Jonathan Haidt is wrong about child safety. Stranger Danger is real. joshlongcriminology.substack…

The “Coddling of the American Mind” expanded beyond campus free speech into parenting behaviors and social media? Its influence on modern discourse is undeniable. But did it distract us from the real causes of youth distress? I discuss the weak science of the Coddling parenting hypothesis today. Link to follow

Dr. Matt DeLisi's book on Psychopathy is one of the best in the history of criminology. Those of us who were taught basic theories of crime always wondered why they explain so little variation. It's because they pool "common criminals" with psychopaths. link.springer.com/book/10.10…

Traditional incapacitation research assumes that collective imprisonment of all offenders will effectively reduce the number of rapes in society by a quantifiable amount. These estimates ignore the research on sex offender-specific risks for sexual offending. This article recalculates traditional incapacitation estimates to measure the number of rapes prevented by selectively imprisoning men already convicted of sex crimes. The National Corrections Reporting Program (NCRP) data is used to show that imprisoning 431,632 felony contact sex offenders for an average of 4.3 years each between the years 2000 and 2019 may have prevented between 120,744 and 551,708 rapes in the United States. This study also considers how many sexual recidivism outcomes could be prevented if offenders had served longer sentences. @jlong_author sciencedirect.com/science/ar…

Studies of the dark figure of sexual offending using federal correctional clients reported significant evidence of previously unknown or hidden sexual violence, often among clients with no official criminal history. Unfortunately, research has produced variable estimates of how large the dark figure is. The current study sought to replicate recent studies of federal sexual offenders about the dark figure of sexual offending. We also extended the knowledge base by providing additional correlational analyses to see whether self‐reported and official sexual offending have shared or divergent correlates. Overall, 73.8% of federal sexual offenders reported prior contact victims, which is higher than, but generally consistent with, prior prevalence estimates of 55–69% in studies of federal correctional clients. In the current data, clients convicted of child pornography possession or receipt and who had no official record of sexual abuse nevertheless reported contact sexual offenses in more than 59% of cases. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/…

My editorial about the substantive and statistical devastation caused by 5% of criminals. emerald.com/jcp/article/15/3…

New York let this man out of prison after he killed two children. Within two years he had killed 11 more people. This is Arthur Shawcross. In 1972 he took a plea deal for the deaths of a 10-year-old boy and an 8-year-old girl. He served less than 15 years. In 1987 the parole board signed his release, and his parole officer moved him to Rochester without telling the local police. Women started disappearing from the same streets he drove every night. He even warned his girlfriend to be careful because "a bad guy" was out there. They caught him by accident. A police helicopter spotted a body frozen under a bridge, and he was standing on that bridge. In the video below he sits in a maximum security prison and talks about all of it like he's describing his weekend. He laughs, then calmly says there's a bad man inside him, behind a door, and he's trying to keep him there. Then the interviewer asks about the families of the women he killed. "I don't have any remorse, for some reason. It's not there." He got 250 years and died in prison in 2008. The prosecutor from 1972 said that if he had gotten a real murder sentence back then, those women would still be alive. Who has more blood on their hands, the man who killed them or the people who let him out?

Many politicians are indifferent to the sexual abuse of children, but it takes a special kind of freak to put their career on the line to defend rapists and derogate victims.

Excellent article that counters the criminal naïveté in academic and justice system evaluations of sex offender registries. tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1…

Half a million victims over the age of 12 per year according to the NCVS, which is an underestimate, and if you look up to age 17 it is 670,000 per year. Yet how many "experts" say your concern is a moral panic while they focus on rare crimes that are less traumatizing. Shameful.

When I was a caseworker in CPS we had cases of mothers choosing to live with a registered sex offender even if it meant giving full custody of their children to someone else.

Everyone should read Transforming Trauma by Anna Salter to understand the mindset of abusers, mothers, and the pro-bono rape apologists who deny child abuse claims.

This might be the most insane piece of cognitive dissonance ever said seriously

Releasing a rapist from prison early for "good behavior" is a naive policy. Of course they can refrain from crimes when they are surrounded by men who will retaliate with violence. They don't pick on people their own size.

When prison reformers say "everyone deserves a second chance" they really mean everyone. There is no limit to their sentimental compassion for men who destroy innocent victims.

RT @shereeny: posted 10 years ago, still relevant.

Meet MAGAt Scott C. Hughes, a 54-year-old married Baptist pastor and former adolescent youth worker from Somerset, Kentucky. He is facing a series of felony charges including first-degree sodomy, second-degree sodomy, third-degree sodomy, first-degree sexual abuse, human trafficking involving commercial sexual activity with a victim under 18, and incest. The detailed allegations against Hughes span several years and involve multiple victims. Authorities from the Pulaski County Sheriff's Office state that the initial investigation uncovered a pattern of sexual abuse involving minors that dates back to 2018. Hughes exploited his positions of trust, which included serving as the pastor of Pleasant View Baptist Church, First Baptist Bronston, and Eubank Baptist Church, as well as working in an adolescent drug rehabilitation program for Sunrise Children's Services. The case grew even more disturbing after Hughes was lodged in the Pulaski County Detention Center. A new arrest warrant was served following a detailed report from an adult male who came forward to report that Hughes systematically abused him for years, with the horrific behavior starting when the victim was just 10 years old. Public records and local reports confirm that Hughes is married and has children, making the criminal charge of incest particularly grievous as investigators continue to look for additional victims.

As Matt Logan and I outline in Criminal Naivete, there is very little truth in sentencing as evidenced by this high-profile case, which allows for predatory offenders to recycle back to the community.

“THIS IS NOT AN EARLY RELEASE.” That’s CDCR’s response to serial rapist Andrew Luster walking free after serving roughly 23 years of a 50-year sentence. Here’s what CDCR isn’t telling the public: Proposition 57 gave CDCR sweeping authority to write the regulations governing prison credits that reduce time behind bars. Who sets the credit rules? CDCR. Who calculates and awards the credits? CDCR. Who determines when the credited sentence expires? CDCR. And now CDCR wants to tell the public this wasn’t an early release? Some might say-sounds like a bunch of unelected bureaucrats handing out credits like Halloween candy. Call it whatever you want. Andrew Luster is free decades before the end of the 50-year sentence imposed by a judge. Californians deserve answers. So do the women he drugged and raped.

The judge praised the rapists for their behavior during the trial, and spared them a custodial sentence. I want you to imagine being one of the victims. These boys rape you. They film it. They share it. They laugh. You summon up the courage to report it. You sit through repeated interviews with the police and the district attorney where you have to talk about what happened over and over again. You testify, and endure a cross examination in which the defense implies that you consented. Finally your attackers are convicted, and at the very moment when you think you’re finally about to get justice, you instead have to listen to the judge praise your rapists, and watch them walk out of court scot free.

THE CASE WAS SO HEARTBREAKING THAT EVEN THE JUDGE BROKE DOWN IN TEARS WHILE SENTENCING THE K!LLERS OF 12-YEAR-OLD GAVIN PETERSON. Gavin Peterson, 12, from West Haven, Utah, died on July 9, 2024, after suffering prolonged abuse, starvation and neglect at the hands of his own family. Gavin was confined to an empty room and deprived of basic necessities. His father, Shane Peterson, his stepmother, Nichole Scott, and his older brother, Tyler Peterson, were implicated in the abuse that led to his de@th. During sentencing, Judge Camille Neider became visibly emotional as she addressed Gavin’s father, telling him: “You were Gavin’s dad. I don’t think you deserve that title anymore.” The case was so devastating that the judge remarked on being more emotional about Gavin’s suffering than his own father appeared to be. Shane Peterson was sentenced to 5 years to life in prison, Nichole Scott received 15 years to life, and Tyler Peterson was sentenced to 5 years to life in February 2026. Gavin was only 12 years old. The people who should have protected him became responsible for his suffering, leaving a judge deeply shaken by the cruelty of the case.