07/29/2011
By Erin Kennedy
PROVIDENCE (WPRI) - A sweep of nearly 200 registered sex offenders across the Ocean State, netted the arrest of eight people.
- Wow, that is all? This is only 4% (re-arrest for any crime or technicality). With the way people constantly say sex offenders have high recidivism rates (for new crimes), you'd think it would be a lot more, but once again, this shows most don't re-offend, but get re-arrested of technical issues. Studies show that sex offenders have low recidivism rates (for new sex crimes). Also, just because someone wears the scarlet letter "sex offender" label, that doesn't mean they are predators. One person was arrested, per this article, so that would put the recidivism rate at 1% or less.
The sweep was the 6th one conducted by the Sex Offender Law Enforcement Multidisciplinary Network - or SOLEMN Task Force, which is headed by the U.S. Marshal's Service.
Authorities were checking up on about two hundred registered sex offenders in East Providence, Cranston and Warwick. While they found most suspects to be in compliance with sex offender registration laws, eight people were in violation.
"We're not just going to the address and looking for a face and saying 'hi, how are you doing?' We're hopeful that these offenders will let us into their house. We want to see where they sleep. We want to make sure that it's not just a place where they're receiving mail. We want them to show us what their living environment looks like, cause it can be looked at as an invasion of privacy, but we want to make sure the community's safe. And some of these individuals are on the cusp of making bad decisions," said C.J. Wyant of the task force.
- Not all sex offenders are on probation or parole, so they should deny the police entrance into their homes, even if they are doing nothing wrong. It's called privacy. They don't have any right to enter your home, if you are not on probation or parole, so don't let them in, let them get a warrant if they want.
[name withheld], 51 of Warwick, was a level three sex offender most likely to strike again. Police arrested [name withheld] and charged him with possession of child pornography.
[name withheld] was arrested for failure to register as a sex offender. The 37-year-old Cranston man was recently convicted of the same offense in Ohio.
Over the last three years, the task force has checked up on about 700 offenders in 19 Rhode Island communities. Local police, probation officers, DCFY and RI State Police computer crimes experts have all participated in the sweeps.
