Just-published research blows a massive hole in any defense of Nebraska’s current Adam Walsh Act (AWA) system of classifying former sex offenders.
“The results indicate that the AWA sex offender classification scheme is a poor indicator of relative risk and is likely to result in a system that is less effective in protecting the public,” according to the abstract on the research.
READ THE ABSTRACT ON THE NEW RESEARCH
The study conducted by a nationwide panel compares the Adam Walsh Act offense-based “tier” system to older risk-based systems. In 2010, Nebraska moved to the AWA system and threw out risk assessments. As a result, former offenders who had been found to be no- or low-risk ended up on the shaming registry for life and vice versa.
Some takeaways — the study found:
- overall reoffense rates for former sex offenders are extremely low;
- people in the lower Walsh Act tiers had higher reoffense rates than those in Tier III (lifetime registration).
Simply put, the tall stack of scientific evidence in favor of repealing just about all of Nebraska’s sex-offender laws is getting taller.
Click here to see Nebraskans Unafraid’s recommendations on how the law should change.