Over the past few months, I have
been focusing primarily on a number of sex offender myths typically propagated
by the media. For those who were unable to attend the 2013 RSOL Conference, I
have made my presentation at the conference available both on YouTube and on my website.
I have given a number of tips on
how to become a myth buster at the end of my presentation; the most important
tips I gave was to consider your source and read the original source material.
I have discovered that often times, media reports tend to get things wrong.
There are a number of reasons why the media would get a written report wrong. Those
in the media are tasks with giving a very brief article on a lengthy research
report. Reporters often have short deadlines, so they do not have the time to
read a 30 to 100 page report, so chances are they rarely read beyond the
summary pages. Spellcheckers may catch grammatical errors, but they do not
always catch information that is inaccurate, so at times, glaring errors are
sometimes overlooked.
I wish to take a moment to walk
you through the process of myth busting by looking at an article forwarded to
me this afternoon.
The article I am dissecting today
was published by the website Breitbart.com; it is a prime example of shoddy
reporting. Earlier, I mentioned “consider the source.” What is Breitbart? Breitbart.com
is a conservative news and opinion website founded by Andrew Breitbart, former
journalist for the Washington Times. It is, in essence, an independent Internet
news site. Thus, the standards of journalism found at this site are likely of
lower standards than those of the mass media. Brietbart.com was also been
embroiled in controversy over the years, including a number of hoaxes and a
doctored video that caused problems for the group ACORN.
Yesterday, Breitbart.com published
an article entitled “FEDS RELEASE THOUSANDS OF IMMIGRANTS WHO ARE SEX OFFENDERS”
by Tony Lee [Link: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/09/16/Feds-Release-Thousands-of-Immigrants-Who-Are-Sex-Offenders].
Lee had also published three other articles that day. The article begins with an
ominous statement highlighted by its larger size and use of bold script:
“The United States government has released nearly 3,000 immigrant sex
offenders, some of whom were illegal immigrants, since September 2012. Of
those, nearly 3,000, or about 5%, were not even properly registered with local
authorities as sex offenders.”
You notice something off about
this statement? Look at the numbers. How much is 5% of 3000? I am pretty sure
the answer is not 3000. Judging by the following comment, this simple gaffe has
the potential to amplify the panic effect this article is trying to achieve:
TennesseeRedDog mush57 • 7 hours
ago −
5% of the 60,000 total is = ~3,000 sex offenders who were not
registered at all. That is the only way the math works. But that is not the way
it was written. "... of those" should refer to the total of 60,000
who were released. [Comment Link: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/09/16/Feds-Release-Thousands-of-Immigrants-Who-Are-Sex-Offenders#comment-1048243101]
TennesseeRedDog’s problem is not
his math or his grammar. The problem lies in his reading comprehension skills. The
next statement in the article states the following:
“According to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released
last week, "nearly 3,000 sex offenders are part of the 59,347 immigrants
who the courts have ruled cannot be held" as of September 2012 because
they were unable to be sent home. These immigrants were released "under
some sort of supervision." As Stephen Dinan of the Washington Times noted,
though, the GAO concluded that ‘about 5 percent of the time U.S. Immigration
and Customs Enforcement didn’t ensure that the immigrants released were
properly registered with local authorities as sex offenders’.”
The article states that “nearly 3,000
sex offenders” are “part of the 59,347 immigrants” released by the
government.
Only about 3,000 of nearly 60,000 immigrants temporarily detained by the
government were “sex offenders.” The 3000 number is a rounded total of registrants,
not a subgroup of a larger number of registrants. The fact that 3,000 is 5% of
60,000 is a mere coincidence. Five percent of 3,000 is 150.
At this point, I'd like to point
out the Breitbart.com article is a rewrite of a Washington Times article; the
Times article does not round up the numbers. The Times article sets the actual
number of registrants as 2,837, so 5% of that number is 142. The Times article
does not include the gaffe in the Breitbart.com article. It is interesting that
the only changes made by the Breitbart.com reporter made the myth worse.
So where did this “5% of the time
immigrant registrants are not registering” claim originate? The article claims
the source was from a recently released study from the Government
Accountability Office (GAO). Indeed, the GAO just released an article entitled “SEX
OFFENDERS: ICE Could Better Inform Offenders It Supervises of Registration
Responsibilities and Notify Jurisdictions when Offenders Are Removed.” This is
where reading the source material now becomes important:
What GAO Found
On the basis of GAO’s analysis of
a representative sample of 131 alien sex offenders under U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE) supervision, GAO estimates that as of September 2012,
72 percent of alien sex offenders were registered, 22 percent were not required
to register, and 5 percent did not register but should have. According to
officials, offenders were not required to register for various reasons, such as
the offense not requiring registration in some states. Of the 6 offenders in
GAO’s sample that should have registered, officials from ICE’s Enforcement and
Removal Operations (ICE-ERO) field offices informed 4 of their registration
requirements. However, officials at some of these field offices identified
several reasons why they did not ensure that these offenders actually
registered. For example, the offender may have moved and no longer resided in
the area of responsibility for that particular field office. ICE had not
informed the remaining 2 offenders of their registration requirements.
In any study, sample size is
important. The larger the sample size, the less likely a solitary case will
greatly influence the numbers. The sample size of the GAO study is 131.
Therefore, adding one registrant to the number of those who “should have
registered but didn't” greatly increases the overall number. Six of the 131 registrants
“should have registered but didn't,” or 4.6%. Percentage points are a bigger
deal when we're discussing larger numbers. Remember when I divided 3000 by 5%
earlier? The more accurate formula is now 2,837 divided by 4.5%; now the magic
number is 128 (22 less than our first estimate). These are indeed very small
numbers.
Of course, the real issue is the
Breitbart.com article scares us with “thousands of immigrant sex offenders
(scary), SOME OF THEM ILLEGAL (even scarier), are released by the feds (OM-f’ing-G!).”
The study is not clear how many of them are here “illegally.” The GAO report
does discuss the process by which immigrants are eligible for deportation and
the limitations on that ability below:
The Enforcement and Removal Operations directorate of U.S. Immigration
and Customs Enforcement (ICE-ERO) is responsible for the identification, apprehension,
detention, and removal of removable aliens. ICE-ERO prioritizes the removal of
convicted criminals, among other groups. However, there are circumstances in
which criminal aliens who have been ordered removed from the United
States—including those convicted of a sex offense—cannot be removed. For
example, a criminal alien may not be removed because the designated country
will not accept the alien’s return. The decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in
Zadvydas v. Davis imposes strict limits on ICE’s ability to detain aliens
beyond 6 months after the issuance of a final order of removal if removal is
not significantly likely in the reasonably foreseeable future. In these
instances, ICE-ERO may release the alien into the community under an order of
supervision. According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), of
the 59,347 aliens under an order of supervision as of September 2012, 2,837 (5
percent) of them had been convicted of a sex offense.
The bottom line is the Breitbart.com
article cannot accurately portray the source material, since the author did not
even read the source material. It is the online equivalent of the “telephone
game.” Remember my myth busting tips—consider your sources and read the source
material. The article caters to the conservative (assumed anti-immigration)
crowd. The article expects the reader to fill in the blanks and, judging by
many of the posts in the comments section, most have bought the hype.
Myth busting isn’t easy but it
can be learned. It takes critical thinking, reading comprehension, dusting off
your math skills, and taking the time to follow the information back to its
source. If you want to learn more, be sure to visit my Sex Offender Myth Busterspage on Once Fallen and/or watch my presentation from the RSOL Conference, also
available online.
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