Family Watchdog Issue 1 Claims:

Where it begins

Human Rights Watch Statement

(page 24) With the purpose of helping parents identify unknown convicted sex offenders in the neighborhood, sex offender laws like community notification schemes reflect the assumption that children and adults are most at risk from strangers. Yet sexual violence against children as well as adults is overwhelmingly perpetrated by family members or acquaintances.

Family Watchdog's Conclusion (Response)

This statement demonstrates a shortsighted and myopic view of the safety net the publicly available registry of convicted sex offenders provides the community.

Background

"Joseph Frank Smith, who had been known in Texas as the Ski Mask Rapist, was allowed to move into my neighborhood - just around the corner from my house. According to his own defense attorney, he was linked to a minimum of 286 victims (most of them children) in two states - Texas and Virginia. If there had been a registry available at that time, there is NO WAY I would have allowed my children anywhere near him, and thus they would NOT have been victimized by him."

Polly Franks, mother of 2 molestation survivors and Executive Director, the Franks Foundation

Indeed, the true value of identifying individuals that have been convicted of prior sex crimes has little to do with forensic capabilities and even less to do with identification of strangers. Sex offender registries provide vital information about offenders known and familiar to you, allowing you to decide who to allow into your life and the lives of those you love, care for and nurture. A marginal side benefit is that the sex offender registry can be used as a forensic tool to identify an offending stranger after a sexual attack.

This mistaken premise that sex offender registries are only useful for stranger attacks is the crux of the failing of this report. Managing the epidemic of sexual assaults perpetrated upon our communities will require many tools. Used properly, sex offender registries are one of the best tools available. Sex offender registries reduce the number of assaults because Americans are able to identify known threats within their acquaintance sphere.

No one can dispute that there is an epidemic of sexual assault in our society today. This is stated on the first page of the report. It should be everyone’s goal to prevent sexual assaults, rather than prosecute offenders. After all, if there is an offender, there is at least one victim. Past acts are predictors of the future, and what someone has done in the past demonstrates what they are capable of in the future. Not what they will do, but what they are capable of.

The Following by eAdvocate:

The essence of the Family Watchdog response is, that if the laws we have today were in place in 1995, when Polly Franks children were molested by Joseph Frank Smith, then those children would not have been molested because Polly Franks would have checked the registry before allowing her children to go to a neighbor's home. Hindsight is 20-20.

Since I see no other way to read the FW response, and if their claim is -if laws today were in place no molestation would have taken place-, then FW is guilty of being shortsighted. FW looks ONLY at one law in place today, the registry, and ignores all other laws in place today.

That is their failure, civil commitment exists today, and if civil commitment were in place in Texas, certainly a man with the background of Joseph Frank Smith would have been civilly committed. Therefore, his case does not support a need for a registry.

The HRW report is clear about this point, that laws today are enacted without evidence to support them. FW presents the case of Joseph Frank Smith because it fits their need and has not reviewed the evidence of Smith's case as applied to all laws today. FW only reviewed the registry as a solution.

This news report goes over Smith's background. It says, in 1986 he got married -and quit court ordered therapy- and moved to Virginia, then the Virginia molestations began. Now lets look further applying the idea of -if there was a registry-. Is there anyone who would believe, given he was already violating a court order, that he would have complied with registry requirements when he moved to Virginia?

But, -if there was civil commitment- it is far more likely he would have been committed in the early 1980s: "In 1983, he gained notoriety as the "ski-mask rapist" for trying to rape the same North Side woman twice. He was nabbed on his third attempt - each time he wore only socks and a pink ski mask."


Here is an excellent account of his deeds supporting civil commitment:

In the early 1980s, a rapist was terrorizing women and children in San Antonio, Texas. He had stalked hundreds of victims, peeping into their windows. Once they went to sleep, he would break into their homes - if the victim continued to sleep, he would molest her, but if she awoke, he forcibly raped her. In many cases, his victims were as young as eight. Police had no clue as to the assailant's identity but the local newspapers had a name for him: the Ski Mask Rapist.

In 1983, he broke into a house at 931 Sumner Lane. He assaulted the woman who lived there, then fled undetected. One month later, he returned. He again raped the hapless victim and again escaped leaving no clues.

This was enough for the woman. She moved out. But this time, a concerned neighbor decided to set a trap for the rapist. Gene Allred, in an interview with ABC's 20/20, said, "I figured [if] this guy was crazy enough to come back the second time, he'd come back again."

With permission from his former neighbor, Allred and his son-in-law installed microphones in the house next door, and placed a mannequin wearing a wig on the bed. They made sure to leave a night-light on so that the rapist could see the outline of his intended victim underneath the covers. They also kept their handguns at the ready.

Sure enough, almost exactly one month later, the rapist returned. Allred was asleep when the microphones indicated that someone was breaking into his former neighbor's house. He later said, "We grabbed our pants and pistols and my son-in-law went out the front door...and I went out the back." Other family members surrounded the house to keep the intruder from escaping. Allred and his son-in-law encountered the man attempting to leave through a window. He ran into an alley, but was tackled by Allred's son-in-law. A brief struggle ensued until Allred pulled his gun, subdued the man, and handcuffed him.

Police were called, and they arrested Joseph Frank Smith whom they suspected of being the Ski Mask Rapist. Although he later admitted his guilt in more than 200 cases, he was tried and convicted only of raping the woman who had lived in the now-empty house. ... ..more..

Now lets look at the Human Rights Watch statement, in essence it says, laws today are enacted based upon the -stranger danger logic- when it is far more likely that a child is molested by family members or acquaintances.

Who was Joseph Frank Smith to Polly Frank at the time of the molestations? He was a neighbor and acquaintance, not a stranger as FW portrays him. He lived next door and the Frank children were permitted to go to his home. Remember, he was living there in violation of a court order, would he of complied with registry requirements? Plain and simple, NO!

Who is being shortsighted and myopic?

Lawmakers are the same way, shortsighted and myopic, and they too fail to look at the evidence before enacting any law where former sex offenders are concerned. Which, by the way, is the heart of the Human Rights Watch report!


Family Watchdog!