Bullshit Artistry: Blurring the lines between fiction and reality

A common problem in this age of "instant information" is that a lot of misinformation exists, and misinformation spreads like wildfire. It is possible for people to research before posting something, but few of us do. 

Someone sent me a link to a page from a news article about a kid named Paul Horner who engaged in something called "SWATTING" (calling in a fake threat of violence to get a SWAT team sent to someone's home) and was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison. The only problem is the source of the story is a site called the National Report, a satirical news site. In other words, this story is faker than Dolly Parton's bosom. 

There is indeed such a thing as "Swatting," and people have indeed fell victim to this prank. However, the National Report site is not a real news site. It even utilizes this mythical "Paul Horner" as a running gag; in addition to being featured in a number of stories in the NR (HERE as a Koran burning chef and HERE as a fundamentalist preacher who stones a woman to death), Paul Horner is listed as a "Staff Writer." The NR is just one of a number of satirical/ fake news websites out there (along with fake personalities like Georgia 15th District Rep. Steve Smith.)

This phenomenon isn't new-- remember the Weekly World News? But the fake sites are doing a better job at fooling people. If you've fallen for it, don't feel bad -- fake news led people to make harassing and threatening calls to a school, and even journalists from reputable news outlets have fallen for fake news. I can understand how people can fall for this stuff. We have other things to do than spend all day verifying news stories online. As social justice activists, we are sensitive to topics such as police abuse, so a story of a teen getting a 25-year sentence for a prank, even a potentially dangerous prank, catches our eye. Thus, 99% of us rely on the media as a primary source of info.

A lot of people try to pass off fake news as real, even if they are not writing satire. In fact, people have been far too willing to accept any myth about Registered Citizens, even claims of a massive underground ring of pedophilic satanists. A prime example of this mindset is a story that made the rounds in the media two years ago. A press release from Utica College in NY state proclaimed they conducted a study which concluded "1 in 6 sex offenders hide attempt to avoid monitoring" by use of various deceptive practices. Of course, the media was quick to pick up and run with the story. One headline reads "Some sex offenders turn to identity theft to avoid registration." Another claims, "Study: One in six sex offenders uses Internet to live undetected." A third outlet's headline reads "New study shows 1 out of 6 sex offenders 'manipulate' their identities." The entire basis for the article was the press release that may have been written by someone at The Onion.

There were a number of issues with the study. First, this was a preliminary study, so the study had not been subject to peer review. Second, the author of the study is not in the field of sex offender criminology, but the executive director of Utica College’s Center for Identity Management and Information Protection (CIMIP). In other words, he studies identity theft and economic crime (which may explain at least one of the aforementioned headlines). Third, the study had some interesting criteria for deciding who was manipulating registry info. Preliminary findings indicated that several of the most frequent identity manipulation methods utilized by sex offenders to avoid detection were:

1. Using multiple aliases.
2. Using various identifying information such as SS#s or date of birth.
3. Stealing identifying information from family members.
4. Manipulating either their own names, or changed name through marriage.
5. Using the address of family members or friends.
6. Altering physical appearance.
7. Moving to other states with less stringent laws 

The last few criteria are intriguing. because it has little to do with identity theft. People get married, move to where life is better for them, or decide to try new hairstyles. I have moved a few times over the years, and I cut my hair shorter and have grown the "Stone Cold" goatee for a few years until it started going gray. Also, who is to say the discrepancy in the data is not result of clerical errors? (It happens to the best of us.) So I am likely ranked among those the researcher determined to be trying to shirk the system. Below are the techniques the researcher claims he utilized:

Rebovich and his colleagues employed various techniques to carry out their research such as: 

• Conducting site visits where they interviewed subject matter experts in several states to discuss the registration, monitoring and absconder location process. 
• Sending out a nationwide survey to law enforcement involved with sex offender registration, monitoring and location.
• Analyzing data on registered sex offenders from the FBI/CJIS national database to develop estimates of the extent and nature of the missing sex offender problem, examine missing sex offender locations and to identify the factors that distinguish compliant from noncompliant sex offenders.

I honestly don't know how the first two techniques helped the researcher arrive to a conclusion. In particular, the "survey of law enforcement" method was the flawed technique that gave rise to the thoroughly debunked "100,000 missing sex offenders" myth. I must ask whatever happened to this study? To this date, the study has not been subject to peer-review (neither was the Parents For Megan's Law study that gave rise to the 100,000 missing RSO myth).

Another question is why the results were announced at a conference before anyone had a chance to review the findings:

And at least one longtime Dallas sex offender treatment provider questioned the motives for even conducting the study in the first place. “I’m extremely skeptical and I welcome an opportunity to read” the study when it’s finally published, said Philip Taylor, who has treated sex offenders for almost 20 years. “It seems to me that the premise fits in with the crafty, scheming sex offender that’s smarter than everyone else, and that’s just not the case.” Taylor said releasing some of the results of the study before all the data is ready for publication in its entirety touches on the issue of “research ethics.” “You don’t hold a conference and announce your findings before you’re ready to publish your paper,” Taylor said. “It’s a lot like rumor-mongering, and that’s when it becomes problematic.”

Thankfully, this study has not been utilized as the basis for a lot of public policy and has been all but forgotten. However, other studies, like the Prentky study (which claims high recidivism rates for registrants) and the Butner study (which claimed a link between CP viewers and hands-on offenses), despite being flawed studies, continue to influence public policy today.

One of the most important things you can do is verify what you read. I suggest reading the original source work, not the press release or the news story. If we are discussing a research paper, then try to obtain the original study. Sometimes, a simple email to the authors of the study will work, or, if you have access to a university, you might be able to download it from a university computer. Research papers can be stuffy and a bit confusing if you aren't trained in statistics. However, you can read the abstract and the discussion after the results to find a plain language summary of the study. I have found that sometimes the reporter did a terrible job of simplifying the study or neglecting such things as disclaimers (most research has a brief discussion on potential limitations of the study, such as sample size or demographics concerns). If you are verifying the news source, check with other reputable news sites (I don't consider many independent sites like Brietbart or The Examiner to be accurate news sources; as bad as the national media can be, independent news outlets can be far worse).

Doing your research takes time and a little know-how. It is not convenient but it saves time in the long-run. If you see a report that looks crazy, like a story of a kid getting 25 years for a phone threat, then verify the facts before you pass it on. That is not to say all crazy stories out there that are true, like the story of the woman who called the cops on her teen for looking at porn. Just remember to take the time to verify a story by doing a little fact-checking. Not every parody site is as obvious as The Onion, but it is embarrassing to have to tell people who read your pages that you posted a smoking pile of bovine excrement and you have to retract. 

Mythbusting in action

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:

[http://www.gao.gov/assets/660/657831.pdf]

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. 

"You wouldn't put an A.A. next to a bar, so why let a sex offender live/ work/ do anything where there are children?"

"You wouldn't put an A.A. next to a bar, so why let a sex offender live/ work/ do anything where there are children?"

You have probably seen this line of thought to justify residency restrictions and other segregation-style laws over the years. The implication of my title suggests that all sex offenders have an illness that is beyond their ability to control. It is an extension of the old "sex offenders cannot be cured" mantra.

This statement is based on a few assumptions. The primary assumption is all people on the list are "uncontrollable pedophiles." There is a clinical definition of pedophilia, which includes a long-term period of sexual attraction to prepubescent girls (usually under age 12). The popular usage is an improper usage, much like when we used to say, "that's bad" when we mean something was good. (I already discussed why there is no such thing as a "convicted pedophile.")

There is a difference between a pedophile and a sex offender. A pedophile can have inclinations but never act on them. By contrast, a sex offender is anyone convicted of any sex crime. While we immediately think "child molester" or "rapist," this category runs the gamut of activity to include even non-sex offenses or offenses marginally sexual at best. We have included teens on the list as young as 10 years old.

Between actual sex offenders, there is a difference between "situational/ regressed" offenders and "fixated/ preferential" offenders. The vast majority of sex offenders are the former type. Situational offenders are less likely to reoffend, not attracted to children, and more likely to respond to treatment. As you can expect, Preferential offenders are more likely to offend, are attracted to children, and are more likely to reoffend.

There is also sexual addiction. You can be a sex addict without being a sex offender or  pedophile. You can be a sex offender without being a sex addict.

The bottom line is the legal term "sex offender" is broad and the term is not mutually exclusive with other terms such as "pedophile" or "sex addict." Committing a solitary sex crime does not necessarily make someone a pedophile or sex addict. That makes comparing a registered citizen to an "alcoholic" comparing apples and oranges.

Alcoholism is a very narrow definition-- addiction to alcoholic beverages. Alcoholism is a persistent condition. You can't be considered an alcoholic by getting drunk one time. However, you can be labeled a sex offender by a one-time event. Sex offender is a legal term, sex addiction and alcoholism are clinical terms. Sex Offenders are a heterogeneous group. Alcoholics are a homogeneous group. Comparing sex offenders to alcoholics is comparing apples and oranges. Sex offenses are not dictated by geography but by relationships. It is indeed a semantic argument, but an important one.

Sex offender laws dictating where a registrant can live, work, or play (and even where to go for counseling) is the result of our faulty assumption that all sex offenders are both "sex addicts" and "pedophiles." While a small number of sex offenders are fixated pedophiles (Montana claims 4% of the prison sex offender population are pedophiles), most on the list are not attracted to children or even addicted to sex.

"You wouldn't put an A.A. next to a bar, so why let a sex offender live/ work/ do anything where there are children?"

It is a rather irrational argument when you think about it. Studies have failed to provide links between geography and sexual offending. Even the comparison to AA at a bar is silly. In an urban area, there are plenty of bars, pony kegs, and beer joints, beer ads are on TV, and grocery stores sell it (unless you are in a "dry" county). So, does AA ever move its services to locations far from civilization? No!

This argument fails miserably because it is based on false assumptions and generalizations. It is time to put this tired argument to rest.