Not So Fun Facts

As of December 1, 2011 per the 2012 VSP Monitoring Sex Offender Report there are approximately 18,660+ Registered Sex Offenders in Virginia.

Every year approximately 1,200 to 1,500 new people are added to the Virginia Registry, that’s 23 to 29 Virginians per week.

This number will NEVER decrease; it will only increase due to the ever expanding laws passed by the State and Federal Politicians.

There are approximately 8,001,024* people in Virginia.

With a minimum of 18,660 people on the Virginia Registry, that would be 1 out of every 429 Virginian is listed on the Sex Offender Registry today.

Out of approximately 18,660+** people on the Virginia Registry per the Virginia State Police approximately 83% of registered offenders are classified as Violent***.

Based on the numbers the RSOL of Virginia has reviewed in states that have implemented 3-Tier systems, instead of 83% of registered offenders being lumped into a category that the public perceives as the worst-of the-worst it would be more like 16-20% who would be classified as Tier-3’s. Which would make deciphering the registry more accurate, not to mention effectively directing the financial costs spent on monitoring to those who pose a true risk to the public. Without change almost all of the 83% will remain on the Virginia Registry for life which means VSP monitoring for life. A lifetime of resources expended on at least 4 times the number of those who actually need to be monitored for life.

Currently out of the approximate 8,001,024* people in Virginia about 6,128,800* of them are over the age of 18. That equates to 1 out of every 328 Adults in Virginia is on the Registry today.

Out of the 6,128,800* Virginians over the age of 18, approximately 3,003,112* of them are male. “Assuming” (we know, never assume but the VSP can not produce this number) ***** that 97% of those who are registered are male, that would be approximately 18,100 Adult Males on the Virginia Registry today.

So in the end 1 out of every 166 Adult Males in Virginia is on the Registry as of December 1, 2011.

The snapshot in time (December 1, 2011) per the VSP 2012 Monitoring report there were 18,663 registered offenders.

Of those:

3,461 registrants were under Department of Corrections Probation and Parole Services
7,075 registrants were incarcerated in jails or prisons across the state
8,127 sex offenders were monitored and verified by the Virginia Department of State Police.

That’s an additional 1,565 offenders from December 2010 to December 2011 who are being monitored by the VSP.

Both in 2010 and 2011 the VSP Monitoring reports stated the goal was 1 officer to every 100 offenders. Per the new 2012 VSP report they have increased “the goal” to 1 officer for every 120 offenders.

In the 2012 VSP Monitoring report, they claim they are 30 officers short to achieve the new higher goal of 120:1. Based on the number of registered offenders, the “perfect ratio” and the number of officers they are short they currently have 38 officers and the current ratio is 213:1 a far cry from 120:1.

As for the financial costs we asked what the VSP has actually spent for each year from 2005 to 2010 on the monitoring of offenders, mailing re-registration forms and maintenance/updates to the registry. Per their response**** $5,481,279.20 was spent in 2010 by the VSP for offender monitoring and postage.

The amount of $5,481,279.20**** was not for the entire RSO population at that time, 17,623. It was only for the 6,562 those who were not incarcerated and/or under probation supervision. The 6,562 at that time was 37.25% of all the registered offenders, which left 62.75%. The majority of this population will be released one day and the VSP will be responsible for monitoring them which means what’s currently being spent will need to triple to the astounding cost of $16,443,837.60. Yes, over 16 million dollars per year!

That would imply that $16 million will be spent on a group of citizens who have the lowest recidivism rate of 2.5% to 7.5% nationally and less than 5% in Virginia. The Virginia Registry has not reduced the number of assaults or victimization, this statistic was confirmed at a national level at the February 15, 2011 Federal SORNA/AWA compliance hearing that we attended. The Virginia Crime Commission was given the opportunity to investigate effectiveness of our registry in 2011 and they failed to do so.

The 2011 VSCC claimed in their December 2011 presentation “based on literature reviewed, it is difficult to reach a definitive conclusion regarding the effectiveness of sex offender registries and notification laws due to a number of various factors”. They also stated “examining effectiveness is a very recent field of inquiry” and “over the next ten to twenty years, social scientists and criminologists will likely develop more definite conclusions as to the effectiveness of registration laws in deterring future criminal offenses”. A 2008 report funded by the U.S. Justice Department found the original Megan’s Law in N.J to be a nonevent. The policy, researchers documented, “showed no demonstrable effect in reducing sexual re-offenses” and “has no effect on reducing the number of victims involved in sexual offenses.” The zero effect has an annual cost of nearly $4 million”, to the state of New Jersey. But yet Virginia was unable or maybe unwilling to conduct a similar study, instead they are willing to wait another 10 or 20 years to see what criminologists and other states uncover.

If the Virginia Registry and the laws that create more registrants remain unchanged and we wait 20 years “just in case” then we will have approximately 44,660 registered offenders. If it costs $5.4 million for the VSP to monitor 8,127 offenders today can we really afford to not to study its effectiveness and our classification system of lifetime supervision for another 10 or 20 years?

Map of Registered Sex Offenders in the United States

Data obtained via phone survey of the individual sex offender registries in the 50 states, District of Columbia and five United States Territories (American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. In the U.S. Virgin Islands, Saint Thomas and Saint Croix maintain separate sex offender registries, bringing the total number of registries surveyed to 57.

The total number of registered sex offenders has been compared to census data to determine the number of sex offenders per 100,000 total population in that state

Displayed on each state and territory is the total number of registered sex offenders in red with the number per 100,000 total population just below in parentheses in black

Colors indicate the range of where states and territories fall based on the total number of registered offenders per 100,000 total population in that state. This range is explained in the legend of the map.

Included in the totals of thirty-eight (38) states or territories are offenders who have been deported, are currently incarcerated, or have moved to another state. The 19 states or territories that do NOT include these types of offenders in their totals are designated by hash marks.

2012 Report: VSP Monitoring of Offenders Required to Comply with the Sex Offender Registry Requirements:
2012 VSP Monitoring of Sex Offenders

2011 Report: Monitoring of Offenders Required to Comply with the Sex Offender Registry Requirements:
2011 VSP Monitoring of Sex Offenders

2010 Report: VSP Monitoring of Sex Offenders Required to Comply with the Registry
2010 VSP Monitoring of Sex Offenders