Five States Inflate Sex Offender Registry Entries By 43 Percent
Online sex offender registries can be a good thing but they can also be a really scary site when you end up seeing all those red dots in your city and neighborhood, the problem is how reliable are those entries.
It turns out that in some states they maybe overblown, and by a lot.
In a recent study they found that when they examined the sex offender counts compiled by Florida, Georgia, Illinois, New York and Texas that the totals were overblown by 43 percent, almost half.
Alissas Ackerman, assistant professor of social work at the University of Washington and lead author of the study found that there were entries for people who actually not living in the community whether they be people who have died, been deported, in jail, or have moved out of state. In those states she found that out of 201,135 sex offenders only 43 percent actually were living in the communities as designated by the registries.
By state, Ackerman found:
- Florida had the greatest discrepancy, reporting 56,784 sex offenders when only 22,877 – a 60 percent difference – were living in Florida communities.
- New York, at 52 percent, had the second-highest discrepancy, listing 32,930 offenders in the registry with just 15,950 living in the community.
- Illinois had a 48 percent difference, with 25,088 registered offenders and 13,066 actually residing in the community.
- Georgia had a 36 percent difference, 20,212 listed on the registry and 7,201 living in the community.
- At 25 percent, Texas had the lowest discrepancy, with 49,786 actual residents from the 66,121 sex offenders listed.
via PhysOrg
Comments
About the Author
Steven Hodson Steven has been around the tech world long enough to see most of the stuff we think of cool happen before which leads to a certain bit of cynicism that has contributed to him being known as the cranky old fart of the Internet. Besides sharing some of the goodness that he finds with you here at 42x you can also find him curating some digital goodness at Winextra (tech type stuff) and Rotten Gumdrops (for your daily dose of WTF).
Related Posts
Police Fatally Shoot A One-Armed Wheelchair Bound Man “Armed” With A Pen [Video] →
A Record Breaking Python Found In Florida, Shows The Danger To Local Ecology →
The Smart Car Police Chase – Aw Isn’t That Cute [Video] →
