Last week we broadcast a four-part series on laws that govern sex offenders in Virginia. After it aired, we got some new information that might influence how people think about this subject. Sandy Hausman has details:
J.P. Welch represents a group called Safer Virginia. Its mission: to protect children – it’s focus: prevention, healing, and restoration. Welch says the state’s sex offender registry warns people about convicted criminals who don’t actually pose much of a risk.
“The risk is not from a stranger," he explained. "It’s from families, it’s from friends,it’s from acquaintances. It’s from people that you know. Over 95% of the offending occurs at the hands of someone known by the victim. We have this belief that if we look at a public sex offender registry that we can keep our kids safe, which is absolutely not true.”
Several experts agreed with Welch – among them Dr. Christina Mancini, who adds that two-thirds of adults never check the online listing, which costs the state more than $8 million a year to maintain.
“It’s only about one in three according to national statistics will go on to a registry at all,” she said.
That did not surprise us – especially after we learned that Welch was on the registry. Well dressed and well spoken, he told us he got interested in this subject when a relative was convicted of a sex offense, and it didn’t occur to us to check for him on the state’s website. In 1998 Welch was convicted of inappropriate touching of a minor. When we called him to ask about that, he said he didn’t see the need to mention it and "thought it would be better to tell the story without disruption."