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The Truth You Don't Know About Sex Offenders

Despite reform efforts by victim's rights organizations and the enactment of new laws and procedures by the House and the Senate, sex crimes continue to rise in the U.S. In recent years, the introduction of the sex offender registry has proven helpful in locating and monitoring sex offenders; however, statistics show it has done little to avert future crimes and prevent convicted offenders from re-offending.

It is time for lawmakers in the United States to re-evaluate the sentencing guidelines for convicted sex offenders. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the average sentence for a convicted rapist is 7.4 years. Other studies suggest that number is somewhat higher, at 11.8 years. Regardless of the actual number, most of the offenders, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, serve as little as 5.4 years of the original sentence before being paroled back into society.

A Bureau of Justice Statistics report, released in 2002, shows that violent offenders accounted for 50 percent of all state prisoners. Among that percentage, 142,000 of those inmates were serving time for rape and other sexual assaults. Fast-forward to 2003, (the most recent statistics available) and that number increases to 148,800. According to the Center for Sex Offender Management (CSOM), the number of imprisoned sex offenders grows by more than 7 percent every year. Some say it is a minimal increase -- a mere 6,800 inmates in the most recent study. However, I think the victims of those 6,800 offenders would strongly disagree.

The recidivism rates of sex offenders remain unclear. Many studies have been conducted over the years; however, none of these studies seem to arrive at the same number. According to CSOM's Web site, "studies on sex offender recidivism vary widely in the quality and rigor of the research design, the sample of sex offenders and behaviors included in the study, the length of follow-up, and the criteria for success or failure. Due to these and other differences, there is often a perceived lack of consistency across studies of sex offender recidivism."

In 1990, W. L. Marshall, D. R. Laws, and H. E. Barbaree released their studies in the Handbook of Sexual Assault. They found that the recidivism rate for specific types of offenders varied. According to their research, incest offenders ranged between 4 and 10 percent, rapists between 7 and 35 percent, child molesters with female victims between 10 and 29 percent, child molesters with male victims between 13 and 40 percent, and exhibitionists between 41 and 71 percent.

In a follow-up study conducted that same year by M. E. Rice, G. T. Harris, and V. L. Quinsey, which was published in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence, the researchers looked at 54 rapists who had been released from prison. Of those 54 convicts, 28 percent were reconvicted of a sex offense and 43 percent went on to be convicted of a violent offense.

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Two Adults and Three Children Found Dead in Houston Home

Police in Houston, Texas are investigating the mysterious deaths of a family of five in the 10100 block of Stonewood Street today. Investigators say the victims are two adults and three young children.

On Saturday afternoon, Winston Brisko noticed that his neighbors' bull was wandering around his yard unattended. Concerned, Brisko and another family member walked up to their neighbors' house and Brisko peered through the fence. It was then that he quickly realized something was seriously wrong something far worse than a wandering bull.

"We saw a body, but we couldn't see a face and there was a rifle next to him," Brisko told the Associated Press.

It did not appear to Brisko that his neighbor was alive, so he ran home and dialed 9-1-1. The Houston Police Department logged his emergency call at 3:30 p.m. Within minutes several patrol cars had arrived at the scene and officers cautiously made their way to the house.

Investigators found the body of a man on the front porch, in the area Brisko had described in his 9-1-1 call. A 22-caliber rifle lay near his body, along with several shell casings. Inside, police first found the body of a woman, believed to be the victim's wife, and the body of a boy, approximately eight years old, in a room adjoining the porch. In another room, police found the bodies of two other children, a boy, who appeared to be five years old and a girl who appeared to be four years old.

"I've been a police officer for 25 years and this is the [call] you just hope you never have to make," Sgt. John Chomiak told ABC13.com.

Police believe the family had been dead for at least 48 hours before their bodies were discovered. Investigators will not comment on how the family died or if they suspect that their deaths were a murder-suicide. They have only said that there were no obvious signs of a struggle inside the home.

Investigators have not released the names of the victims; however a reverse directory search of the address leads to a home owned by...

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The Missing - A Weekly exposé of Lost Souls - Issue #12

In this week's edition of "The Missing," we revisit the sudden and mysterious disappearance of Trevor Paul Morse, a 30-year-old resident of Las Vegas, Nevada, who vanished in May 2007.

"I am the father of a missing adult male," Trevor's father, Rick Morse, wrote in a recent e-mail. "To say a little about Trevor Morse, and affirm who he was—and our prayers and hopes that he still is—Trevor was born and welcomed into our loving family in El Paso, Texas, on October 20, 1976. Trevor attended Irvin High School in El Paso and graduated in 1996. In 1999, he proudly completed his State of Texas Journeyman's requirements and started his career, which eventually took him to Nevada in 2006, where he worked as an electrician for a major contractor. It was there that he disappeared on Sunday, May 6, 2007, from an affluent, upscale neighborhood located on the west side of Las Vegas."

According to Rick, Trevor had gone out clubbing with some friends on the night before his disappearance. He returned home that night, and the following morning he wrote checks for his utility bills and did his laundry. He continued normally with his day until 3:00 p.m., when he called a local taxi service and requested a ride to the Red Rock Canyon area. Roughly 30 minutes later, the driver dropped Trevor off in the 3800 block of South Town Center Drive at West Flamingo. The taxi driver later said that Trevor had mentioned he was supposed to meet an acquaintance. Surveillance footage from a nearby shopping center showed Trevor pacing outside the building, but he eventually walked southwest, out of the camera's view, and disappeared. He has not been seen or heard from since.

"I can't even explain what we have endured and continue to endure on a daily basis," Rick says. "To make matters worse, in the midst of this emotional upheaval, this emotional roller coaster, we also have to endure what we perceive as a lack of cooperation by the very public officials that we put our trust in. Those very people we sought out and put our faith in to find our missing loved one do not answer phone calls, letters, and emails. How can these public officials not keep us in the loop? We, Trevor's parents, and his family and friends are asking...

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Trevor's Photo Courtesy of Rick Morse