[Vision2020] A personal invitation to Mr. Schwaller

[Glenn Schwaller]

Visionaries and Mr Herodotus,

Thank you for the invitation to "return" but I never really left.  I was
simply a bit busy over the past few days taking advantage of the weather
break to plant the begonias, nasturtiums, and geraniums.

I'll attempt to answer your questions, but I do so assuming you are being
genuine and not disingenuous in your query.  I mention this only because
another visionary has questioned "the truth about (your) opinions", that
this individual "Doesn't believe I'll do that" (accept the truth of my
opinions), "thank you very much.", then proceeds to demand the answer to 3
additional questions.

So, on to your questions.  These are important, timely questions that
deserve answers.  However, I don't believe I can give you full nor adequate
answers to any of them.  I don't know that definitive answers exist, however
one can find just about any answer one wants to fit one's position.  That
being said:

"1. Can you please tell us the recidivism rate for serial pedophiles?"

I don't believe a thorough statistical study has been done for over 10
years.  So keeping that in mind, according to the U.S. Department of Justice
Bureau of Justice Statistics, within 3 years of release from incarceration,
a little more than 5 percent of sex offenders were rearrested for another
sex crime.  If one looks at ALL crimes committed, about 40 percent of sex
offenders were rearrested for other offenses.

Within this three year period, 3.5 percent of convicted sex offenders were
convicted again for a sex crime, 24 percent convicted for new crimes, and
about 40 percent are imprisoned again because of a parole or probation
violation.

However, if you're Joan Opyr, in an article she published not quite a year
ago, she quotes a 75% recidivism rate.

The USDJ study also looked at the relationship between offenders and victims
and reported that overall, 46 percent of the victims were a family member.
A 2005 study by the National Crime Victimization Survey reports that 73
percent of sexual assaults were known by the victim: 38 percent were a
friend or acquaintance, 28 percent were involved in an "intimate"
relationship, and 7 percent were another relative.

An NPR story in 2005 offered a 98 percent recidivism rate over a 25 year
period, with a 60 percent likelihood of offending again within 5 years under
the best treatment available., there is a 60% occurrence of re-offence
within five years. The story also mentions that the offender in most sexual
abuse cases is a family member or friend of the family  (97 percent for
victims under the age of 6, and 95 percent of those between the ages 6 and
12).

So, somewhere between 5 and 95 percent?

"2. Can you please share with us the average number of children that repeat
offenders violate before their discovery?"

Again, I have no concrete statistics.  There is apparently some information
on Mr Sitler's repeated violations before he was discovered (I'm sure Mr
Hansen can give you that number off the top of his head).  The numbers seem
to run from one to dozens over decades for catholic priests.  And in
Portugal, a driver and gardener was accused of molesting children at the
school where he was worked.  After questioning and examining more than 600
children, over 125 were reported to have been victimized by this individual.

So, somewhere between 1 and more than 125?

"3,  Can you please describe for us a worst-case scenario for the children
of Moscow (number of victims, age of victims, types of abuse, etc.), if Mr.
Sitler resumes his pattern of serial predation?"

Quite frankly, I sense an undercurrent of sarcasm in this last question, but
hey . . .

Maybe you can ask me how many polar bears, perched on their ever-diminishing
slab of ice, are going to starve tonight?

Well, obviously I can't give you the answers you would like to hear.  I
doubt even Mr Sitler himself would know, given the worst possible case, what
would be the answers to those questions.  However, if you refer back to the
replies to Question 1, you may find some answers of sorts in there.

I'd like to think I have the community's, but perhaps not that of starving
polar bear's, interests at heart.

Schwaller

"You can always see it commin', but you can never stop it."
  --Michael Timmins








On 5/28/07, Bob Herodotus <bherodotus at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Visionaries and Mr. Schwaller,
>
> I personally invite Mr. Schwaller to return to this forum because I for
> one found his posts both provocative and enlightening. Hard facts about
> serial pedophiles are difficult to ascertain and I commend him for sharing
> his knowledge of this unseemly subject with us so that we as a community can
> be better prepared to address a predator in our midst.
>
> With this in mind, I have a couple of questions for Mr. Schwaller.
>
> 1. Can you please tell us the recidivism rate for serial pedophiles?
>
> 2. Can you please share with us the average number of children that repeat
> offenders violate before their discovery?
>
> 3. Finally, given your familiarity with Steven Sitler's case file, can you
> please describe for us a worst-case scenario for the children of Moscow
> (number of victims, age of victims, types of abuse, etc.), if Mr. Sitler
> resumes his pattern of serial predation?
>
> I believe that these are reasonable questions for a community to ask and I
> believe that you have our community's best interests at heart.
>
> Thank you,
>
> Herodotus
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ____________________________________________________________________________________
> Looking for earth-friendly autos?
> Browse Top Cars by "Green Rating" at Yahoo! Autos' Green Center.
> http://autos.yahoo.com/green_center/
>
>
> =======================================================
> List services made available by First Step Internet,
> serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
>                http://www.fsr.net
>           mailto: Vision2020 at moscow.com
> =======================================================
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20070528/57c17251/attachment-0001.html