By Audrey Sawyer
WASHINGTON, DC – The Sentencing Project this week released a recent research brief entitled “Responding to Crimes of a Sexual Nature,” which evaluates misbeliefs on crimes of a sexual nature (CSNs) that enhance the rise of imprisonment rates and the lengthening of sentences.
The project also made recommendations to reform the responses to any crime in this category.
The brief raises the concern that “sexual violence in America is a systemic social problem, government responses that favor excessive prison sentences fail to address the root causes of crimes of a sexual nature, nor do they repair harm.” The brief states the “misdirection of limited resources toward extreme punishments restricts resources that could go toward prevention.”
Patty Wetterling, co-founder of the Jacob Wetterling Resource Center, and who had once lobbied for sex offense registration after her son was abducted, said. “What we really want is no more victims. How can we get there? Locking them up forever, labeling them, and not allowing them community support does not work,” adding current laws and policies must be changed, revisited, and challenged.
The brief explains how policies since the 1990s have brought individuals convicted of CSNs to not only have increased use of incarceration but also with longer sentences, and that 70 percent of individuals arrested for rape or other similar offenses in 2020 were white, but people of color were sentenced to prison at rates two or three times higher compared against white individuals.
Another finding included in the brief is that individuals convicted of rape or sexual assault find themselves serving more time in prison prior to their releases.
The brief reports there was a 64 percent increase in the number of individuals incarcerated for 10 years or more for a rape or sexual assault conviction before their releases (in the timeframe of 2010-2020). The brief argues that if patterns were to continue at similar rates, this would significantly contribute to mass incarceration, while simultaneously slowing decarceration.
One misconception about CSNs the brief outlines is the thought that CSNs are highly likely to be repeated. On the contrary, said the brief, CSNs actually have low rates of recidivism, noting that the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) tracking of more than 400,000 people originally convicted of rape and assault who left prison in 2005 found more than 92 percent of individuals released with these convictions after a nine-year follow-up were not rearrested for another rape or sexual assault.
Another misconception, said the project’s brief, is that CSNs are usually perpetrated by strangers. The brief again cites BJS by tracking 20 states and finding 87 percent to 96 percent of people arrested for CSN purposes were known by the survivor.
The brief elaborates on how expansive the system is in terms of punishment and what is considered a crime of sexual nature. The example provided in the brief explains two consenting teenagers who have sex could receive up to a 15-year prison sentence in Florida, or up to a 20-year prison sentence in the state of Alabama.
While the brief includes many suggestions, a few recommended by the Sentencing Project include capping the CSN sentences at 20 years (the Sentencing Project argues two decades in prison is still an exceptionally lengthy time), relocating funds saved from lengthy and longtime CSN sentences to invest in sexual violence prevention efforts/ to provide assistance to survivors and improve overall media coverages to appropriately represent CSN.
SP said media coverage supports CSN misconceptions, and lawmakers get the impression that the general public supports harsher sentencing, as the media tends to cover those stories instead.
