1 Mike Smith (AP), Sex Offender Registry OK'd, The Journal Gazette (Fort Wayne, Indiana) February 20, 1996.

2 Charles Elmore, Castration to Become Legal Punishment, Palm Beach Post (Florida) May 30, 1997.

3 Drummond Ayres, California Child Molesters Face 'Chemical Castration,' The New York Times, August 27, 1996.

4 Margaret Alexander, Sex Offender Treatment: A Response to Furby, et al 1989 Quasi-meta-analysis, paper presented at conference of the American Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers, November 11, 1994.

5 Lita Furby, Mark Weinrott, Lyn Blackshaw, Sex Offender Recidivism: A Review, 105 Psychology Bulletin 3 (1989).

6 Karl Hanson, Monique Bussiere, Predictors of Sexual Offender Recidivism: A Meta-Analysis, Public Works and Government Services of Canada, 1996.

7 Reoffense rates for many offenses exceed 50%. E.g. Allen Beck, Bernard Shipley, Recidivism of Prisoners Released in 1983, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1989.

8 NCIA Research Volunteers, Reports by anonoymous offenders published by the National Center on Institutions and Alternatives, Alexandria, VA, 1996.

9 The technical measure that limits the inquiry to subsequent sex crimes is the REAFASSO rate, that is, the rate of REArrest For A Subsequent Sex Offense. Recidivism rates that include arrests for anyoffense are substantially higher than REAFASSO rates. Of course, people who have once committed a sex crime are more likely than other offenders to commit a subsequent sex crime - just as drug offenders are more likely to recommit drug offenses - but the overall REAFASSO rate remains in the teens.

10 Ann Landers, There's One Cure for Child Molesters, Dallas Morning News (and others), August 2, 1995. Evidence that castration works is quite thin. The relatively small amount of research into subjects of chemical or surgical castration, is confused by the addition of more complex psychological treatment to the mere castration.

11 Furby, supra note 5.

12 United States General Accounting Office, Sex Offender Treatment: Research Results Inconclusive About What Works to Reduce Recidivism, June 1996.

13 Id. at 74

14 Robert Freeman-Longo, Geral Blanchard, Sexual Abuse in America: Epidemic of the 21st Century, (1998), p. 168. Of course, all treatment regimens are not created equal. Many sex offenders are subjected to occasional lectures or polygraph tests while in prison, and then considered to have been provided clinical care. While poor treatment typically does little harm, it does little good either.

15 Richard Cohen, On a Witch Hunt, The Washington Post, May 27, 1997, citing work by Tim O'Brien of the New Jersey Law Journal. See also Rick Hampson, What's Gone Wrong with Megan's Law, USA Today, May 14, 1997.

16 Robert Freeman-Longo, Prevention or Problem, 8 Sexual Abuse 91 (1996). The majority of news accounts report that Megan's parents knew nothing about the residents of the home.

17 Lawrence Greenfield, Sex Offenses and Offenders, Bureau of Justice Statistics, p. iii, 1997.

18 Todd Purdum, Registry Laws Tar Sex-Crimes Convicts with Broad Brush, New York Times, July 1, 1997.

19 Peter Baker, Clinton Announces Registry of Nation's Sex Offenders, Washington Post, August 25, 1996. Crude mathematics based on recidivism research suggest that 213,000 of those 250,000 (85%) pose little substantial risk.

20 Freeman-Longo, supra note 16.