State Can Still House Sex Offenders in Lakewood Family Homes, Judge says

A Pierce County judge ruled Friday that the state can still house sex offenders in 90 adult family homes in Lakewood, WA.

In May, the City of Lakewood filed a lawsuit against the State of Washington over the unsafe release of those with a criminal history or sexual offenses into the city.
 

State officials said there have been no reports of new sex crimes by offenders released into these adult family homes.  (KOMO 4 News, September 21, 2018)

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So, what is the risk of housing sex offenders in a community after they are released from prison? Is there a high recidivism rate - are these offenders likely to commit new crimes?

According to a New York study:

• 95.88% of arrests for all registerable sex crimes are of persons previously non-convicted of a sex offense.
• 95.94% of arrests for rape are of previous non sex-offenders.
• 94.12% of arrests for child molestation are of previous non sex-offenders.

(Sandler, Jeffrey C, et. Al., Does a Watched Pot Boil? A Time-Series Analysis of New York State’s Sex Offender Registration and Notification Law. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 2008 Vol. 14, No. 4, 290)

These results are closely parallel to figures compiled by the US Department of Justice that show that 93% of child sex abuse is committed by a person whom the child knows. In 47% of the cases, the perpetrator is a member of the family. Only 7% of offenses are committed by strangers.

Other studies show similar recidivism rates:

• Missouri DOC study of 2,777 sex offenders released from 1998-2007 found that the recidivism rate was 1.9% after 3 yrs.; 3.5% after 5 yrs.
• A Maine study tracked sex offender releases for 2004-2006 and reported a recidivism rate 3.8% in 3 yrs.
• A Connecticut Criminal Justice and Planning Division study of 746 offenders released in 2005 showed 3.6% re-arrests; 2.7% convictions over 5 years.

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While the probability of recidivism is low for sex offenders, the nature of these crimes increases the overall risk to the community, even with a low probability of occurrence. Of further concern is the concentrating of sex offenders in small geographic areas. This increase the likelihood of an event in the defined geographic area. Statistically we say,  When two events, A and B, are mutually exclusive, the probability that A or B will occur is the sum of the probability of each event. P(A or B) = P(A) + P(B).


The National Sex Offender Public Web-site allows users to search by name or location for registered sex offenders living in their community. It should be noted that this web-site only list sex offenders with an assessed moderate or high risk to the community (i.e. Level-II or Level-III).  

In WA State there are approximately 22,000 registered sex offenders. Of these around 3,500 are Level-II (Moderate Risk) and around 1,800 are Level-III (High Risk). There remainder are assessed as posing a low risk to the community, or do not yet have an assessed risk level.

Offender Watch will allow you to view maps of sex offenders living in your community, as well as to sign up for notifications if a sex offender registers to live in your neighborhood.