The sex offender industry
By Sandy . . . Follow the money. How often has this advice been given, and how often has the heeding of it led to the unraveling of an enigma or a crime.
The sex offender industry is both an enigma and a crime, and following the money trail reveals what lies at the heart and continues to drive this occasionally well-meaning but more often self-serving and punitive complexity of businesses, individuals, and motivations that comprise the billion-dollar “sex offender” industry.
The industry is well diversified. It has three well-developed branches and a fourth smaller but highly important one.
The first, and certainly the lynch pin that holds it all together, is the appeal to the public for security and protection, especially for the need to protect children. This branch encompasses, first and foremost, the public sex offender registries; it includes varied screening, monitoring, and alert products, from systems in schools and libraries to cell phone and email alerts that notify instantly if someone on the registry enters the building or moves into the neighborhood.
The second, and even larger, branch of this industry is the management of those on the registry. Many of these are applicable to registered offenders living in the community, especially when they are on parole or probation. These include the sex offender treatment industry, GPS monitoring, and the polygraph (often used with treatment programs). The demand for the polygraph creates a need for them and of course for those who operate them; also, they must be manufactured and marketed. Additionally, many states found the day to day management of their sex offender databases, aka registries, too onerous and demanding for them to keep up with, and a new industry was born–the sex offender database management companies, who, for a fee, take care of all the day to day work of keeping the state online registry updated.
Law enforcement has benefited as their budgets were increased to allow the hiring of new personnel to do parole compliance checks, take care of the constantly ongoing registration process, do home visits, and check on compliance with residence restrictions. In some cases, entire sex offender task forces were created, aided by the U.S. Marshals Service. Their image and public approval are enhanced with every “sex offender” they report violated for a parole infraction or arrested for failure to register.
The management of sex offenders not yet released has spawned another group of businesses–civil commitment “hospitals.” They are extremely controversial, yet they flourish in the 20 states that have them. Among the most protested are the ones in Texas and Minnesota.
The third major branch of the sex offender industry is the role the federal government plays. Under the Adam Walsh Act, the Federal Marshals are empowered to track and capture “absconded” registrants, and they receive large grants each year with which to accomplish their work. Additionally, most investigation of electronic/computer sex crime, such as online solicitation, teen-age “sexting,” and viewing illegal images falls under federal jurisdiction. Federally financed sting operations are infamous. Some federal prisons are filled almost exclusively with those convicted of sexually related crimes.
Finally, comprising the fourth of the components of the sex offender industry are individuals who have and continue to benefit from their participation in the industry. Most notable, perhaps, is John Walsh. Certainly his involvement was thrust upon him in a way no one would ever choose, but it cannot be denied that he built a career that has spanned several decades using his son’s murder. Other parents and some victims have to lesser degrees stayed in the limelight with activism, victim advocacy organizations, and endorsement of harsher and harsher laws dealing with registrants. One could not possibly count the number of those seeking political office or campaigning to be reelected who used some variation of, “I promise to crack down on those who sexually abuse our children.” Another type of individual who has found a way to earn a living from the sex offender industry is the “scamser.” For close to two decades, across the nation in almost every state, telephone scams targeting persons on the registry have abounded. Registrants are especially vulnerable as they often live in terror of overlooking something they should have done and being rearrested.
The offenses that require public registration run the gamut from the ridiculous to the heinous. Proper management of such a vast range of behaviors requires moving away from our “one size fits all” model and actually reading the research and listening to the experts in the field. Even more essential is focusing on the very real problem of child sexual abuse and those who really do sexually abuse children and developing appropriate programs of education and prevention. But first we need to dismantle the sex offender industry; we need to remove the financial and personal incentives from which so very many benefit.
