As of November, 2007 the Oregon Department of State Police, Sex Offender Registry Unit reports that there are 1258 registered sex offenders living in Lane County. In Oregon there are 14,193 and Nationally it is estimated that there are over 627 thousand registered sex offenders living in the U.S.
Here are a couple things to consider in all of this:
- Remember these numbers only represent adult sexual offenders and do not include juvenile sexual offenders. Juveniles constitute 20% of all sexual offenses.
- Sexual abuse continues to be one of the most underreported crimes – only 10-20% of all sexual assaults ever get reported to law enforcement in the first place, and only 20-40% of those cases ever end in successful prosecution, which will result in a offender having to register. What happens to the 80% of sexual abusers that never get reported on? How do these registration laws protect us from those undetected offenders?
- Only 5-10% of all newly committed sexual offenses are perpetrated by a registered sex offender. Therefore, 90-95% of all new sexual offenses are committed by citizens without a sexual offense criminal history.
- It is estimated that only 4% of all child sexual abusers have a criminal history.
- It has been estimated that 10-35% of registered sexual offenders information is either falsified or outdated and no longer accurate.
- Remember 85% of all sexual assault victims either were related to or knew the offender.