http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2006/11/zoning_out_sexu.html The Law, the Universe, and Everything Sat, 21 Nov 2009 21:19:19 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.3 hourly 1 http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2006/11/zoning_out_sexu.html/comment-page-1#comment-56226 RCinProv Tue, 28 Nov 2006 19:37:26 +0000 http://www.solove.org/archives/2006/11/zoning-out-sexual-offenders.html#comment-56226 The media still have not cast a critical eye on overblown claims of "moral panic" either. As I have pointed out in comments on this blog before, the popular perception that sex offenders recieve long sentences simply is not true in any aggregate sense. Average sentences for these "heinous" crimes are surprisingly low and a significant percentage of guilty defendants do no time at all. (I did the largest study ever conducted on sentences for child molestation.) But claims to the contrary persist and are endorsed and repeated at places like this blog. So I would agree to one point: there is much that a critical eye could uncover here. The media still have not cast a critical eye on overblown claims of “moral panic” either. As I have pointed out in comments on this blog before, the popular perception that sex offenders recieve long sentences simply is not true in any aggregate sense. Average sentences for these “heinous” crimes are surprisingly low and a significant percentage of guilty defendants do no time at all. (I did the largest study ever conducted on sentences for child molestation.) But claims to the contrary persist and are endorsed and repeated at places like this blog. So I would agree to one point: there is much that a critical eye could uncover here.

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