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This article argues that the new preventive law focus in sex offender laws is largely ineffective and too costly to personal liberty. The application of sex offender laws involving civil commitment, sex offender registration, and residency restrictions is often based on an individualized analysis of future dangerousness, i.e., the risk the defendant will sexually recidivate. In assessing future dangerousness, experts and courts place heavy emphasis on the use of actuarial tools, basically checklists that mental health experts use to derive statistical estimates of risk. This article provides substantiation that actuarial tools, while enjoying the imprimatur of science, suffer from significant empirical faults. Yet courts are largely abandoning their gatekeeping roles in accepting the experts' testimony using actuarial tool predictions of risk without critical review as required by the Daubert and Frye evidentiary standards. The paper theorizes that this is likely a pragmatic strategy considering the current political and public thirst for retribution against sexual predators. But, use of this empirically-challenged science exacerbates the practice of applying sex offender restrictions to inappropriately labeled individuals. Finally, this article takes advantage of the interdisciplinary trend of engaging social science with the law on expert evidence. More specifically, it offers an empirical assessment of future dangerousness opinions within the Daubert/Frye scientific evidence frameworks. The significance of the conclusion reached in this article is clear: if the law continues to rely upon suspect science that results in the wrong individuals being subject to liberty-infringing sex offender laws, then the drain on criminal justice resources will leave the truly dangerous offenders without sufficient supervision at the risk of public safety.

Managing sex offenders effectively is among the key public policy interests and priorities among lawmakers and the constituents they represent.1 State and national lawmaking bodies throughout the country have enacted large numbers of sex offender-specific laws in a relatively short period of time, primarily to increase mandatory prison sentences, provide for closer tracking and monitoring, and increase restrictions and sanctions.2 However, evidence regarding the impact and effectiveness of many of these laws and policies is limited. Furthermore, while these laws presumably reflect public demand and interests, relatively little is known about the public's awareness and attitudes about these policies.

Original Article01/20/2014 In the recent months there have been a number of articles and news sources about politicians and other prominent people involved in sex crimes. There have also been a significant number involving police officers. This ...

Original Article11/10/2013 In a recent article posted here, the static-99 (an actuarial assessment instrument) developers are embracing retention and have posted a new report that sex offender risk plunges over time and the community. This is so...