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NPOV Material, and Comstock Ruling

A review of the article reveals issues with grammar, construction, and NPOV issues that need to be addressed. I made a minor change, but and marking the page for other editors to repair and assist with before I do anymore editing to ensure all opinions are heard. SemperDoctus (talk) 23:28, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Senate Judiciary Committee Chair?

The second paragraph of this article has a sentence fragment, which refers to the Senate Judiciary Committee chair "sheperding" the bill through the US Senate. I assume this was referring to Sen. Arlen Specter, who was the committee chair at the end of the last Congress, when the bill passed the Senate. But was he a sponsor of the bill? What role did he play? Seems we should fill out this sentence or remove it entirely.

• I removed the sentence fragment ("who chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee and shepherded the bill through the US Senate.") before reading the entry above by Ipsedixit. In any case, the sentence fragment should be removed until the information is clarified. The paragraph is also somewhat confusing as it states that the bill was sponsored by Sensenbrenner and then says that Foley originally introduced the bill. Is there a difference between being "the sponsor" and being "the original introducer?" Kriegman 13:15, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Minors affected by the law

I edited the part in the introduction about Tier 1 offenders including minors as young as 14 to clarify that such classifications only apply to juveniles tried as adults. The only juveniles tried as a juveniles to be put on the registry are those who commit a Tier 3 offense. See Section 111(8) of the Act. In fact, I think it's a bit misleading to even include here, so if no one objects soon (and I remember) I'll take that part out of the introduction and include it in the main body somewhere to talk about how juveniles are treated under the law. biggins (talk) 14:26, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

• Done and done. biggins (talk) 00:17, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Curb your enthusiasm

Wow, some big changes made here, a lot of edits, by a number of editors -- an anon IP and two different named editors, who may or may not be the same person. Anyway, just looking at the lede paragraph, here's how it was before:

The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act is a federal statute that was signed into law by U.S. President George W. Bush on July 27, 2006. The Walsh Act organizes sex offenders into three tiers and mandates that Tier 3 offenders (the most serious tier) update their whereabouts every three months with lifetime registration requirements. Tier 2 offenders must update their whereabouts every six months with 25 years of registration, and Tier 1 offenders must update their whereabouts every year with 15 years of registration. Failure to register and update information is a felony under the law.

And here's the proposed new lede paragraph:

The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act is a federal statute that was signed into law by U.S. President George W. Bush on July 27, 2006. By threatening the removal of federal financial support, it pushed states to enact several actions including sex offender registries and the establishment of civil commitment provisions. Many civil rights groups and professional societies objected to the Act, and multiple research studies have indicated that the Act fails to make society safer and may instead be making sex offender problems worse.

Erm.... I like the first version. This is more what what we're about for articles: describing what an entity is. Deciding whether the entity is good or bad is something I'd rather leave to the reader, and the proposed new lede impinges a little too much on the reader's responsibility for my taste. This is done by the use of "pushes" states as well as the multiple research studies and so forth. In the lede, a good rule is: just the facts, please.

Based on this, I'm skeptical of this whole "rewrite the article" project proposed by the editors (or editor, whatever), so I've rolled back these recent changes per WP:BRD. Let's work through this together, one small proposed improvement at a time, thanks. Herostratus (talk) 13:20, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

I agree. Not that critique of the Act is unwarranted, it just the entire tone is being altered to make the Act appear like an inherently bad thing.--MONGO 14:57, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

I like the second version. The intro section should summarize the important points. The tiers are a trivial detail. That many major civil rights and professional groups object to it, however, is centrally important. Go to "scholar.google" and search for "Adam Walsh Act." Almost every one of the top 10 hits is a severe criticism of the act. If there is a bias here, it is the suppression of the criticism. Noterie (talk) 17:10, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

But it's inherently a political question. Looking at Google Books instead, I get a more mixed result, and the sixth result is from a book title "No Easy Answers: Sex Offender Laws in the US", which I think is probably about right. I mean, all laws are blunt instruments. There is no law -- none -- which does not both ensnare inoffensive (and even innocent) people while letting bad guys off. That is the nature of laws. The question is in what direction you want to skew that, and that's a matter of opinion, a political question. If the American people want to take the stance that they're willing to live with with fallout from having broad and draconian laws in this area -- and it looks like they are, AFAIK this law is reasonably popular -- in return for whatever benefit they convey, even if its only a symbolic benefit, you can't tell them that they are objectively wrong.

The effect -- and intent -- of the new lede was to say more or less "Here is a thing called the Adam Walsh Act, and it sucks". Relax, will you? If it really does suck than any sufficiently interested and intelligent reader will come to the same conclusion that you have, right? And if they're not interested or intelligent you can't make them be. Trust the reader, will you? Let the reader decide for herself how she feels about the entity. Let's not forcefeed opinions to the reader.

I'm not saying criticism shouldn't be in thar article -- of course it should be -- but let's use a lighter hand here. And the lede should be just descriptive. Herostratus (talk) 19:16, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Just to inform: "No Easy Answers: Sex Offender Laws in the US" is Human Rights Watch report and it is absolutely very critical.--ViperFace (talk) 04:43, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

I am relaxed. I am merely registering my agreement that the content of the article fails to reflect the professional literature. In addition to what I had read already (I am preparing for a court case), I have now gone through the first six pages (i.e., 60 scholar google hits), and have yet to find a positive evaluation of the Adam Walsh Act. As I said already, the wikipedia article does not resemble the professional consensus. If anything, it is actively ignoring professional consensus.

If not descriptive of the professional sources, exactly what should the lede be describing? As I search for examples on Misplaced Pages, the Global warming article discusses the professional consensus about it, not just 50/50 description of what the term means. The Evolution article describes what professional scientists say about it, not a 50/50 description of what the pro/anti groups each describe.Noterie (talk) 19:51, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

But it is a law. AFAIK the main source of "professional literature" on a law is from the legal profession, on matters such as whether the law is constitutional and how the various provisions are to be interpreted by the courts and so forth. There are lots of laws that academics don't like, such as tax laws that academic economists don't like and regulatory laws that academic business professors don't like and so on, and it's fine to include some mention of that somewhere in those articles at a reasonable level of detail.

Exactly what should the lede be describing? It should be describing the entity. "Here is a law. Here is what it is named. Here is when it was passed and by whom. Here's why. Here are the provisions: if you do such-and-such, then such-and-such will be done to you, and so forth". Seems reasonable to me.

There's a Criticism section and there should be, and it'd be fine to work on that. The ex post facto angle is interesting and I'd like see some good refs for that, and so on. I don't have a problem with an article that ends with the reader questioning the law, if that's called for and depending on her predelictions and so forth.

But I dunno about bringing in the climate change model to point where want to be leading with "Here's a law, it's a horrible law and everyone now realizes this". But maybe. If it's true. I'm skeptical that you can prove prove that, just as it'd be very hard to prove that the PATRIOT Act or the Clean Air Act or whatever is objectively horrible because to some extent it hinges on what you want laws to be and do. But maybe you can. If you can point to sources saying "Forty Federal Circuit Court judges (or Ivy League law professors or whatever) were surveyed and 38 said its a bad law" or "The last five United States Attorneys General are on record as saying its a bad law" and so on. So you need some meta-criticism I would think to go to the climate-change level of criticism of this entity.

That's my take and I'd be interested in other views. Herostratus (talk) 21:27, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

The criticisms ARE from the legal profession. I already referred to the top 10 scholar.google hits on the Adam Walsh Act. Those top 10 hits are from: Washburn Law Journal, Criminal Justice Policy Review, Utah Law Review, Public Law, George Washington Law Review, Boston University Law Review, Catholic University Law Review, University of Pittsburgh Law Review, ... All negative. All from the legal profession. Opposition from the American Bar Association: http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/migrated/poladv/letters/crimlaw/2007apr30_adamwalsh_l.authcheckdam.pdf

You're not blocking someone from expressing some personal opinion (that it's a bad law). You're blocking the obvious professional consensus (which in this case is uniformly negative). (This doesn't even start with the formal studies examining the effects of AWA, which also are overwhelming negative.)

You referred to the Patriot Act. The criticisms of the patriot act DO appear in the intro to that page, and comprise about a 1/3 of the intro.Noterie (talk) 01:28, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

I have to side with Noterie on this one. The professional criticism is under-presented IMO, but I'm not sure which lede is better keeping neutrality in mind. Beyond the criticism from legal field there is also that of the treatment professionals. To the objectivity question raised by Herostratus and whether it can be proved that the law is horrible: Yes I it is a law and it is political question, but there is a objectively measurable metrics to judge the effectivity of these laws, that is, impact on the rate of recidivism. The rationale was to make regulatory rules that would decrease the rate of recidivism, not to punish (at leas that was the official explanation and that's why constitution is not on the way when new rules keep on piling up). The main premise used as an argument for the law was assumed very high risk of re-offending. There seems to be no evidence that recidivism is affected by the laws, the results are mixed. Also the high-risk of re-offense assumed on all offenders has been shown to be untrue, although some offender groups are known to pose considerably high risk. According to ATSA the few states applying risk-assessment tools and enforcing the laws on only those deemed to pose high-risk, have shown some statistically significant positive impact of reducing recidivism, but federal government is pressuring those states to comply with AWA and abandon risk-based approach. ATSA does not support this. If the law fails to demonstrate effectiveness and in addition has very adverse effects on peoples life (admittedly of which many are not very sympathetic), it is a bad law, even more so when it raises human right issues. ATSA also fears that some aspects might even increase the recidivism due to instability brought to offenders lives. This is heavy critique presented by those who have done their life's work on this field, and even some high level victim advocates are telling that maybe someone should listen what the professionals have to say. I think there should be at least some kind of mention on lead of the criticism and it should be elaborated more in criticism section, if it can be included in this article, although I recognize that we won't ever be able to cever that much of criticism this subject would warrant in my opinion, unless there can be a separate article covering criticism. Of course it can't be stated that this is a bad law, but the aspects of the laws and professional views on it should be covered, so that the readers can think for themselves. Like Notarie pointed out, there is relatively much criticism in articles covering other laws. Anyway, it's very positive sign that we are having this discussion and will hopefully find some balanced solution. These are my thoughts. --ViperFace (talk) 22:36, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Canvassing.

I have just read the guideline on Canvassing. Can someone explain how Flyer22's alerts to specific editors, referring to edits as "problematic," does not count as canvassing? Her requests for input do not seem at all neutrally worded.Noterie (talk) 20:25, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for further proving to me that you are not new to editing Misplaced Pages. A new editor "just happened" to come upon the WP:Canvassing guideline? I doubt it. And you read that guideline wrong anyway. I contacted three editors, three editors who work in sexual topics and have experience with situations such as the one I contacted them about. Contacting such editors in that way, especially when there is a likely WP:Sockpuppet issue going on, is perfectly allowed by WP:Canvass. Flyer22 (talk) 04:45, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Moreover...

Now would somebody explain why MONGO's deletion of the compliance section is okay, but my simply ordering the section got reverted?Noterie (talk) 20:40, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

It didn't add much to the article.--MONGO 21:04, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi, I'm taking the discussion here as MONGO suggested. What was the problem with the last edit of mine you reverted? If it was "Treatment professionals such as ATSA generally criticize the lack of evidence supporting effectiveness of the laws...", I didn't mean to imply that majority of treatment professionals are criticizing the law (even though at least considerable minority might be). I tried to imply that majority of the criticism from professionals such as ATSA is aimed at the aspects I listed. Please rewrite it correctly if you wish. I'm not native english speaker, so I'm not sure if it came out the way I intended. Other than that, I honestly can't see the problem. It was pretty restrained edit in length, merely briefly describing few notable parties presenting the critique as well as their main points with references. I'm ok with reverts other users have made since my edits admittedly had some balancing/POV issues. This one I don't get at all. If you bothered to read trough the two ATSA's opinions you will see they are well sourced and coherent text covering their position on these matters, which would warrant more elaborate coverage in this article than just 1-2 sentences. The rest was pretty well sourced as well. I'm deliberately trying to take baby steps when adding coverage on criticism, since that's what I was told to do by more experienced editors http://en.wikipedia.org/Talk:Sex_offender But if that was too much then I guess there is no room for criticism and I don't have much to contribute :/ --ViperFace (talk) 21:02, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Let's post "diff" and wait a few days for feedback. I'm concerned that we may be facing a give an inch but it will become a mile situation, so I reverted to allow discussion to proceed.--MONGO 21:21, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

OK. Sounds fair enough. There will be need for broader discussion if criticism is to be covered in more depth, in order to keep the balance. What I edited today was more like opening for further elaboration, if it is ever to be had. Anyway, I think I managed to cover the criticism broadly enough to survive as a stand-alone if further coverage on criticism is considered to mess up the balance. Will you revert it back if no one objects or do I have to do something for it? --ViperFace (talk) 23:00, 8 December 2014 (UTC)— Preceding unsigned comment added by ViperFace (talk • contribs) 22:51, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm happy to provide copies of publications on the topic, for folks who are interested. FWIW, the research and professional literature on the topic is indeed very negative about the effects of the Adam Walsh and related laws (registration, community notification, etc.). I have to agree that the lack of discussion of the professional consensus on the topic is rather a glaring omission of the article, IMO.— James Cantor (talk) 09:44, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, we sure wouldn't want convicted sex offenders to be inconvenienced would we James. You'd be happy to provide...of that I have no doubt.--MONGO 14:54, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

I am simply relating that the research and professional organizations are essentially unanimous in indicating that these laws are not having the intended effects, and that they may even be making the problem worse. You are entitled to your opinion, of course, but your comment is making me concerned about your ability to keep your biases out of your edits. — James Cantor (talk) 15:30, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Likewise James. Since you have previously self (I assume) recused from similar topic areas, my guess is your POV would be pretty strong on this matter and slanted in a specific direction. It would be extremely hard pressed to expect you to be neutral on this subject.--MONGO 16:51, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

After Mongos latest post I'm not at all convinced that he is suitable to act as one of the "watch dogs" for articles related to this subject. After all James is someone with more professional insight than any one of us. ViperFace (talk) 15:39, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Some article proposals to cover public vs. professional perception discussion

Ok. I wish to see this moving in some direction, so while I wait if we are to find consensus that scholarly critique might be under presented, I'm trying to gather some peer reviewed articles that might be of use if we are to include general public vs. academic/professional views discussion. I would like to find surveys covering the views of general public, treatment professionals, defense attorneys, prosecutors, judges, parole officer, and sex offenders and their family members. I would love to see many editors contributing on this. — James Cantor already expressed his willingness to help. I'm looking forward to it as he presumably holds more knowledge of relevant literature from his field of profession. Also, I wonder whether we should take this discussion to Category talk page, since this is about more than just this particular article, IMO. To counter possible accusations of POV-pushing/bias by cherry picking articles suitable for my position, I encourage anyone in favor of the current state of sex offender related articles (that is, not sufficiently reflecting the professional consensus which is and has been for years consistently negative) to find even one peer reviewed article supporting current sex offender laws.

Public Perceptions About Sex Offenders and Community Protection Policies

• Brief summary: 79% of general public wants ALL sex offenders to be subjected to community notification, 5,8% all offenders rated as high risk, 6,3% all but low risk offenders with no violent history and 1,6% wanted no community notification at all.
• When asked if one supports various sex offender policies "even if there is no scientific evidence showing that they reduce sexual abuse" 24% answered "Partially true" and 49% "Completely true".
• Also: "The hypothesis that community members hold inaccurate beliefs about sex offenders was supported."

Widening the Net: The Effects of Transitioning to the Adam Walsh Act’s Federally Mandated Sex Offender Classification System

• "The data indicate that, prior to reclassification, the majority of Ohio’s registrants (76% of adults and 88% of juveniles) were either not registered at all or were registered as “sexually oriented offenders” (the least restrictive management category) prior to reclassification. About 20% of adults and 5% of juveniles were classified as “sexual predators.” Following reclassification, this basic pattern was essentially reversed, with 13% of adults and 22% of juveniles placed in Tier 1, 31% of adults and 32% of juveniles placed in Tier 2, and 55% of adults and 46% of juveniles placed in the highest and most restrictive tier (Tier 3)."..."These data indicate, for example, that 59% of the 3,689 adults and 45% of the 271 juveniles who were not previously registered were placed into Tier 3 following the reclassification process. For those previously classified as “sexually oriented offenders,” 41% of adults and 43% of juveniles were assigned to Tier 3. Finally, 49% of adults and 36% of those previously classified as “habitual sexual offenders” were placed into Tier 3. Not surprisingly, more than 99% of adults and 98% of juveniles previously designated as “sexual predators” were placed into Tier 3."
• "Regarding the potential implementation barriers to meeting the federal classification standards, respondents raised a range of potential legal, operational, and fiscal considerations, with many expressing concern over the potential public safety impacts of supplanting established risk-based classification systems with a less discriminating system linked exclusively to conviction offense."
• "The SORNA tiers appear to classify a disproportionate number of offenders as high risk, placing increasing burdens—perhaps unnecessarily—on law enforcement personnel and fiscal appropriations"..."Net widening might ultimately compromise the efficacy of SORN as a viable tool in our efforts to prevent sexual violence by diverting attention and resources away from managing truly high-risk sex offenders in favor of capturing a larger pool of registrants."

Social Policies Designed to Prevent Sexual Violence The Emperor's New Clothes?

• "A survey of sex offenders in Florida indicated that housing restrictions increased isolation, created financial and emotional stress, and led to decreased stability. Such stressors are similar to the types of dynamic risk factors that have been associated with increased recidivism"
• "We do not intend to imply that sexual violence is not a serious problem, or that the aforementioned sex crime policies should never be utilized. The purpose of this paper is not to elicit sympathy or to advocate for sex offenders. We do not question the noble intentions of policy makers to create safer communities, nor do we wish to diminish the suffering of victims and their families. Clearly, sexual assault is an egregious and traumatizing crime which should not go unpunished. We simply suggest that social policies designed to prevent sexual violence will be most effective when they are informed by scientific data about sex offense patterns, recidivism, risk assessment, therapeutic interventions, and community management strategies... Naturally, following horrific and random acts of violence, particularly those against children, an outraged and frightened public demands solutions, and elected officials act quickly to serve their constituency. But hasty responses often result in laws that are not evidence-based in their development or their implementation, and the collateral consequences of such laws are poorly anticipated. The risks sex offenders pose to the public must be recognized as complex and not easily eliminated by blanket policies."
• "Some sexual perpetrators present a severe threat to public safety, and it is these most dangerous offenders that social policies should strive to control. Broad, overly inclusive policies, however, consume public resources while unnecessarily disrupting the stability of low risk, non-violent, and statutory sex offenders in ways that may diminish their likelihood of successful reintegration and even increase their risk."

--ViperFace (talk) 03:12, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

An excellent list! I would add that we need to apply caution in how the above it described on the mainpage: Public perceptions should be described as public perceptions, whereas the professional consensus can/should be described as encyclopedic information (that is, the actual facts).

Another RS I would recommend (and which is publicly available) is: http://www.atsa.com/pdfs/ppReasonedApproach.pdf

— James Cantor (talk) 13:22, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

You guys seem to be very specifically focused on degrading articles. That isn't going to happen here or anywhere else on this website.--MONGO 05:12, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

WP:IDONTLIKEIT is not a reason to delete well-sourced text, and despite your increasingly antagonistic and disruptive edits and comments, you have presented no content-based or policy-based reasoning. Please see the comment I left for you at Talk:Sex offender.— James Cantor (talk) 11:27, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

The criticism section as it is now is remarkably tendentious, and takes a strong position in opposition to the act. Also, criticism sections are not a good idea. It might be better to work up something here on the talk page to be added if there's consensus. I've removed the criticism section. Tom Harrison 11:39, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Whether the criticism (or any other section) is positive or negative is irrelevant. What matters is whether it matches the content and consensus of the RS's. The RS's are essentially unanimous in indicating the faults of the Adam Walsh Act. I can ask Tom only what one can ask any Wikipedian: What RS's or views are missing? Where is the evidence that the relevant text is out of line with the RS's? The problem we appear to be having here is that there are folks who simply don't believe that the status of the RS's is what it is. I appreciate that the status of the RS's is not what many folks in society have been led to believe, but if otherwise experienced Wikipedians are not convinced by a long series of RS's and an entire lack of dissenting RS's, what exactly is going on? — James Cantor (talk) 11:55, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Your argument of opposition to his act and other laws is well documented both in text here and in your own writings. While it's appreciated that you and Viperface may indeed be trying to show that there may be flaws with the law, its speculative at best. How do you demonstrate aside from opinion pieces that the changes made by this law, which merely strengthened already existing laws, that this strengthing is actually making it more likely that child molesters are more likely to commit that offense. I see nothing in those reports that show that this act led to an increase in child molestations. Such deeds may be on the raise, but nothing in the references you and others have provided prove this correlation.--MONGO 12:44, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

That is not addressing the issue: the content, the nearly unanimous content, of the RS's.

Regarding opinions, the relevant opinions of legitimate experts (such as editors of top journals of the field, official statements from state law enforcement, etc.) cited in well-regarded outlets (such as CNN and the BBC) are entirely legitimate to include. That includes me, but is most certainly not limited to me; just about every expert in this field (and whole professional associations) are of like opinion. (And was I myself cited somewhere on the page? I must have missed that.)

Moreover, the relevant RS's are not merely opinion, although it does include opinion (of experts). The relevant information includes numerous studies showing that this and related laws simply are not having the intended effects, and includes the ethical objections expressed by top civil rights groups (which, of course, cannot be evaluated by data):

• Agudo, S. E. (2008). Irregular passion: The unconstitutionality and inefficacy of sex offender residency laws. Northwestern Law Review, 102, 307–341.
• Berlin, F. S., Malin, M., & Dean, S. (1991). Effects of statutes requiring psychiatrists to report suspected sexual abuse of children. American Journal of Psychiatry, 148, 449–453.
• California Sex Offender Management Task Force. (2007). Making California communities safer: Evidence-based strategies for effective sex offender management. Retrieved from California State Association of Counties website: http://www.counties.org/images/users/1/Making California Communities Safer -Evidenced Based Strategies for Effective Sex Offender Management.pdf
• Duwe, G., Donnay, W., & Tewksbury, R. (2008). Does residential proximity matter? A geographic analysis of sex offense recidivism. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 35, 484–504.
• Kansas Sex Offender Policy Board. (2007). January 8, 2007 report. Retrieved from http://governor.ks.gov/files/Grants_Program/SOPBReport.pdf
• Tewksbury, R., & Jennings, W. G. (2010). Assessing the impact of sex offender registration and community notification on sex-offending trajectories. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 37, 570–582.
• Zandbergen, P. A., Levenson, J. S., & Hart, T. C. (2010). Residential proximity to schools and daycares: An empirical analysis of sex offense recidivism. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 37, 482–502.

Even if what you are saying were true (which it is not), it does not justify the suppression of the entire literature evaluating the effects of the Adam Walsh Act and related laws.

— James Cantor (talk) 13:31, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

This is getting ridiculous! AGAIN: "I encourage anyone in favor of the current state of sex offender related articles (that is, not sufficiently reflecting the professional consensus which is and has been for years consistently negative) to find even one peer reviewed article supporting current sex offender laws." I have tried to find supporting views from Google Scholar, but I can't find any. Would you MONGO please contribute by digging up at least one peer reviewed article, there must be one. SHOW IT TO US! I deliberately picked some quotes from the studies I listed for your kind MONGO (that is people who DO NOT open the articles and read it, but go and revert edits and claim misleading/pov-pushing for any arbitrary WP:IDONTLIKEIT reasons. Who has asserted that AWA led to more child molestation? There are some reason why professionals fear that that might happen, and there are two papers I know of that have found statistically significant raise in recidivism sue to registries. Anyway. no one has said that in mainpage.

You're a "new" editor that can be easily demonstrated to be promoting one point of view. That is called Point Of View pushing. Other than that my comment above stands. You want me to prove a negative which of course is impossible to do I read little if any evidence that the strengthing of existing laws did anything other than inconvenience sex offenders. Of course all laws have flaws and surely a few innocent persons may have been unjustifiably penalized, but the weight you wish to give to that is excessive. It is impossible for me to look at your editing history and not see it for what it is.--MONGO 14:56, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

If you wish you may want to see . There I explain some of my background and my edits. Anyway, if my editing can be seen as POV-pushing, what is going on here and other articles is POV-supressing, that is blocking the consensus opinoin of academics and civil right organizations. I'm sorry if my last post had rather agressive tone. I just find the reluctanse to accept the wide spread critique as part of this article unfounded, so I got frustrated. @Tom Harrison Criticism by definition is "expressing disapproval and of noting the problems or faults of a person or thing." Whether criticism supports some cause is irrelevant. --ViperFace (talk) 15:32, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Also, how may you claim that your comment above stand without any reply to James's point:"The relevant information includes numerous studies showing that this and related laws simply are not having the intended effects, and includes the ethical objections expressed by top civil rights groups"--ViperFace (talk) 15:52, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Some if not all of the citations are cherry picked. One simply has to look at the calls for repeal to note there is not broad criticism. There are tremendous bodies of work that show recidivism is a much more likely outcome than rehabilitation. The relevant information is that the intended effects are to notify people that are living near a sex-offender and this is a direct result of recidivism data. It's pecious to claim it isn't having the intended effect. Sex offender registries, lifetime probation and community notifications are an alternative to "life in prison" which is what the recidivist data shows as the appropriate alternative. --DHeyward (talk) 18:44, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Not only is there no evidence for any of that, there is nearly unanimous evidence for exactly the opposite. First, if there were cherry-picking going on, you (or anyone else) would be able to cite RS's that are allegedly being skipped. Not only has no one produced a single RS saying that the Adam Walsh Act (and related legislation) is effective, we are now seeing rather silly claims, such as Mongo asserting that google.scholar itself is doing the cherry-picking. Next, there does not, in fact, exist "tremendous bodies of work that show recidivism is a much more likely outcome." Instead, there exists a tremendous body of evidence showing that recidivism among sex offenders is generally 10-20% (lower than for any other type of crime). The RS's to that effect include:

• Soothill, K. (2010). Sex offender recidivism. Crime and Justice, 39, 145-211.
• Doren, D. M. (1998). Recidivism base rates, predictions of sex offender recidivism, and the “sexual predator” commitment laws. Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 16, 97-114.
• Harris, A. J. R., & Hanson, R. K. (2004). Sex offender recidivism: A simple question. Retrieved from https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/rsrcs/pblctns/sx-ffndr-rcdvsm/index-eng.aspx
• Hanson, R. K., & Morton-Bourgon, K. E. (2005). The characteristics of persistent sexual offenders: A meta-analysis of recidivism studies. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 73, 1154.

In no jurisdiction has a registry, lifetime probation, or community notification been used to replace "life in prison sentences." The (comparatively few) offenders who receive life sentences (offenders with multiple victims and those who committed particularly violent offences) have never been reduced with the introduction of the Adam Walsh or similar act. Again, I challenge you (or anyone) produce RS's in support of what you're claiming. What you are asserting as just-so are merely urban myths. I appreciate that they might seem simply obvious to you, because these (mis-)statements are frequently circulated within a highly hysterical public. But if you actually do the fact-checking, you will find they are largely untrue.

— James Cantor (talk) 04:10, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

I never said Google Scholar was doing any cherry picking...where did you get that from, Cantor?--MONGO 04:24, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

That is correct. I apologize, and I struck-through that part of my comment. It came from what ViperFace said (sarcastically) to point out that it is silly to claim that cherry-picking was going on, because the RS's showing the inefficacy of AWA is the what nearly all the google scholar hits are showing.— James Cantor (talk) 04:31, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

One critical argument that might be more appealing to Tom Harrison and MONGOis that strictly offense based AWA allows potentially dangerous offenders to escape the registration, when allowed to plea bargain down to non-registrable offense. This some times occurs in child molestation cases when prosecution does not want to force the child victim to re-live the events by testifying in court to avoid further traumatization. This argument takes different angle to ineficiancy. This also appears in academic literature, so the criticism is no all about catching the wrong people but also not catching some of those the law is supposed to catch. @DHeyward I understand that what you said apllies to those who have been determined to pose high risk with validated risk assesment tools. In Europe we put high-risk offenders in mental institution for life if necessary. Risk-assesment is superior to offense based registries in determining the risk of re-offense. This is well documented in literature. For what I have read, the overall recidivism of sex offenders is one of the lowest among offender groups, altough some subsets of sex offenders are known to pose considerable risk. AWA does not account for this. Also, the intented effect is compromized since AWA catches consensual teenage acts diluding the registries. It's needle in a heystack thing. AWA is adding more hay. This is often brought up by chid safety advocates. Prior AWA there was around 500 000 registrants and the latest numbers from 2012 says close to 800 000. Something is obviously wrong, the growth rate is staggering. To the cherry picking: did you read what I said above to counter such allegations in advance, since I knew some one is going to use that card? Also I wish to recieve a response, I don't like hit and run type of commenting. --ViperFace (talk) 18:57, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

The AWA is federal. States are free to incarcerate/hospitalize/release as necessary. AWA only makes it difficult for known offenders to move to unsuspecting places. The literature is pretty clear that sexual predilections are not curable (i.e. hospitalized for life is silly cover argument for dangerous sexual predator - there is no treatment plan or positive outcome - and the AWA allows for civil commitments which would be identical to hospital for life if need be. ). Your claim that consensual teenage acts are clogging the system is nonsense as they must first be convicted of a crime. 19 year olds that diddle with 14 year olds are still "teenagers" but the 19 year old will be charged and convicted of a crime. The assailant must be culpable for the act which usually means much older than the victim. Same age teenagers that consent are not charged in virtually every state. The lone exception may be the distribution of personal, private photos of underage children that are unlawfully shared. In that case, though, there is no consent given for that behavior and a conviction, as an adult, would be required. It's extremely rare. As for growth rate, it's a reflection of state convictions rather than different states requirements that vary from both reporting as well as locations available to live. The AQA only requires that convicted sex offenders register where they live. There is no condition on their choice of residence. Notifications requirements are still up to the states and state tiers can still be based on state laws - though reporting to feds is by conviction for obvious reasons as states can vary in assessment, but convictions are fairly uniform. --DHeyward (talk) 19:56, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Also, the notion that this act has anything to do with what a defendant does in court to reduce his penalty such as plea bargain is misplaced. To my knowledge, his act never specified that offenders could seek reduced penalty. If the argument is that some courts disagree with that act and therefore obfuscate justice by hearing and applying a reduced penalty to avoid compliance with the act then that's another story.--MONGO 20:08, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

It's not about what defendand does. It's just that determination of registration is solely based on offense under AWA, not the risk. Judge has no any discretion on it. Only one that has is the prosecutor through charging decision. Some times prosecution can't prove it's case and has to offer a plea. If risk assesment played any role, some defendands would be listed. The case of 19 and 14 year old is question of proportinality. It's comparable to speeding 5km/h vs. mounting a rocket on a car and ramming full throtle trough pedestrian street. In sentencing this is differentited, but with respect the registry, both are treated the same. I assume you know that registration is not part of the sentence under AWA, judge does not hand it. It is collateral consequence of being convicted under one of the listed offenses. That's why this happens: example, example2, example3. Federal government is pressuring those few states still aplying risk based systems, to adopt conviction based systems. The obvious problems arising from this change is covered in quote under one of the "cherry picked" studies I posted above. Please, read it. Further more AWA was made retroactive, meaning that consensual statutory rape case from the 80s cames back to hount people who are married with children to their "victim" and have served their court imposed sentences. High level victim right advocates like Patty Wetterling and John Walsh have criticised the law. How did NAMBLA plant a micro chip in their heads? The criticism is coming from all parties that are aware of the details of the law: The victim advocates, treatment professionals (Atsa), defence lawyers (NACDL), some judges, academics, sex offender management boards, ACLU, Human Right Watch and reformist groups presenting not only the offenders, but for their children and spouses. Only general public with no knoweledge of the details is widely supporting the law. Only registries not atracting such criticism are those aplying risk assesment tools and publicly listing only high risk offenders. These are also the states where registries have demonstrated some effectiveness. Too bad the U.S. government is cutting their fundung for practising demonstrably good and reasined public policy.Why must this criticism stay uncovered?ViperFace (talk) 22:23, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Some more peer-reviewed papers while working on consensus: First one is for DHeyward: not all sex offenders hold some deviant sexual predilections, population is heterogeneous. (As a side note, predilection doesn't equal compulsorily acting on it. Also, acting may be controlled trough behavioral therapy, we are not talking about homogenous pack of hungry wolves whether you like it or not)

Who are the people in your neighborhood? A descriptive analysis of individuals on public sex offender registries

• "We found considerable heterogeneity in the RSO population across multiple dimensions, contrasting the stereotypical views of sex offenders that permeate public perception. For instance, sex offenders are often described as a group of repetitive, compulsive, predatory and potentially violent abusers of young children (Levenson et al., 2007a; Lieb & Nunlist, 2008 ). Notwithstanding the limitations of our data analyses, we found a range of risk designations suggesting that policies should: 1) effectively differentiate risk levels among offenders using empirically derived methods; 2) provide front-line practitioners with sufficient latitude to adapt the terms of supervision, monitoring, and treatment according to individual risks and needs; and 3) furnish the public with the information necessary to distinguish between those RSOs who call for attention and diligence and those who present a lesser degree of risk. Offense titles as defined by the Adam Walsh Act are insufficient to determine an individual's relative threat to a community or to adequately inform law enforcement officers responsible for supervision and monitoring."

The Adam Walsh Act A False Sense of Security or an Effective Public Policy Initiative?

• "Using a sample of registered sex offenders in New York State, the current study examined the effectiveness of the Adam Walsh-tier system to classify offenders by likelihood of recidivism. Results indicated that the AWA falls short of increasing public safety."

Assessing the Impact of Sex Offender Registration and Community Notification On Sex-Offending Trajectories This one is also for DHeyward:

• "sex offenders recidivated (with a sex offense) at a rate of 6.5%. The only offender types with lower offense-specific recidivism rates were those originally arrested for homicide, kidnapping, and stalking. Not only did sex offenders have lower rates of offense-specific recidivism than nearly all other types of offenders, but the sex offenders also had lower rates of general recidivism (45.1%) than most other offenders. Sample and Bray (2003, p. 76) concluded that “based on rates of reoffending, sex offenders do not appear to be more dangerous than other criminal categories.”" Btw. Department of Justice obtained even lower figures. In this study recidivism was 12%
• "The results of this study suggest that SORN has not reduced the rate of sex offender recidivism, nor has it led to a decrease in the number of offenses committed by recidivating sex offenders. Among a 10-year cohort of Iowa sex offenders, not only is the sexual recidivism rate virtually identical prior to and following the implementation of SORN, but so too is the distribution of sex offenders into trajectory groups essentially identical...Although these results appear to be relatively clear, the lack of effectiveness of SORN cannot be stated unequivocally because of potential intervening variables that were not directly examined in this study...The findings suggest that not only are very few sex offenders likely to sexually recidivate, but the policy also appears to have virtually no impact on sex recidivism. Therefore, when also considering the numerous negative consequences associated with SORN (Levenson, 2008; Levenson, Brannon, Fortney, & Baker, 2007; Levenson & Tewksbury, 2009; Mustaine, Tewksbury, & Stengel, 2006a, 2006b; Tewksbury, 2004, 2005; Tewksbury & Lees, 2006; Tewksbury & Mustaine, 2006, 2007, 2009; Tewksbury & Zgoba,in press), the wisdom of maintaining such policies is questionable at best and an unnecessary expenditure of resources at worst. With the exception of providing a “feel-good” policy for the public (Brannon, Levenson, Fortney, & Baker, 2007; Levenson et al., 2007), there is little demonstrable public safety value for SORN (Schram & Milloy, 1995; Zgoba et al., 2008)."

The Google Scholar seems to be doing the cherry picking, trying to make it appear that there is some kind of consensus among academics :/ ––ViperFace (talk) 03:23, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

The reason I'm am rubbing this in your faces, is to make you understand that the relatively small coverage which I added, and you reverted is bare minimum coverage on criticism that should be there. It does not even try to establish that there is negative academic consensus on this matter. Honestly, is my brief and moderate coverage of criticism and parties presenting it too much? MONGO seemed to be ok with it earlier, but for some reason he changed his mind... --ViperFace (talk) 04:38, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

You just wrote..."the relatively small coverage which I added, and you reverted is bare minimum coverage on criticism that should be there." That is the issue. You want to add undue weight to the criticism...it comes across as simply that the registration system and expansion of it (by the passing of this act) has not decreased the incidence of child molestation and other crimes.--MONGO 05:03, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

It's almost impossible for me to assume good faith here: that you and Cantor are here to promote a neutral treatment of this subject matter. A conflict of interest may be going on here on your parts. I suggest you regroup off site and check to make sure that this sudden effort to right great wrongs isn't misplaced.--MONGO 05:15, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Your unwillingness to WP:AGF has been clear from the beginning, as have your accusation of Viper being a WP:SPA (the doing of which violates WP:NPA when used to attempt to gain an upper hand in a dispute), your vague accusation of WP:COI (ditto), and your thus-far empty threats to (re-)open cases against me (a case that found in my favor, btw).

You misunderstand the policy on WP:Neutrality. Specifically, please see WP:YESPOV: "Ensure that the reporting of different views on a subject adequately reflects the relative levels of support for those views, and that it does not give a 'false impression of parity", which is exactly what you are violating. Neutrality does not mean giving each side equal weight; it means giving each side the weight that is proportionate to what receives among the RS's. From WP:WEIGHT: "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources (emphasis added). Moreover, I direct your attention to the note expanding on that policy: The relative prominence of each viewpoint among Misplaced Pages editors or the general public is not relevant and should not be considered. Very simply, because the great majority of RS's are indeed negative in their assessment of the effects of the Adam Walsh Act, we are required to describe it in a way that reflects that. Despite numerous calls, now over quite some time, no has produced a single reference indicating these laws are successful in their goals.

— James Cantor (talk) 08:46, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Collecting and presenting exclusively negative material misleads the reader, giving the impression that all right-thinking people know it's a bad law. Implying that these so-called "sex-offenders" mostly haven't really done anything much wrong but if some did they probably won't do it again, it's likely to be taken as advocacy for change in the law instead of neutral description. I assume this result is an unintentional consequence of the sources used. If well intended, it's not really an improvement to the article. Some of the sources might be used if presented in context elsewhere on the page. Tom Harrison 11:53, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

I cannot know whether Tom is not reading prior comments or simply ignoring them. I am not (nor is Viper) collecting/presenting exclusively negative material. We are collecting/presenting ALL material. (Despite numerous calls to do so, no one has provided a single RS presenting a contrary view.) That the material happens to be negative is what it is. Why Tom and Mongo simply do not believe this to be the case at the same time as being entirely unable (or unwilling) to back up that belief with other RS's only they can know. Because very much misinformation about sex offenders has circulated in public for so long, it is possible that they simply take it for granted as "common sense." As I say, I cannot know. I can only repeat the continuing unmet request to provide RSs backing their assumptions. I've already pointed out the relevant portions of WP:NPOV, including WP:WEIGHT and WP:YESPOV: The relative prominence of each viewpoint among Misplaced Pages editors or the general public is not relevant and should not be considered. Yet, in the increasingly glaring absence of such RS's, that seems to be exactly what Tom and Mongo appear to be demanding.

— James Cantor (talk) 15:21, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Its probable that the law has not necessarily done exactly what it was originally intended to do but this bloating of the talk page with long winded recitations and bolding for emphasis appears to indicate to me that Vipeface and Cantor are POV pushing. Cantor was involved in an arbcom case regarding a related issue...a strong COI seems probable here. I concur that some room for critique of the Act is necessary but the MO of how much and the rationale for why seems overtly apologetic and sympathetic to those inconvenienced by the registration system. In the reading I have done some states have at the state level had trouble implementing this act but I don't know exactly why. If Cantor and Viperface wish to expand on that here it might be helpful.--MONGO 12:47, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

In response to Cantor saying I'm violating AGF and NPA by inferring that Viperface is a single purpose account...Viperface has edited little other than these related articles since he created that account a month ago...he also created in his sandbox here...(or it may be a copy paste from another page?) An article which opens with "Reform Sex Offender Laws, Inc. is a national level civil rights and justice reform organization based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with 27 affiliate organizations in 24 states. RSOL is dedicated to raising awareness about the consequences of current sex offender laws and working towards changing them for the better." This looks like he is here for pretty much one purpose and that is advocacy. The article is now at Reform Sex Offender Laws, Inc..--MONGO 14:29, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

@MONGO I have gone trough this on Talk:Sex offender with several user who, correctly so, disciplined me for my activist style of editing. There I also explained why I'm into these questions and at the moment WP:SPA (BTW, I find bringing that up as nothing else than Shooting the messenger) Unlike you, they seemed to have no problem with me adding criticism, but merely the way I presented it. I also understand that my Good faith among these users has been re-instated. My edits after this incidence have been very restrained. Yet, you have been reverting my edits left and right and acting like the gorilla in your user pic, dominating the articles on this area and suppressing virtually any coverage on critique. I'm "POV-pushing" on this talk page (I'd prefer presenting excessive amounts of evidence to overcome impenetrable barrier of thick skulls), as an attempt to make you realize that there is considerable amount of critique being presented , and that my edit under dispute does not objectively judging raise any undue weight issues. IMO, it should have even more weight, given the unanimous negative consensus among academics. Yet you, accompanied with couple of other users, have engaged in back-fort reverting with me and James over 5 rows content that vaguely covers the main arguments of the critics and some notable parties that have presented it. Although I'll not be happy, I'm willing to settle with the bare minimum coverage solution and restrain myself adding more coverage (that is reinstating the edit under dispute) on criticism. Currently the section is virtually empty, giving expression that only critique that has ever been presented is by some non-notable random dude whose thinking there might be unintended consequences. Currently, the article is totally unbalanced, not covering virtually any criticism. Anyway, due to your few not-so-constructive replies to — James Cantor and persistent resistance to accept the notion of criticism being considerably wide among academics, I'm asking FourViolas, Flyer22 and Herostratus opinions on your behavior, and to address if I and James happen to be totally out of line here. (Some discussion also: here)

@Tom Harrison I welcome all the positive material. I have tried to find it. Positive opinions are mostly general opinions how these laws "are cracking down on sex offenders", "improving the safety of the most vulnerable". Please contribute to the article by presenting RS favorable to your position, so that there could be discussion about differing opinions included (e.g. Debate section). If you think I and James are pulling this in wrong direction you may well introduce RS pulling in opposite direction. That's how we may approach the true equilibrium state of this article. --ViperFace (talk) 15:40, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Re Mongo's comment: "Probable" on the basis of what? Saying things I agree with unbacked by RS's is no better than saying things I disagree with unbacked by RS's. One can continue to use terms such as bloating and long-winded, but what matters continues to be simply what the RS's are. Viper and I have presented many (very many) and there still exist many more. Any scholar.google search shows them. However, for reasons I cannot fathom, Mongo is unwilling/unable to present any RSs in support of his (her?) suppositions, leaving Mongo only with personal accusations as to motivations. Without being willing to pursue those accusations properly (such as by bring them to WP:COI/N), Mongo is engaging in a series of personal attacks.

From WP:SPA: "Existing editors must assume good faith concerning the user account, act fairly, civilly, not bite newcomers, and remember everyone was new at some time. Care is needed if addressing single-purpose accounts on their edits." That he would edit in the topic he is studying (for his PhD was it?) or the school system in his home country (which you appear not to have noticed) are perfectly logical for someone who has only been here for a month. You also seem not to have noticed Viper's immediate willingness to work within all applicable policies (which cannot be said for all here), accept feedback to bring things to talk (whereas others demand consensus be made but didn't to participate in any discussion), reversions of edits made without explanation, etc.

What exactly is wrong with the RSOL page? It's amazingly well sourced, and WP contains coverage of very many such groups, from GLAAD to the ACLU. To repeat the refrain, what are the RS's indicating something's missing from that page?

If a neutral reader were reading, such a reader would logically wonder if there is POV-pushing in the suppression of very well-sourced material, arguments based entirely upon unsupported assumptions, and attacks on others' motivations.

— James Cantor (talk) 15:52, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, do what you think is best then. You keep asking us to prove a negative which cannot be done. If indeed either of you intended to be short and sweet and very specific about what you exactly want the critism to say then I encourage you to start a new section at he bottom and post it and allow us a few days to digest it and examine it. But these long winded and bolded and acrimonious back and forths need to cease. I think I can speak for Tom Harrison that we could both concur as might others that neutral dispassionate critique would likely enhance the article. However, as repeatedly stated, Viperface most definitely is a single purpose account and I have serious reservations about your motives as well Cantor. I am prepared to be proven wrong but this appears to be mushroom clouding rapidly so allow me the opportunity to extend my suggestion stated above, allow me in return to see if what you wish to add meets policy for this website and well, you might be surprised.--MONGO 16:15, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

@MONGOYes I created said page. After seeing numerous cries for help of young men on their late teens to early twenties in their and other advocacy groups pages, who were guilty of nothing more than being douche bags IMO, (e.g. talking dirty to 15 year old over internet) and understanding the total destruction of life as a result of temporary moral lapse of young man, I myself as Human Rights Watch and ACLU see your laws as a human right issue when applied to certain offenders. In other countries we are able to differentiate between true predators and idiots. (see my comparison to speeding above). I do not condone any of such activity, and I welcome the punishment if it's proportional to the offense. Registration in U.S. is not proportional punishment with respect to many offenders. They are not the same. Registries in Canada, Australia and UK are very different. They are not criticized by human right organizations. If this makes me a pro-sex offender advocate in your eyes, you must be terrified for being informed that ALL academics and treatment professionals, and child safety advocates like Patty Wetterling and John Walsh has turned into pro-sex offender NAMBLA advocates. When I first read some of the stupid outcomes U.S. system produces I did not belive it could be true. Now I know it's indeed true and it is a human right issue. I am waiting when UN high commissioner of human rights will weight in on this. There was short public discussion in my country about implementing U.S. type of registries, and opponents were quick to point out the obvious problems with U.S. systems, this brought me around this subject. Our politicians are probably as stupid as yours (that is, not listening the professionals), but they may read wikipedia before making thair decisions. Anyway, rather than consentrating on my motives, you should be concentrating to the quality of my edits. --ViperFace (talk) 16:24, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

+

@MONGOYes I created said page. After seeing numerous cries for help of young men on their late teens to early twenties in their and other advocacy groups pages, who were guilty of nothing more than being douche bags IMO, (e.g. talking dirty to 15 year old over internet) and understanding the total destruction of life as a result of temporary moral lapse of young man, I myself as Human Rights Watch and ACLU see your laws as a human right issue when applied to certain offenders. In other countries we are able to differentiate between true predators and idiots. (see my comparison to speeding above). I do not condone any of such activity, and I welcome the punishment if it's proportional to the offense. Registration in U.S. is not proportional punishment with respect to many offenders. They are not the same. Registries in Canada, Australia and UK are very different. They are not criticized by human right organizations. If this makes me a pro-sex offender advocate in your eyes, you must be terrified for being informed that ALL academics and treatment professionals, and child safety advocates like Patty Wetterling and John Walsh has turned into pro-sex offender NAMBLA advocates. When I first read some of the stupid outcomes U.S. system produces I did not belive it could be true. Now I know it's indeed true and it is a human right issue. I am waiting when UN high commissioner of human rights will weight in on this. There was short public discussion in my country about implementing U.S. type of registries, and opponents were quick to point out the obvious problems with U.S. systems, this brought me around this subject. Our politicians are probably as stupid as yours (that is, not listening the professionals), but they may read wikipedia before making thair decisions. Anyway, rather than consentrating on my motives, you should be concentrating to the quality of my edits. --ViperFace (talk) 16:24, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

−

...First off...please stop linking my username I have the article watchlisted so I don't need to be pinged. Secondly...as I said, start a new section at the bottom and post a paragraph of what you want the critique to say, even though, as Tom mentioned earlier, such critiques aren't always a good thing unless they are integrated into the article, which might prove tricky. My guess is based on your advocacy and singular purpose for being on this website that your intentions are advocacy...and while the article you created may be fine for that, excessiveness here would be overkill. I also suggest you remove the link to donations on your article creation before I do it for you. You try and put that link to donations here and I'll remove it on sight as overt spam. Lastly....you just admitted it above where you say "they may read Misplaced Pages before making their decisions"...which is clear admission that you are using this website to promote what you advocate.--MONGO 16:45, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't know if you get alerted. I have not always been able to follow what has been going on here if my username has not been mentioned. Do you mean the link in ref in RSOL article, It was never intended to be soliciting donations, but merely showing where information comes from. That was one of my first edits. It has now been removed as requested.ViperFace (talk) 17:00, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

ViperFace is allowed his opinions, as are you. As said in WP:Advocacy: "Editors are not expected to have no opinions about a subject." What's important is that Viper's claims are followed by multiple RS's supporting their accuracy. Thus far, you have produced none, despite the numerous requests.— James Cantor (talk) 17:00, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Viperface has demonstrated only that he is a single purpose agenda driven editor that is using this website to promote his agenda. He has demonstrated that in his editing history and in his own words. You keep obfuscating because you agree with his content efforts. I might even be persuaded to do that as well, but you have been around plenty long enough to know that this website has a low pain theshold for single purpose accounts that violate policies regarding undue weight or spam pages with their agendas. I have already asked both you to create balanced paragragh in a new section below that outlines the critiques...so put up or shut up Cantor so we can see if you have a clue what undue weight means.--MONGO 17:54, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

My motives has nothing to do with my ability to be objective. You are Shooting the messenger, that is very fundamental fallacy you keep on repeating. Everything I have edited have been properly sourced, and I have not distorted any facts. I got disciplined by some editors for my activist type of editing, I stand corrected. --ViperFace (talk) 18:20, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

I will thank you to meter your language.

If you provide any RS's, I will be happy to integrate them. Because you have not/cannot locate any such RS's, there is nothing to balance against. I can only reiterate your continued confusion between WP:BALANCE and WP:BALASPS (aka false parity). Your increasingly shrill comments and personal attacks (and repeated failure to respond to any of the policies or content noted above) suggest you will not hear anything I have to say. I can therefore suggest only that you bring your thoughts to the NPOV noticeboard entry I have linked below.

— James Cantor (talk) 18:20, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Here's the question that is unanswered for me. I am not exactly sure what they are critical of. They seem to create a strawman argument of the intention of the law and then strike it down. Most states already have sex offender registries and laws. This is a law that requires a national registry of sex offenders. It then defines what a sex offender is and is not (example, persons at least 13 years old and less than 4 years in age difference that engage in consensual sexual conduct are not sex offenders for the purpose of the registry). At least tier 2 and tier 3 are convicted felons which means civil liberties are already restricted post-conviction (i.e. firearm possession is illegal, voting is illegal, certain jobs are forbidden, etc, etc). Court judgements are public documents so criminal convictions are not private. I am not quite understanding what the criticism is about since it's merely an extension to what most states do anyway. The act doesn't impose more sentences except those that flee a reporting requirement that was already ordered by a state court. That the registration is about crime committed rather than danger to community seems largely irrelevant. They are looking for a uniform method to account for sex offenders. "Danger" would be assessed at the state level where the actual crimes are codified. It's like accreditation of colleges. GPA and grading are done at the local college level. Degrees, though are rather uniform (BS, MS, PhD, etc). That feds said "report the degree" rather than whatever grading system that was used (i.e. 4.0 scale, 5.0 Scale, pass/fail, etc, etc). Arguing that one is better than the other misses the point that the goal is a list. States that feel there are better approaches to assessing risk are free to set up whatever local system they want (where I am, for some sex offenders, they will go door-to-door with flyers). It seems dubious to me that criticism that starts with "It could be better so it should be repealed" doesn't make much sense. There were many similar complaints about "three strikes laws" and the horror it would be. However, crime is much lower now because of that and "truth in sentencing" laws. Studies that look at recidivism rates need to take into account the length of sentences in comparison to other crimes as well as the overall crime statistics. It would be difficult to find a 3-time convicted child pornographer since the second conviction is for life. A better study are those that interview child molesters and abusers and ask them how many victims did they have before they were caught. Finally, the point of national registration is to catch persons that are fleeing/leaving the state which required them to register. European countries do not treat them as human rights abuses as they do not let sex offenders enter their countries. They may pay lip service to human rights organization about registration but if they answer "Felon: yes; crime: sex offense", their visa will be denied and they don't really care if it's a low risk felon nor are they interested in finding out. --DHeyward (talk) 22:26, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

I'm happy to try to explain whatever I can. However, your description of the Adam Walsh Act is not entirely correct. The law contains multiple components, only one of which is a national registry. The problem with the tier system is that it has no basis in science and forces states to replace superior risk assessment procedures that have been validated across a very large number of studies.

That said, I'd like to jump to the bottom line: That you think that an entire large set of RS's are making a strawman argument, or should have been designed another way, or are comparable to a previous situation, etc., is irrelevant. WP pages do not summarize what WP editors believe; WP pages summarize what RS's contain. If you had some RS's claiming that other RS's were making strawman arguments (or whatever), then we must certainly include them. But that's not what we have. Rather, we have a virtually unanimous opinion across all RS's on the topic. You, like Mongo, are free to believe that all the RS's are wrong and that you have discovered something that has eluded every published expert on the topic. But what goes on the mainpage is what is in the RS's, not just the RS's you happen to agree with (which sounds like none). You can have whatever beliefs you want, but the only beliefs that belong on the mainpage are those that appear in RS's (nevermind a proportionate number of RS's).

— James Cantor (talk) 23:22, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

That is all fine but what do you think an adequate outline should be for this article? I see it as a statement about the law says, why it was implemented, when, by whom, and then a careful expansion of pros and cons. Do you think it should say he law sucks and should be repealed? I'm really confused about why this article needs to be an advocacy platform for change.--MONGO 23:37, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Skipping over the embedded and false assumptions, I believe it would be more effective to go about this the other way around: Of this version of the mainpage, which includes ViperFace's well-sourced text, yet still needs work, what do you think needs to be rephrased and how would you rephrase it? That is, what in this version fails to reflect the basic form I described below, in this comment? — James Cantor (talk) 02:36, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

I can't really join ViperFace and "contribute to the article by presenting RS favorable to your position," as he urges me to do above and is apparently doing himself. That approach is one reason reason the criticism section reads like advocacy - because that's how it's been written. It seems to me the focus of the article should stay on the act itself. A separate criticism section is not the best way to neutrally present material. If some of the sources are to be used, they should be integrated into the existing body of the article. Tom Harrison 12:07, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't want to speak for ViperFace, but I think his intent was to invite you to present whatever (positive) RS's you thought were missing. Personally, I am indifferent to exactly where the RS's go. To me, the important part is that the information is supplied to readers at all. I think the information can be successfully integrated (without an explicit criticism section) by:

• Expanding the Compliance section to why states are resisting (using the reaction of reports from state boards as the RSs) and how the federal law is pressuring them to comply (threats of losing funding);
• Adding a section on "Legal challenges" for the various lawsuits about it;
• Expanding the section on "Effects" (perhaps rename it "Effectiveness"?) for the data on efficacy;
• Add a section on "Reactions" or "Public reactions" to include the statements from the various professional societies and the public (ACLU, HRW, etc.).
• Also, I think I would rename the "Legal applications" section to be "Provisions" and to embed the "Visa" section within that.

I believe this structure would provide logical placement of the RS's that need to go in, and to allow for the addition of any other RS's that come forth later, and avoid an explicit criticism section. How does that sound?

— James Cantor (talk) 13:40, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

ViperFace (talk) 17:47, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Time for some outside views. Please see WP:NPOV/N#Sex_offender_and_Adam_Walsh_Act

This is very clearly going nowhere. So, I have brought the issue to the NPOV noticeboard for (hopefully) input from uninvolved folks experienced with NPOV issues, including due weight and false parity (the central issue here). I don't know if anyone there will come here, or if comments will be entered there only.— James Cantor (talk)

There is adequate RS material to include a section on criticism of the law, and it should be included. It should not overwhelm the article, though - and I see no issues with a simple paragraph like was outlined (then struck through) below. I am no proponent of the behaviors addressed in the law, but no law is without flaw. Reasonable professional and sourced criticism of the law should be welcome. ScrapIronIV (talk) 14:16, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Following ScrapIron's support and what FourViolas said here I proceed and add slightly condenced version of what is presented below. I encourage anyone objecting this edit to follow WP:Neutral_point_of_view#Achieving_neutrality and WP:PRESERVE rather than totally removing it.

Critique should cover

Ok. I'll start (sorry for the quotes and boldings): It should cover the fact that specific aspects were opposed prior enactment of the act by treatment professionals. Congress asked for comment but did not follow the recommendations, which has caused the problems that are now attracting the criticism.

ATSA's response to Congres prior enacting the act: Re:Pending Sex Offender Registry Legislation (HR 4472)

• "The Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (H.R. 4472) states that its purpose is to respond to “vicious attacks by violent sexual predators.” In fact, by being inclusive of anyone who has been convicted of any sexual offense, it applies to some who are not in fact violent sexual predators and do not pose a substantial risk of re‐offense."
• Specifically we offer the following major recommendations for HR 4472, all of which can be supported with scientific data:
  • 1. Delete the requirement of lifetime registration for juvenile offenders, who are very different from adult sex offenders in both their development and their risk for reoffense.
  • 2. Require or at least encourage states to adopt a tiered approach to identifying “high risk” offenders based on empirically‐based risk factors, such that aggressive notification and internet disclosure would be reserved for high‐risk sex offenders.

- Please MONGO read at least this paper to see where I and James are coming from. ATSA is very authoritative organization on this field.

Another ATSA's response with two more recomendations: Re: Pending Sex Offender Registry Legislation (HR 3132, S792, S1086)

and

ATSA's disenchanted comment after passage of the act: ATSA response to SORNA

• "Though the guidelines to SORNA indicate that it is the result of many amendments to the Wetterling Act, it must be noted that Ms. Wetterling herself has stated serious concerns about the current act and the use of the registry as mandated. She stated in a June 18, 2007 interview that, “We’re setting up an environment that is not healthy. It’s just anger driven, anger and fear. It’s not smart and it does not get us to the Promised Land.” ATSA agrees and believes there are more effective and less expensive means to safer communities"
• "Over-inclusive public notification dilutes the public’s ability to identify the most dangerous offenders. A growing body of research demonstrates that public disclosure can disrupt the stability of low-risk offenders in ways that may interfere with successful reintegration and may actually exacerbate risk for criminal offending"

I also would like to have a mention included that some reform groups and child advocates are echoing the worries of professionals.

I,m happy MONGO, that you give some slack here, and allow the light of objective criticism shine at least a bit.--ViperFace (talk) 17:57, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Again...start a new section at the bottom of this page and place the paragrapgh roughly as you think it should be worded with refs you wish to use...one to paragraphs should be sufficient. Allow the myself and other a few days to look it over. Some respondants to Cantor's request at the NPOV noticeboard may have further input so allowing them time to chime in may be advisable. One other option that we can do is to simply create an entire article about the effects both good and bad that sex registries and related laws are having. I suspect a well referenced and neutral dispassionate stand alone article like that would be acceptable so long as it doesn't cross the lines of advocacy.--MONGO 21:04, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Again...What are the RS's to back-up the good side?— James Cantor (talk) 21:07, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Exactly how.many incidents of harm have come from those inconvienced by being registered offenders? I'm just asking because if more than 10 percent have valid examples then perhaps the law needs tweaking...but he way you fix that is to vote, not use Misplaced Pages as a platform to right great wrongs. As an example...there are approximately 5000 registered in one county in CA alone....do you have 500 incidents where the law has caused injustice to those that have to register? I would be surprised of one percent...50 examples could be made. That's the point about undue weight Cantor. You're taking one percent and pretending it means the law is broken to support your POV. Show me the 50 in that county so we at least have the one percent....or better yet...write your congressman and get the laws changed since as you and your reliable sources cited seem to claim...it's a bad law.--MONGO 21:18, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

You are asking me for WP:OR, which you cannot do. I am asking you for WP:RS, which you are required to do.

Your hypothetical surprise is irrelevant. It's the RS's that matter, and you are insisting that your view be given equal time despite not having even a single RS against a very long list of very strong sources on the other side.

And I live in Canada, btw. ViperFace is in Finland. If anything, we're in the better position to be objective.

— James Cantor (talk) 21:38, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

You keep citing articles that claim that this act and similar ones basically do more harm than good. There are approximately 750,000 registered sex offenders in the U.S. When the brilliant scientists did their research do they conclude that there were exactly how many that the laws wrongly penalized? 75,000? 7500 or 50? If they cited a few examples (which is all I am seeing) they seemed to have done lot of guesswork to conclude = bad law.--MONGO 21:51, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

You can believe or not believe whatever and however many scientists you want. But for it to be relevant to WP content, you need RS's to express those views. There are no RS's that express those views. You don't appear to be willing to revisit your personal view, which is up to you, but the mainpage must reflect the (overwhelming) consensus of the RS's. If the RS's say bad law, the page must say bad law. If the RS's say good law, the page must say good law. If the RS's are mixed, the page must express both views in proportion to how they appear among the RS's. What we have, however, is a long list of very high quality RS's saying bad law, and no RS's saying good law. You can disagree as much as you want, but you cannot overrule the RS's and force the page to reflect the personal belief you hold.— James Cantor (talk) 22:48, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm just trying to have a conversation with someone who is an expert since I am just MONGO. My point that I failed to make apparently is that since you know, what are the control numbers from those research papers that determined that the incidence of wrongful penalty was bad enough to alter the existing laws. I'm not seeing (and I surely don't proclaim to have read each link provided with great detail) a percentage whereby conclusions are substantial enough to say for example that this is a bad law. Since you are an expert and I am just MONGO can you simply tell me what the percentages are?--MONGO 23:22, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

My willingness to engage in 'just a conversation' ended many personal attacks ago. Regarding the RS's however, they vary in their methods, conclusions, and recommendations. For empirical articles, I generally recommend a format like "Smith compared X and Y, finding a rate of Z, leading them to conclude A. On that basis, Smith recommended adopting policy M." For legal or ethical RS's, such as those from the ACLU, I typically recommend a format like "A policy review was conducted by Group-X. They challenged the ethical basis of the law which violated the principles of A and B."

Because there is a very large literature here, summarizing every RS individually is unwieldy and unnecessary. Summary statements would instead take a form like "Several civil rights groups, including A, B, and C have expressed opposition to the Adam Walsh Act. Concerns included violations of X, Y, and Z." If there were large and opposing sets of RS's, we'd include both.

What is important and what is reflected in each of these examples is that we never speak in WP's voice; we never declare what is true or false. Rather WP (or we) simply summarize the content and conclusions of the RS's, whether we think the RS itself is right or wrong. WP would never recommend a repeal of a law, but one or more major groups calling for its repeal is certainly encyclopedic and should appear on the mainpage.

If you have a specific question about a specific RS, I am happy to suggest how I would summarize it.

— James Cantor (talk) 00:54, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Your manner of outline here is more coherent than what you mentioned in the above thread where you asked what I would change in Viperface's edit. That edit by Viperface was reverted by User:Herostratus and I agreed with his revert in my initial contribution to this discussion here. Otherwise that version by Viperface is entirely unacceptable. However, your format here where you outline the issues and attribute it in the sentence followed by a supporting ref is the way to go. Again...this article is about the law itself. Overwhelming it with critique is simply not the way to go. Why not figure out a stand alone article and keep the critique here in summary style?--MONGO 03:43, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

I am not clear on what you are suggesting, but it sounds like a WP:POVFORK.

The difference between what ViperFace wrote and what I am suggesting is, to me, simple reformatting. I would remind you both that User:Herostratus himself apologized for rolling back so much (here), and that WP:NPOV#Achieving_neutrality reads "As a general rule, do not remove sourced information from the encyclopedia solely on the grounds that it seems biased. Instead, try to rewrite the passage or section to achieve a more neutral tone." Moreover, that section of the NPOV policy links specifically to WP:Preserve: "Instead of removing text, consider: Rephrasing or copyediting to improve grammar, more accurately represent the sources, or balance the article's contents". That is, the aggressive rollbacks and subsequent reverts were unnecessary, counter to WP policy, and based on a clear failure of AGF.

I suggest doing what WP:NPOV#Achieving_neutrality says we should have done in the first place: After reinstating ViperFace's text (this version), help him to reformat it to fit the structure I outline above, and then discuss/enact whatever further edits are necessary to get it the rest of the way there. Personally, I believe that ViperFace has shown himself perfectly able to do that, now that he's armed with exactly what to do, instead of getting attacked by reverts and accusations.

So, how does this sound to everyone? I'll reinstate the prior version noted above; ViperFace can have, let's say, two days to work on that; and then we can discuss anything that still seems to be speaking in WP's voice instead describing contents of RS's?

— James Cantor (talk) 09:38, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

No. That version was horribly biased.--MONGO 14:48, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Now more than obvious you and Viperface never had any intention of keeping it within balance. You want a radical POV pushing platform to advocate your apologetics for deviant behaviors. If the law is so flawed why has it not been changed or even amended much?--MONGO 14:57, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

How many incidence of harm is good question. I would like to knoow the answer too, altough judging what is disproportional is subjective. I gave three examples somewhere above (I'm aware of many others) where the outcomes are arguably disproportional and registeation seems to serve no other purposes than destroying lives. Also it must be kept in mind that harm extends to children and other relatives of registrants. What comes to the piece you reverted, it was 5 rows of text. It was very condensed and I'm suprised I manged to include almost all points the critics are making. Also it was under "Critique" section, which by definition covers downsides of this law. The size of my edit was so small that it was outright under presentative to the ammount of criticism that is being presented by academics. Yet, you claim it was biased. I have already expressed my willingnes to setlle with this under presentive notion of criticism. You yourself stated earlier that let's wait for few days for others to comment. I folloewed and waited 3 days before reinstating it, you immediately reversed back and claimed SPA. You are demonstrating clear pattern of intelligent dishonesty here. At this point it's clear to me that you are not going to allow me to edit anything, so all I can do is to wait other users to decide who is wrong.ViperFace (talk) 18:14, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Here is one more example of stupidity. 93% people voted "NO" when asked if this guy should be labelled for life. Here is another. Both are married with kids to their victims. This happens in offense based systems like AWA.

"Nikki and Frank's predicament is not an isolated incident. Across the country, young lovers are increasingly finding themselves caught in the nation's complicated web of sex-offender laws. Teenagers wind up on the public sex-offender registry, alongside violent predators, pedophiles, and child pornographers, for having consensual sex with an underage partner (or, sometimes, for streaking or sexting — sending racy self-portraits, which can be considered child pornography). The stigma of the sex-offender label is difficult to shed: "Once you're on the registry, good luck trying to explain it," says Sarah Tofte, who has studied sex-offender laws for the nonprofit group Human Rights Watch. "It's like you're in prison proclaiming your innocence. People think, Right, that's a likely story. Especially potential employers."" Source Absurd!!ViperFace (talk) 01:04, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Ok. Now that heightened emotions are probably calmed a little I'll add proposal to cover some of the criticism section below. It's just a draft, a start for further elaboration (of course no too detailed) and some more content and refs are pending. Please contribute and comment if you wish --ViperFace (talk) 04:01, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

I contributed below as requested. What a POV push.--MONGO 04:56, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

What a great effort to work towards consensus by striking all and offering nothing as alternative. I don't claim to know why you behave like this, but since your arrogance and wickedness has been exponentially increasing along the amount of evidence presented in this discussion, cognitive dissonance would explain a lot. At this point it is becoming increasingly hard for you to admit being wrong without feeling of losing your face. I don't blame you, it's very typical behavior of human being. To be honest I was hoping input from other users than you, but by all means keep on coming back to express your hurtfulness, so that everyone may see who is the rascal here.ViperFace (talk) 14:09, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Were you or were you not accusing me of personal attacks last week?--MONGO 16:15, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Not sure whether I did or not. I think it was James who spelled it out. If it came from between the lines of some of my post, it was not completely uncalled-for keeping in mind some of your comments:

• "Well, we sure wouldn't want convicted sex offenders to be inconvenienced would we James. You'd be happy to provide...of that I have no doubt." --MONGO 14:54, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

• "You guys seem to be very specifically focused on degrading articles. That isn't going to happen here or anywhere else on this website." --MONGO 05:12, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

• "The two week long POV pushing that you and your accolade Viperface, a single-purpose agenda driven editor, have been presenting is a desire to move the article away from the fundamentals into a long sappy this law sucks and needs to be changed platform to advocate your apologetics for deviant behavior...that was there before you two (or is it five with sock puppet and IP accounts all promoting the same thing POV)"--MONGO 17:10, 13 December 2014 (UTC) --ViperFace (talk) 21:12, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Anyway, I'm not so much into personal battles, so I try to take this to more productive bath once again and I apologize that I have admittedly lost my temper some times during this heated debate. Now, after carefully reading through what has been said above, the criticism section is not probably the best idea, what James presented Talk:Adam_Walsh_Child_Protection_and_Safety_Act#Arbitrary_break would definitely be better. I tend to slam all the criticism on the table at once which does not leave too much space for pros & cons type of discussion. This is probably not a good way to proceed and I see why some editors object my style of editing. Also MONGO, having read through the article you quoted here, it deals exclusively with the primary intent of the law to create seamless system to distribute information between states and federal government, and some legal questions around the act (of which I don't know too much). I think this objective is where the law has succeeded well, and I think it is a good law when judging solely by this component. I assume there is RS with supporting results with respect to this component e.g. showing less non-compliant offenders etc., which of course should be covered in the article. To be honest I haven't read any critique aimed at this objective and I have personally failed for not elaborating my knowledge with RS dealing with this specific component and not putting my opinion on it forward in our discussion. However, this is not the component the overwhelming criticism is aimed at. The criticism is aimed towards: abandoning risk-based system which is more helpful for general public and law enforcement (for predicting risk of recidivism better), widening the number of offenses covered, application to juveniles etc. points I listed below. I'm not saying that this is completely bad law, but merely that some components were not so well deliberated before passing it, and those are the components attracting the heavy criticism from all over the place, from child safety advocates and civil right organizations to treatment professionals. I'm not a Nambla advocate, I'm merely into public policy questions due to my studies. This piece of legislation (and much of related U.S. laws) strikes me as a prime example of well intended policy with severe drawbacks which no one though through prior enacting it. They were in so much hurry to crack down on predators that the baby went out with the bath water. I hope saying this clears some of the atmosphere between me and you. --ViperFace (talk) 21:12, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Criticism (proposal)

While popularity of sex offender registries within the general populace is wide, the prevailing consensus among academics is that Adam Walsh Act has not met its goals and is not leaning on evidence-based practices. Worries of certain aspects of the law possibly undermining the public safety and causing unnecessary harm are frequently expressed in research literature. For example, treatment professional association ATSA criticizes the act for adopting strictly offense based classification of offenders in lieu of superior scientifically validated risk assessment tools, lack of evidence supporting effectiveness of non-risk based community notification schemes, lack of due process for low‐risk offenders to be removed from state and federal registries, broad definition of the term sexual predator, and the lifetime registration of juveniles. Problems in the law has evoked several advocacy groups such as National RSOL, Women Against Registry and USA FAIR to promote reform. In addition to academic critique, moral objections have been raised by civil right organizations such as Human Rights Watch and ACLU, and legal professional associations such as American Bar Association and NACDL

Consensus building

I believe it might be useful to review where we are at this point. If I misrepresent anyone who’s commented, do please set me straight. (Pinging User:ViperFace, User:MONGO, User:ScrapIronIV, User:FourViolas, User:Tom harrison, User:DHeyward, User:Noterie, User:Flyer22, User:Herostratus, User:My very best wishes.)

As I re-read the talk pages here, at Sex offender, at the NPOV noticeboard entry, and at ViperFace’s talk page, this is how I see things: ViperFace made several well-sourced, but dramatic, changes to two related pages. Knowing that these are volatile topics, folks reverted much and repeatedly (and skeptically) cautioned the new editor. With more discussion, reflection, and time for folks to read the RS’s presented both by the new editor and by James Cantor/User:James Cantor, just about everyone (there being a single? exception) has come to see that the RS’s are valid, and indeed represent the dominant view of real world experts.

So, at this point in the discussion, User:MONGO appears alone in his dissent, bringing us to the need to decide if we are nearly at consensus needing only a few more tweaks, or if we have already reached consensus and are instead experiencing disruptive editing from a single editor, which no amount of content- or policy-related discussion will resolve. As folks would guess, I believe we are at the latter.

Mongo is not producing anything like a list of the RS’s presented by the alternative view, Mongo is presenting no text that might be used to compromise or resolve the conflict, Mongo has repeatedly engaged in combative language and multiple (and empty) threats of admin and other wiki-legal discipline, and refuses meaningful talk such as responding to text suggestions by striking out a newbie’s suggestion saying “I contributed below as requested.”

As I say, I think my view on this is clear, but I before bringing it AN/I (these pages and the relevant issue seemingly falls under the ArbCom’s Sexology restrictions), I thought it important to seeks others’ input.
— James Cantor (talk) 20:10, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

The new material is sourced, and does not appear to be pushing any particular point of view. A passing mention of the criticism of this law and its efficacy (or lack thereof) is more than warranted here. I am unsure why this is being constantly reverted. I don't even think it is a dramatic change. All I am seeing is an accusation of "POV" and "single purpose account" and immediate reversions. The latest blanking of the new section was performed only a minute after it was posted - not even enough time to read through and analyze the new contributions.

I am a new editor here myself, and only stumbled across this discussion when reading policies and the noticeboards. I have no dog in this fight.

What I have seen is a history of sourced edits and compromises on one side of the discussion, and deletions from the other side of the aisle. Some of the deletions have been accompanied by less than kind words, and even veiled accusations. And now, people on both sides of the discussion having been getting personal and emotional. I don't believe that this is how the WP:BRD process is supposed to work. So, rather than just deleting this content, editors should modify it, or present an alternative.

A law is just a law. Sometimes they work well to curb behaviors deemed undesirable by a community, and sometimes they don't. It appears there are genuine concerns about this particular law that are worthy of some mention. Does it belong in the lede? I don't think so. Should it be completely suppressed? Absolutely not. Keeping it in a separate and limited section of the article is entirely reasonable, and has definite support on the talk page.

I am not bold, nor am I specifically knowledgeable about the topic, except for where this article has directed me to look into it. I will not undo the recent deletion - at least not yet. What I will do is try to contribute an eye to POV, and add my two cents where appropriate. Bottom line is that what has been added comes across as (adequately) neutral, reasonable, and worthy of inclusion. It should be included. ScrapIronIV (talk) 20:14, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

James Cantor is as biased on this subject as anyone I have come across. This article is neither the place not the venue to engage in platform pushing, agenda pushing or POV pushing. I offered several times for Cantor to produce a neutral worded short critique section that clarifies the possible flaws in the law...all he and ViperFace have produced is a series of agenda sources that support their apologetics for this deviant behavior. He failed to gain consensus for his views at the NPOV noticeboard so he threatens going to another noticeboard to try and eliminate anyone who doesn't agree with his agenda here...that's forum shopping if I ever saw it. Good luck. Produce a neutral summary of the actual proof that the law is bad, that it does more harm than good...something that demonstrates that even 10 percent of those adversely impacted even exist. I asked for Cantor to show more than some opinion pieces by social scientists and law professionals that the law is doing more harm than good...he hasn't done that. All I see is sources that cite a few cases where the law has been detrimental. These few examples are never going to be sufficient to compel legislative changes. VioerFace has admitted he wishes to use this article as a platform for his advocacy...apparently in his home country they may wish to adopt legislation similar to this one and he is opposed to that. As ViperFace has stated, peopkebhefe may read this article which will possibly influence their decisions there. That is not what Misplaced Pages exists for....we are not a place to promote such an agenda.--MONGO 21:16, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

I absolutely agree that Misplaced Pages should not be used for activism. But, to be honest, I am not seeing it in the wording of this criticism section. I don't think that the intent in what I read here is that the law does more harm than good, nor that the law is bad. When I read it, my take-away is that the law could be better, and that it is not as effective as it could be. I do not think that those are unreasonable claims.

I do think that the sources could be improved, though. If there are ideas "frequently expressed" in research, I would like to see a source for that. The same can be said of the "prevailing consensus" statement. Sources to back those statements up should be available, if the claims are supportable. I don't think that using the ATSA website for those citations would be adequate, because then there would be too much dependence upon an individual source for things described as frequently expressed, or prevalent. Perhaps this would be a good place to start. ScrapIronIV (talk) 22:12, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

The issue is the inability of Cantor or ViperFace to provide a succinct and neutral section and they have yet to do so. Soon as myself and others give them an inch they want a mile. They just want a foothold of POV laden arguments here to get a foothold to expand on later. Check the edit history of ViperFace on this article and look at his earliest edits and you'll see exactly where he and Cantor want to take this article.--MONGO 22:37, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

That Mongo dislikes all text suggested is, of course, his right; however, his comment above suggests that his problem isn't with the text we're actually discussing, but is instead with text that exists only in his imagination. Because he has yet to suggest any text at all, however, he/we are not improving the page. Rather, we are in the situation of Mongo's personal IDONTLIKEIT to any suggestion while indicating no alternative. In the absence of even a single editor agreeing with his view, that behaviour is the very meaning of disruptive rather than productive editing.

ScrapIronIV's suggestions are perfectly reasonable, although statements from a large, international professional society which has as members most of the world's topic experts can probably be used to support more claims than most RS's can, IMO.

— James Cantor (talk) 15:58, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Your intent is to support a POV laden piece that endorses your twisted view of the legislation, a view based on apologetics for deviant behavior and defended by opinions defined from a tiny fraction of those compelled to comply with the law that may have been adversely impacted. I enjoyed reading some of the weak arguments put forward by the references you support, in which "experts" defend their apologetics for this deviancy by reciting a miniscule few examples...."Joe only did this and now he can't get a job or find a place to live" nonsense. I mentioned earlier that these "examples" of inconveniences do not even represent a noteworthy percentage except for those opposed to the legislation due to their defense of oftentimes heinous behavior. All this article is is a recitation of the legislation, who passed it, when and why. I have no problem with a short summary of critique because there are few perfect laws...but that has not been the edits you have made or supported. Until you are capable of providing a neutral worded nonpartisan summary critique we will find no common ground.--MONGO 17:31, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

From the tendentiousness of the proposed addition, the changes do seem motivated by ideology, and may be connected with a desire to change the legislation. It's not a good idea to use the project to advance an agenda. Moreover, separate criticism sections often lead to poor articles. In this article as in many others, differing views should be presented in context. Finally, the burden is on the one who wants to add the material. It seems to me that the arguments presented by James Cantor and ViperFace for the proposed addition (though it's lined out now - ?) are inadequate. Tom Harrison 20:56, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

The proposed addition doesn't appear to be anything more than an attempt to discredit the law rather than describe it. It's advocacy of a certain view rather than objective criticism. I'd expect there are criticisms from all sides including that it doesn't go far enough. --DHeyward (talk) 02:47, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Er...you'd expect? So, not only have you presented no such RS's, but also you haven't even bothered to look? You're just opposing the dozens of RS's showing exactly the opposite of what you believe solely on the basis of you don't want to believe it...and don't want actually to check your beliefs? Nice.— James Cantor (talk) 17:34, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

I've removed the embedded personal attacks in your heading. You expect us to agree to your apologist edit suggestions by attacking those that disagree with your POV pushing and personal attacks? No way and no how.--MONGO 17:52, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

1. Identifying/labelling editing as disruptive (such as your striking through other editor's proposals and deleting other editors comments) is not personal attack. Resolving disruptive editing requires identifying it as such.

2. A personal attack requires that the comment be personal. The section title refers to the edits as disruptive and says nothing about you as a person.

I can suggest only that you bring the issue to ANI or other appropriate forum (in addition to ceasing to: edit and strike-through others' comments, fail to present RS's in support of your view, label other editors as SPAs etc, and presume you know the minds and motivations of other people (which does constitute personal attack)).

— James Cantor (talk) 18:11, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Its not a label to identify a SPA if that is an easily demonstrated thing, as myself and others at ViperFace's talkpage and the NPOV noticeboard have done. Perhaps in your eyes your edit suggestions appear neutral but not to me. It looks like a laundry list of excuses to make excuses for deviant behavior. What part about this being simply an article about the law itself don't you get? repeatedly myself and others have made overtures of compromise where a neutral treatise of critique could be interwoven in the article, but what you want is an entire rewrite, heavily laden with apologetics those that are overwhelmingly believed to be a threat to society. I even agreed that as with almost any law, some fallout that adversely impacts those that have done minimal crime may be more harshly penalized than they should be. However, even with those compromises, you and ViperFace have yet to produce a neutral treatise on that aspect of the law's potential faults.--MONGO 18:58, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

1. How it looks to you is irrelevant. How it looks to the RS's is what matters. And you have yet to provide any RS's, whereas I have listed dozens showing that you're wrong. If you provide RS's, I am happy to write text that includes them. It's silly to claim text is biased for failing to include RSs that don't exist. It isn't that the text is biased, it's that the RS's don't say what you want them to.

2. So you're not denying that you haven't even looked for RS's to support what you want on the mainpage? Or, you did look, find some, but you're not going to share them with anyone?

— James Cantor (talk) 19:43, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

PS- It's hypocritical to say that it's okay to call out someone for being a SPA, but it's not okay to call out someone for disruptive editing.— James Cantor (talk) 19:43, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

What is your goal here anyway? Your reliable sources mainly discuss sex offender registries in general and either don't say a thing about this act or do so only in passing.--MONGO 23:16, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

My goal is for WP pages on this topic to reflect proportionately what is contained in the RS's on the topic. (Wow: A professional scholar wants WP to reflect the content of the scholarly sources. Amazing, I know.)

The effects of registration are entirely relevant to the law that mandates registration. The effects of the other provisions of the law are similarly entirely relevant. The ethical concerns posed by the law, as expressed by multiple, major civil rights groups, ditto.

I would ask you the same thing of "your" RS's...except that you don't have any. So, given your complete inability to provide any RS's, there's little point to asking what your goal is. (Moreover, neither of our "goals" is relevant. What matters is WP's goal, and that is to convey the content of the RS's.)

— James Cantor (talk) 23:41, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Then you're still in the wrong article since your "reliable sources", as I already stated, either do not mention THIS ACT or do so in only a superficial manner. Do scholars in your field of "scholarship" routinely try to pass off a one percent fail as hard proof that something doesn't work? Maybe that why it's called "soft" science.--MONGO 02:13, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

LOL Nevermind being mere sophistry, that's not even good sophistry. SOME of the RS's are about registration directly and mention AWA indirectly. SOME are about AWA directly. That SOME are indirect is not at all an argument to exclude all direct and indirect RS's. That you continue to provide NO RS returns us to the same point yet again. I can only repeat: Present whatever RS's you like, direct, indirect, and otherwise, and I will be happy to support their inclusion on the mainpage.

As for me, I am known most for my research in neuroscience, hardly a soft science in anyone's book. That you again refer specifically to me personally (and to my profession) rather than to any RS or policy is, of course, what makes your comments personal attacks rather than good editing.

— James Cantor (talk) 04:31, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

We are at the same point since all this article is about is the act itself and isn't a platform for advocacy. Once you actually present a neutral critique section that gets consensus for incorporation let me know.--MONGO 06:04, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Note: I did not receive Cantor's ping via WP:Echo above, and have only just now significantly read this discussion. Yes, this talk page is on my WP:Watchlist, but I am mostly ignoring all these sex offender disputes. I have enough contentious articles to worry about. I just stated the following at the Sex offender talk page: "As shown in my sex offender discussion with ViperFace above, I was clear that certain types of sex offenders are a threat, or are very much a threat, and that I was not asserting that consensual close-in-age matters with regard to age of consent are a part of that threat. I think it's clear, except apparently to ViperFace, that I was not referring to all sex offenders. So if anyone refers to what I am in agreement on in this case, keep that in mind. I was not reverting ViperFace; nor am I in complete agreement with ViperFace's view of things regarding the topic of sex offenders." Flyer22 (talk) 07:22, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm aware what you meant there. Some subsets are known to be more dangerous than others. Dangerousness is feature of the person. Committing a crime (even a repulsive one) does not necessarily mean that the person is dangerous in future. This is the problem the criticism is mostly aimed at: the law does not differentiate between seriousness of the crime nor the danger the offender poses, it merely concentrates to the statute that was violated. The system is not seen as effective as it could possibly be by majority of academics. ViperFace (talk) 22:50, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Criticism section

After reading the entirety of both this page and the NPOV discussion, I have 3 distinct impressions:

1) There appears to be a pattern of reverts and edit warring, primarily fron user MONGO, that are innapropriate. Multiple other parties have exhaustively listed a slew of RS covering a broad swath of criticism that should be contained in the article. All attempts to reason are fought off with less than impressive arguments, and more importantly, no references or citations that contradict.

2) I am impressed by the conduct, tone, and perseverance of those who wish this article to reflect that content. It's nice to see a sustained argument less about wikilawyering and more about comprehensive and rational arguments supported by sources.

3) I find myself in amazement that after all this discussion, the intractable editing of essentially 1 person with no argument except WP:IDONTLIKEIT has prevented this article from being a better source of information. There is clearly consensus, let's make this article better.

I've reverted MONGOS entire revert/striking of criticism section. It's impossible to have evaluated the entire section and go through the sources, making a bad bath determinat ion all in less than 60 seconds. 07:06, 4 January 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1008:B15B:D2BF:0:2D:5342:3001 (talk) 06:54, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree that a criticism section is called for.... Mongo, c'mon, back off a little willya? For one thing, the points made on the merits of the case by various editors are compelling and convincing. It is a pretty bad law, you know. If the criticism were based on false data or disingenuous arguments or whatever that'd be one thing. But they're not, it seems.

Hey, I'm the person who rolled back the original edits in the first place. I'm telling you, Mongo et al, it was never my intent to prevent all mention of objections. They are sufficiently notable and worthwhile for it be a service to the reader to describe them, so let's. My original objection was threefold: 1) to not dump on the law in the lede, 2) to provide a reasonably concise description of the objections, so as not to overwhelm the rest of the article, 3) to provide the "other side" for balance, if there is one (it seems there isn't one, much beyond beyond "the law is popular"). Those having been met, we're good to go with some sort of criticism section IMO.

So let's not fight over this. Let the criticism section go forward (the current version has been hammered out some and seems pretty good, but if you want to take out or change individual statements that'd be fine). Herostratus (talk) 17:24, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

It seems to me that this is not so much about the content of the edit, but the fact that it was edited by me. Unfortunately this has gone to somewhat personal and MONGO is watching me like a hawk blocking everything I try, so I guess it's better if someone else does the editing.ViperFace (talk) 23:02, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Actual criticism of the law would be acceptable. The problem is that most of it is synthesized about how a different method might be more effective presuming objectives that may or may not be intended. Taken at its face value, the law achieves its objectives of creating a national database. Issues regarding how states investigate/arrest/prosecute/sentence child sex offenders is unrelated. Disparities are unrelated. Whether a different law would be better is irrelevant and places wikipedia as an advocate of change rather than an encyclopedia of knowledge. Perhaps this material belongs in a "treatment for sex offenders" page but nearly all of this criticism is unrelated to this law. --DHeyward (talk) 07:31, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

For a foresight article, see Prohibition in the United States. This was enacted and repealed. It doesn't have a "criticism" section, rather it simply has facts about the enactment, effects and repeal. A section that tries to establish a "better" prohibition that doesn't exist is simply not relevant to an encyclopedia. --DHeyward (talk) 07:43, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Criticism is mostly towards conviction based registration mandated by the act, adding more listed offenses that require registration to those states already using their own conviction based registry system, and listing juvenile offenders. The act requires states to abandon risk based systems and adopt conviction based systems instead. Risk assessment tools have been shown to be superior to conviction based registration in predicting recidivism. Thus, tier designation under AWA is not effective in describing offenders risk to public. All this leads to:

• loss of judicial discretion of judges
• over-broad registries when numbers of low level offenders have to be included
• diluted registries where truly dangerous offenders may hide among large amount of non/low risk offenders (parents and law enforcement have to divide their attention on large number of offenders)
• arguably disproportional punishment to some non-dangerous offenders
• combination of AWA and state legislation may undermine low level offenders ability to lead law abiding lives by causing unemployment, homelessness etc. instability
• ability of some dangerous offenders to escape registration when allowed to plea down to non-listed offenses (risk assessment might catch these)

I agree with DHeyward: The law is successful in its main objective, that is creating the uniform database and tracing offenders across state lines. I have not witnessed a single RS disputing that. However, almost all other aspects of the law are attracting criticism from academics, child safety advocates, civil right organizations, legal professionals. Such a wide spread criticism among those familiar with actual content of the act is encyclopedic IMO. Capital punishment in the United States article has debate section. I'm ok with including debate section, but it would be leaning to side of criticism anyway since there is virtually no RS to support this act. Notion of general public supporting the act and its success in tracking offenders (if any, I have not seen any supporting RS yet) are pretty much all there is from the supporting side of the debate. ViperFace (talk) 23:58, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm done with your advocacy and POV pushing on this article. It's obvious your intention on this website is to advocate a position and every time I have encountered someone an editor like that they end up banned. If you care about writing a neutral encyclopedia then branch out and find a new series of articles unrelated to the ones you have been so single purposely been working on.--MONGO 03:21, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree with MONGO. The criticism cited isn't about the law or the act. It has very little to do with the it. This isn't the article to argue for pedophile reform as it has nothing to do with it. -DHeyward (talk) 04:15, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

The criticism cited is directly related to the provision mandating states to abandon superior risk-based systems and adopt conviction based system instead, which is seen to cause the problems listed above. The points listed above appear virtually every study dealing with the act.ViperFace (talk) 09:01, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Hello everybody! I've been busy with my studies so I have not been able to stir up the unrest here for a while. Unfortunately there seems to be no progress nor consensus building of any kind going on, so I'll make an attempt once again to build something covering the downsides of the act. Please, find my suggestion below. I'm planning to move it on main page after a week or two unless broad resistance occurs. I'd like everyone who has taken part of our past discussion (and everyone who stumbles on this) to address their opinion whether to proceed with suggested edit or not by commenting "yes/no" or some other expression of approval/disapproval, so that we get a picture of how close/far we are from consensus. I'm hoping those who vote "no" to point out which parts should be changed/deleted/improved somehow. I know, it's long, almost the size of history section... Hopefully discussion stays more civil than on last round and strictly on the proposed edit.ViperFace (talk) 21:41, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Controversy (suggestion)

Adam Walsh Act and individual state legislation alike effectively erase judicial discretion of the judges by enacting mandatory registration and public notification procedures based solely on conviction offenses. Therefore, neither mitigating factors nor actuarial risk presented by individual offender has no influence to the application of registration requirements. AWA also amends previous federal guidelines by requiring states to register more offenders (e.g. juveniles), extends the length of registration periods, and mandates states to publicly identify at least all offenders convicted of offenses that are statutorily defined as tier II or tier III offenses. In addition, AWA makes these amendments to apply retroactively to those who already completed their initial registration period and broadens the range of offenses against adults to cover crimes that involve sexual contact, while preceeding Jacob Wetterling Act act was limited to assaults involving sexual acts, such as rape.

The laws tendency to treat all offenders categorically the same regardless of true severity of the crime and ignoring actuarial risk assessment tools as well as its retroactivity has generated criticism. According a survey, politicians believe that sex offender laws are too broad due to their extension to nonviolent offenses, low-risk offenders, and thus diluting the law enforcement potency of sex offender registries. Some have called the law "overly harsh” and possibly wasting resources and scarlet-lettering wrong people. Some judges have expressed their displeasure when having to label now-adults with steady lives who committed their crimes as children as sex offenders.Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page). HRW has urged states not to adopt the act.

Prior implementation of AWA in Ohio 76% of adult and 88% of juvenile offenders were designated on least restrictive category or had not to register, while 20% of adults and 5% juveniles were classified as "sexual predators". After re-classification mandated by AWA 55% of adults and 46% of juvenile offenders were placed in the highest and most restrictive tier 3. 41% of adults and 43% of juveniles previously in lowest category and 59% of adults and 45% of juveniles who were not previously registered were assigned to Tier 3. Some law enforcement officials and child safety advocates say that non-discriminatory registries mandated by AWA which include all offenders makes them less useful in helping public and police to identify and monitor truly dangerous individuals.

Some research results suggest that broad public notification exacerbate collateral consequences of registration for low risk offenders, possibly obstructing any protective effects and diminishing the benefits of registration. At least one study suggest to increased non-sexual recidivism among offenders subject to public notification while studies finding decrease in sex offense recidivism rates have been limited to AWA non-compliant states that apply scientifically validated risk assessment tools and reserve community notification to only high-risk offenders. At least one study suggest that broad community notification policies increase sex offender recidivism. Due to these findings the rationality of AWA's non-discriminatory strictly offense based criterion has been questioned. Professionals generally recommend adopting risk based approach and narrow notification scheme, in which all or most offenders are required to register but only small subset of high-risk offenders are subject to public notification.

RSOL, along with American Civil Liberties Union have raised constitutional challenges against amendments passed to bring individual states in line with Adam Walsh Act. Recently some state supreme courts have found states sex offender registration to be punitive, rather than regulatory, thus finding retroactive application of AWA to be in violation of the constitution. Other supreme courts have ruled AWA's life time registration of juveniles unconstitutional. ViperFace (talk) 21:41, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

RS's on this continue to mount...and continue to be missing from the page.

I have already expressed my view that RS's discussing problems with the law should appear on the mainpage. Despite that such information is not to the taste of a minority of editors here, the RS's themselves continue to mount, with the very groups that passed the law pointing out its flaws and calling for changing it:

http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/nevada-legislature/bill-would-repeal-adam-walsh-sex-offender-act-nevada

That the WP page on that very law contains no such information (again, due to a minority of page OWNers) is not very encyclopedic.
— James Cantor (talk) 15:04, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

How can the owners be a "minority"? That makes no more sense than your other POV pushing agenda.--MONGO 16:05, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Um, by WP policy and by math. For policy: read WP:Multiple-editor ownership. Also, from WP:OWN: "It is quite reasonable to take an interest in an article on a topic you care about − perhaps you are an expert, or perhaps it is just your hobby; however, if this watchfulness starts to become possessiveness, then you are overdoing it." The OWN behavior is clear: The OWNers cite no RSs, cite no policy, make editorial suggestions that are clearly counter to policy (such as POVFORKing), offer no compromises, and repeatedly post name-calling and other ad hominems. For math: A minority of the editors who expressed an opinion want to exclude from the mainpage all of the (rather overwhelming number of) RSs evaluating AWA. Initially, some editors mistook edits to be potential violations of WP:CHILDPROTECT, but as the number of very high quality RSs continued to mount, those initial editors changed their minds, except for a few. They are clearly fewer than a majority, but they are more than a single person, so seem enough for claiming that there is no consensus on the other side either.

— James Cantor (talk) 17:03, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

The difference is I think the article should be about he legislation...whereby all you want is to POV push your agenda which is in opposition to this legislation. Not sure why you are worried about it anyway since you live in Canada right?--MONGO 17:16, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

While previously I had supported the idea of a short section on criticism of the law, I have come to believe that this was an incorrect stance. There is clearly a slippery slope here, and the increasing number (and decreasing quality) of the sources presented show a definite attempt to put a bias into the article. This article should be maintained for what the law "is" and not for what the law "could be" or "should be." If the contributors wish to make changes to the legal system, it should be done through legal activism, and not through revision of public information archives. Start a blog, or something. ScrapIronIV (talk) 17:50, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

WP:NPOV does not stand for "no points of view". We are required to cover all significant viewpoints, including critical ones. There is absolutely no support for excluding criticism in any Misplaced Pages policy, guideline or precedent. Compare Patriot Act or any other article about a controversial law. Per WP:CRITS, the section should be named Reception or Assessment, but that is no excuse to censor the view of an organization as notable as the ACLU. 24.215.88.81 (talk) 18:56, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Significant viewpoints, certainly. I would have supported that. I DID support that. But that is not what is happening; rather, there is an increasing push to place insignificant viewpoints in, and it won't stop. POV pushers will cry about every incident where a criminal is mildly inconvenienced in order to promote their activism. Most of these sources are blogs and editorials; therefore, they are non-starters from the get-go. The law is what it is, and the sources presented reflect a minority view that would lend undue weight to an extreme minority opinion, the Aberrant Crooked Lawyers' Union notwithstanding. ScrapIronIV (talk) 19:08, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Err what?? I have checked through the sources multiple times, yet I repeatedly keep on finding zero blogs and one editorial stating the fact that aclu is involved. Unless you count Alternet as a blog (that citation is misplaced btw). Are you seriously implying that 1-2 out of 19 constitutes "most"??? Also which of the view points you consider particularly insignificant? Policy-makers' perceptions, HRWs' ethical objection, courts ruling AWA as unconstitutional or possibly counter productive effects pointed out by many? Pick one or more, please. ViperFace (talk) 01:28, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Like ViperFace, I am having trouble reconciling ScrapIron's comments with the diffs in front of us. Scrap says "increasing push," but the edit history has talk page entries only weeks apart (and no mainpage entries). Scrap says "insignificant viewpoint" from "blogs and editorials," but the RSs presented come from peer reviewed journals and high-end secondary sources (and there exist many more RSs that repeat it). Scrap says the idea that negative statements about the AWA are a "minority opinion," but when (repeatedly) invited to present whatever RSs with that POV are missing, no one provides any. There certainly exist crooked lawyers, but just because you are a 10 on the reactionary scale does not mean that the 9s are on the same side as the 1's. What matters is that the mainpage proportionately matches the RSs, and you are opposing the content of a very large number of high quality RSs in support of an opinion that is not supported by any RS presented by anyone. — James Cantor (talk) 02:03, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

How many actual incidents of inconvienence are caused by the legislation? I asked before if it was even 10 percent....no answer because each and everyone of your refs cite but one or two examples of how the law has been harmful. Then these advocates try to use those few numbers to say see, the law is bad. That's about as unscientific an approach as I can imagine...but if it supports their predetermined bias, it works for them.--MONGO 03:09, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Just couple of quotes from the link James posted above: "We are at a very high suicide rate for juveniles,” she said. “We don’t want to push them over the edge." and “We had a really good sex offender law before the Adam Walsh Act,” Segerblom said. “Sometimes you just need to say, ‘I’m sorry.’ A bad law is a bad law.” If you care to read Raised on the registry and No Easy Answers by HRW you will get some kind of picture. "How many actual incidents of inconvienence are caused by the legislation?" is asking for OR which you very well know is not allowed. There will be no RS addressing you rather juvenile question. Measuring "incidents of inconvenience" would be arbitrarily subjective: Hard core child molester would consider any repercussion of the legislation unjust, while hard core christian would consider stigmatizing a person for life for exposing his willy as a prank decades ago as totally justifiable. If being listed as tier 3 offender (retroactively), when person was not required to be listed prior implementation of AWA may be considered as a measurement "incidents of inconvenience" it seems to be rather large: 59% of adults and 45% of juveniles who were not previously registered were assigned to Tier 3. ViperFace (talk) 13:17, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Also ScrapIronIV, this latest proposal is pretty much what I think would be in balance with the huge amount of critical RS there exists, but since what goes on main page can't be solely decided by me I asked others opinion to titillate some discussion in hopes of seeing some progress. I have somewhere above stated twice that I would be and still am willing to settle if the piece that was subject to edit waring (and was ok'd by you) went on the main page, even though I still would hold that it does not give a weight appropriate to the weight of that aspect in the body of reliable sources on the subject per WP:NPOW balancing recommendation. I would not be happy, but it's better than nothing at all. Unfortunately even that is blocked by the page owners. Patriot Act article brought up by James contains controversy section that is by far largest section of the whole article. Assuming that Patriot Act article is in balance, then there should be no problem with my latest proposal. Google scholar results for Patriot Act are similarly unanimously negative to the act, precisely like is the case with Adam Walsh Act. Anyway, I move a slightly edited piece of this latest proposal to the main page under Effects section where it clearly belongs and strike the part from the proposal.ViperFace (talk) 13:11, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

The main difference between this and the Patriot Act is that the Patriot Act is, in fact, truly controversial. Controversies over that are mainstream, not fringe. I will not edit war here, or anywhere else. What I will do is remove my support for the inclusion of anything more than a passing mention of controversy here. As I have stated before, and is reinforced by your own statements, there is a concerted effort to put far more into the article than is warranted. I would rather have nothing at all than to give undue weight to an extreme fringe opinion. ScrapIronIV (talk) 14:10, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm opposed to this effort to misuse this article to advocate a fringe viewpoint.--MONGO 15:35, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Assembled references

1. Levenson, Jill S.; Brannon, Yolanda N.; Fortney, Timothy; Baker, Juanita (12 April 2007). "Public Perceptions About Sex Offenders and Community Protection Policies". Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy. 7 (1): 070619081026002–???. doi:10.1111/j.1530-2415.2007.00119.x.
2. Harris, A. J.; Lobanov-Rostovsky, C.; Levenson, J. S. (2 April 2010). "Widening the Net: The Effects of Transitioning to the Adam Walsh Act's Federally Mandated Sex Offender Classification System". Criminal Justice and Behavior. 37 (5): 503–519. doi:10.1177/0093854810363889.
3. Levenson, J. S.; D'Amora, D. A. (1 June 2007). "Social Policies Designed to Prevent Sexual Violence: The Emperor's New Clothes?". Criminal Justice Policy Review. 18 (2): 168–199. doi:10.1177/0887403406295309.
4. Ackerman, Alissa R.; Harris, Andrew J.; Levenson, Jill S.; Zgoba, Kristen (May 2011). "Who are the people in your neighborhood? A descriptive analysis of individuals on public sex offender registries". International Journal of Law and Psychiatry. 34 (3): 149–159. doi:10.1016/j.ijlp.2011.04.001.
5. Freeman, N. J.; Sandler, J. C. (25 June 2009). "The Adam Walsh Act: A False Sense of Security or an Effective Public Policy Initiative?". Criminal Justice Policy Review. 21 (1): 31–49. doi:10.1177/0887403409338565.
6. Tewksbury, R.; Jennings, W. G. (2 April 2010). "Assessing the Impact of Sex Offender Registration and Community Notification On Sex-Offending Trajectories". Criminal Justice and Behavior. 37 (5): 570–582. doi:10.1177/0093854810363570.
7. Levenson, Jill S.; Brannon, Yolanda N.; Fortney, Timothy; Baker, Juanita (12 April 2007). "Public Perceptions About Sex Offenders and Community Protection Policies". Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy. 7 (1): 070619081026002–???. doi:10.1111/j.1530-2415.2007.00119.x.
8. "Re: Pending Sex Offender Registry Legislation (HR 4472)" (PDF). http://www.atsa.com. Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abuse. 8 March 2006. {{cite web}}: External link in |website= (help)
9. "The Registration and Community Notification of Adult Sexual Offenders". http://www.atsa.com. Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers. April 5, 2010. Retrieved 14 November 2014. {{cite web}}: External link in |website= (help)
10. Lovett, Ian (October 1, 2013). "Restricted Group Speaks Up, Saying Sex Crime Measures Go Too Far". The New York Times. Retrieved 14 November 2014.
11. Blow, Steve (17 July 2014). "We can do better on sex offender laws". The Dallas Morning News. Retrieved 14 November 2014.
12. Levin, Sam (5 September 2013). "Missouri Sex Offenders: "Women Against Registry" Says Labels Unfairly Destroy Lives". Riverfront Times. Riverfront Times, LLC. Retrieved 17 November 2014.
13. Kenyon, Jim (22 May 2013). "Sex offenders - one woman's mission to separate myth from fact". CNY Central. WMTV. Granite Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 17 November 2014.
14. "Comments on the interim regulations to Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 (Pub. L. 109-248), the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA); OAG Docket No. 117" (PDF). http://www.americanbar.org. American Bar Association. {{cite web}}: External link in |website= (help)
15. "Sex Offenses". www.nacdl.org. National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Retrieved 17 December 2014.
16. Letourneau, E. J.; Levenson, J. S.; Bandyopadhyay, D.; Armstrong, K. S.; Sinha, D. (27 April 2010). "The Effects of Sex Offender Registration and Notification on Judicial Decisions". Criminal Justice Review. 35 (3): 297. doi:10.1177/0734016809360330.
17. Rogers, Laura. "Sex Offender Registry Laws: From Jacob Wetterling to Adam Walsh" (PDF). Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehension, Registration and Tracking (SMART) Office.
18. Meloy, M.; Curtis, K.; Boatwright, J. (23 Nov 2012). "Policy-makers' perceptions on their sex offender laws: the good, the bad, and the ugly". Criminal Justice Studies. 26 (3). doi:10.1080/1478601.2012.744307.
19. "State reluctantly implements 'harsh' sex offender law". Las Vegas Review-Journal. 14 December 2013.
20. "Some States Refuse to Implement SORNA, Lose Federal Grants". Prison Legal News. 19 September 2014.
21. Silver, Charlotte (23 July 2013). "No Justice: Sex Offenses, No Matter How Minor or Understandable, Can Ruin You for Life". Alternet.
22. ^ "Protecting Children from Sexual Violence: Don't Adopt the Adam Walsh Act". Human Rights Watch. 22 January 2008.
23. Harris, A. J.; Lobanov-Rostovsky, C.; Levenson, J. S. (2 April 2010). "Widening the Net: The Effects of Transitioning to the Adam Walsh Act's Federally Mandated Sex Offender Classification System". Criminal Justice and Behavior. 37 (5): 503–519. doi:10.1177/0093854810363889.
24. Prescott, J.J.; Rockoff, Jonah E. (February 2011). "Do Sex Offender Registration and Notification Laws Affect Criminal Behavior?". Journal of Law and Economics. 54 (1): 161–206. doi:10.1086/658485.
25. DUWE, GRANT; DONNAY, WILLIAM (May 2008). "THE IMPACT OF MEGAN'S LAW ON SEX OFFENDER RECIDIVISM: THE MINNESOTA EXPERIENCE". Criminology. 46 (2): 411–446. doi:10.1111/j.1745-9125.2008.00114.x.
26. "SEX OFFENDER SENTENCING IN WASHINGTON STATE : HAS COMMUNITY NOTIFICATION REDUCED RECIDIVISM?". Washington State Institute for Public Policy. December 2005.
27. Levenson, Jill (2009). "Sex offense recidivism, risk assessment, and the Adam Walsh Act" (PDF). www.leg.state.vt.us.
28. Prescott, J.J.; Rockoff, Jonah E. (February 2011). "Do Sex Offender Registration and Notification Laws Affect Criminal Behavior?". Journal of Law and Economics. 54 (1): 161–206. doi:10.1086/658485.
29. "Group challenging Pa.'s Megan's Law". Public Opinion. 25 December 2012.
30. "Editorial: Sex offender registry law is unconstitutional". Concord Monitor. 7 May 2014.
31. "Court rules state sex offender registry unconstitutional". The Herald Bulletin. 28 August 2012.
32. "Maryland Appeals Court restricts who can be listed on state's sex-offender registry". The Washington Post. 1 July 2014.
33. "Supreme Court strikes down sex offender law - Ohio's Adam Walsh Act is cruel and unusual punishment". The Columbus Dispatch. 3 April 2012.
34. "Lifetime registration for juvenile sex offenders ruled unconstitutional". 1 January 2015.

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