An 18-Year-Old Had Consensual Sex With a 16-Year-Old. He Went to Jail for 6 Years.
In her new book From Rage to Reason, Emily Horowitz explains what's wrong with the sex offense registry.
When Henry was 18, he had sex with a 16-year-old he met on a dating app who said they were 18 too. The 16-year-old's parents found out, summoned the cops, and Henry was charged with a sex offense. He took a plea: no jail time, and seven years on the sex offense registry.
Henry's story is one of about 60 that appear in a new book by sociologist Emily Horowitz: From Rage to Reason: Why We Need Sex Crime Laws Based on Facts Not Fear. If you believe that our country's sex offense registries should actually make kids safer, this book will leave you shaking with frustration.
At the time of his arrest, Henry was attending community college. He was immediately expelled but appealed and was allowed to graduate. Being on the registry made it nearly impossible to find work, however.
After three years with little income—and several hundred dollars a year in payments for court-mandated polygraph tests—Henry moved back in with his parents. The neighbors got up in arms, so all three of them moved to Henry's grandmother's house.
"Probation authorities stipulated that Henry had to post signs on each entrance of her house that read, 'no persons under seventeen allowed on this property,'" writes Horowitz. That meant his cousins could no longer visit.
At last, Henry found a good job. But when he gave his probation officer his office address, he was told it was too close to a school. Many registries have location requirements that forbid registrants from living, or sometimes working, near any place kids might congregate: a school, a daycare, or a park. (These residency restrictions are worthless when it comes to enhancing public safety.)
Henry begged his probation officer to let him keep this hard-won job. The officer said he could continue working until a judge ruled on his request. But when Henry got to court, writes Horowitz:
"[H]e was told he was in violation of his probation. The judge said he should have quit immediately upon learning from probation that the office was located too close to a school. Henry explained that he didn't quit because of his pending appeal, as he'd been out of work for months and, additionally, it was a term of his probation that he be employed.
"At this point, Henry had only three years left of probation. Due to his infraction, however, the judge issued the harshest ruling possible, sentencing Henry to six years in state prison. The only good thing, he says, is that 'the minute I went to prison, my grandma could take those signs down.'"
That's just one story from Horowitz's book; there are many others. In some of those stories, the registrant did in fact commit serious, disturbing crimes.
"Perpetrators should be punished and held accountable," writes Horowitz.
But that does not mean the sex offense registry is effective. Despite the myth of "frightening and high" rearrests, decades of scientific studies have consistently found that recidivism for sex crimes is lower than for almost all other criminal offenses. Registration has not further reduced recidivism, according to studies.
The registry is a mishmash of punitive rules and mandates, often including counseling, sometimes for life. While several of Horowitz's interviewees were grateful for what their therapy helped them understand about themselves and their crimes, others got treatment that seemed suspiciously prurient.
For instance, one registrant told Horowitz that he and his fellow group therapy participants were required to "report all sexual thoughts, including dreams, to their providers during group sessions."
"He says he once watched a treatment provider berate someone for an 'inappropriate' dream," she writes.
This man sent Horowitz a note, describing other sessions:
"In one group, the counselor said we were allowed the 'two-second rule.' This applied if we saw an attractive woman walking by. It would be appropriate/healthy behavior to 'look' for two seconds. We were 'allowed' to masturbate to thoughts of age-appropriate adults. The rules change with each counselor/group/treatment center."
At another treatment center:
"[W]e were told we couldn't masturbate to thoughts of former loved ones. Since they were no longer in our lives, it was inappropriate. We now had to write a fantasy script, with a specific two-page instruction on how to write it properly. We would then present our writing in group, of our detailed sexually appropriate fantasy, and read it aloud."
After weeks of corrections and rewrites, he told Horowitz, "We would then be granted permission to use the approved fantasy script to masturbate to."
Horowitz knows that expressing any sympathy for the plight of people found guilty of sexual crimes—who are among America's most hated criminals—makes her a target for hate as well, as if she shrugs off the trauma of sexual abuse.
She doesn't. She is a mom of four. She wants the best for them, and for all children. She wrote this book in the hopes that future sex offense laws and punishment will do what they're supposed to do: actually make kids safer.
