The Associated Press not only buries the lead in a story about California’s paroled Registered Citizens now being subject to periodic polygraph exams.
The AP utterly misses the point.
Never mind that polygraphs simply are not reliable. They’re boogie-men used mainly to scare people into admitting to crimes they probably didn’t commit.
The real story here, the story The AP can’t see, is about the sex-offender industry.
This move will cost California taxpayers $10 million more than they forked over last year to pay for all the futile but profitable means used to harass . . . excuse me . . . keep track of Registered Citizens. Total expenditures this year in California will be north of $18 million for a program that is a proven failure as a public-safety tool.
But it is not about public safety. It is about all the money that the state will spend for polygraph equipment, polygraph examiners, “treatment professionals,” etc. Not to mention all the money that will be needed to investigate, prosecute and re-incarcerate people based on bogus allegations.
If you take the emotionally explosive hype about sexual offending out of the equation, what is the chance that taxpayers in California (or anywhere else) would stand for $18 million in public spending on a program that accomplishes nothing?
Don't forget that the polygraphs will be paid for by the registrants, not the state. Average cost is about $300 per exam.