything that slams those on the sex offender registry deserve a more serious analysis.

From the op/ed: “Although the New Jersey Appellate Court and Supreme Court acknowledge the relatively high recidivism rate of sex offenders….” If they do, they are fools. So much has been written, posted, and published by legitimate, peer-reviewed studies, starting in New Jersey, debunking this most favored of myths, that I don’t see how anyone who can read still “…acknowledges the relatively high recidivism rate of sex offenders….” Even if they are calling recidivism anything that results in a re-arrest and not just re-offense of a sexual crime, it is a ridiculous statement to make.

Representative Bateman maintains that, “Between 2000 and 2006, there was a 21 percent increase in arrests of offenders who solicited youth online for sex, according to a 2009 study….” However, he does not see fit to emulate the late Paul Harvey and tell the rest of the story. A more recent study shows that the perception of danger from Internet predators is largely influenced by the media; it further shows that the majority of juveniles receiving sexually explicit communications online are receiving them from other juveniles and those close to them in age, not from the older, trench-coat draped predator. And even if that were not a consideration, the study makes no connect at all between the 21% increase in online solicitation arrests and the registered sex offender, who is the only target group for this legislation. Mr. Bateman, not surprisingly, fails to make it also.

According to Sex Offender Research and News, this is "slight-of-hand handling of statistics: The study mentioned DOES NOT say the increase in online sex crimes was by FORMER SEX OFFENDERS...non sex offenders released committed six new sex crimes to every one by former sex offenders. Who is more dangerous to the community?"

And finally the good Mr. Bateman throws in the old “four times more likely” finding from the Department of Justice—or at least he throws in part of it. Yes, the finding was that within the first three years after release, 5.3% of sex offenders were rearrested for another sex offense. He omits that the percentage being re-convicted was 3.5.

He also omits the fact that the released non-sex offenders' rate of 1.3 percent resulted in many, many thousands more sexual crimes than did those being committed by the released sex offenders, even at the higher percentage. "While 1.3% appears to be less than 5.3%, the statistic fails to point out that actual numbers show non sex offenders commit six sex crimes to every one by a sex offender." (1)

We are certainly aware that many politicians are highly unlikely to pass a polygraph, especially if the topic is in support of legislation they are sponsoring. We are also aware that virtually anything negative can be said about or proposed that will negatively affect registered sex offenders, and the general public will perceive it as good, based largely on the rhetoric from those making the laws and the dissemination of that rhetoric via most media sources.

Isn’t it time that we stopped accepting the lies and half-lies and demand accountability and transparency and plain, old-fashioned facts and truth from everyone and everything that has a hand in shaping public policy?

(1) http://sexoffenderresearch.blogspot.com/2014/01/opinion-require-nj-sex-offenders-to.html