Thread by @AWKWORDrap

The most common question posed to abolitionists is ‘what about rapists and pedophiles?’ 🧵

While this is a sensitive subject, the facts clearly demonstrate that criminalization, cops and cages don’t protect us from the sexual predators the politicians and media warn us about…

Sex offender registries were designed to track perpetrators of the most heinous offenses, but their reach has extended exponentially to include even teen sexting and consensual relations between young people.

Those on registries are denied civil, constitutional and human rights.

1. “Stranger danger” is a myth: 90% of sex assault victims know the attacker

2. 95% of sexual offenses are committed by someone *not* on a registry

3. Only 3.5% of registrants are convicted of another sexual offense within 3 years, compared to the average recidivism rate of 67%

According to @hrw, sex offender laws “offer scant protection for children from the serious risk of sexual abuse that they face from family members or acquaintances. Indeed, people children know and trust are responsible for over 90 percent of sex crimes against them.”

“Sex offender laws are predicated on the widespread assumption that most people convicted of sex offenses will continue to commit such crimes… In fact, most (three out of four) former sex offenders do not re-offend and most sex crimes are not committed by former offenders.” @hrw

As @LVikkiml proves, carceral punishment doesn’t make us safer

And only 4.7% of the 5 million in US prisons/jails or on parole/probation are sex offenders.

While “stranger danger” has been used to amplify mass incarceration, our ‘justice’ system doesn’t even address this issue

Like all other laws, sex offender laws are used to trap and disappear already criminalized communities.

For example, “sex offender registration across the country disproportionately affects black men” (@SentencingProj)

sentencingproject.org/news/race-just…

Cops only solve 2% of all major crimes, including rape and trafficking

And there are 250,000+ untested rape kits in police storage nationwide.

In other words, paying police six-figure salaries to patrol poor and BIPOC neighborhoods isn’t preventing or solving rape crime.

NOTE:

- The misinformation and stigmatization used to justify harsh sexual offense laws undermine the welfare of society, creating unnecessary panic and distrust

- Isolating and denying civil, constitutional and human rights to any group threatens the rights of all of us

NARSOL (@NationalRSOL) and @RegistryReport are dedicated to promoting evidence-based policies and programs that can *actually* reduce new sexual offenses and make our communities safer.

To learn about real public safety solutions, you can start with:

narsol.org/wp-content/upl…

Not convinced cops cannot be trusted to even investigate rape cases, let alone solve or prevent them?

Read this:

(And learn more about the movement to #AbolishThePolice and prisons via @TENDEMANDS at tenforjustice.com)

https://twitter.com/AWKWORDrap/status/1390285152295833605