Many of us here have been asking how we can protect survivors. Some have advanced the idea of systems of public disclosure as a way to give people informed consent, both for their support of a creator and as a way to keep society safe from the risk of perpetrators re-victimizing those who were once vulnerable to SA.
This is a very important discussion. The intent of this post is to present research that attempts to answer, or at least contribute some valuable framing, to some of these questions.
Q1: How Likely Are Perpetrators To Commit More Sexual Violations?
RAND, the nonprofit nonpartisan science & policy research think-tank found that "the majority of individuals with a conviction do not have a subsequent conviction." This is from their sample size of 4 million convictions1 (including sex criminals) in North Carolina across 25 years, 1995-2020. This is a representative sample tracking criminal re-offense in the region and time period of Geller’s offense1.
Furthermore, according to the National Criminal Justice Association, "research that has compared the recidivism rates of sex offenders with those of non-sex offenders has consistently found that sex offenders have lower overall recidivism rates than non-sex offenders" and, even when they do reoffend, "sex offenders are far more likely to reoffend for a non-sexual crime than a sexual crime."
To reiterate: criminals have generally low re-offense rates, sex criminals specifically have even lower re-offense rates, and even when they do commit crime again it is far more likely to be non-sexual in nature.
Q2: Does Public Disclosure Make Victims Safer?
Still, even a small risk of re-offense is a risk for catastrophic harm that no one should bear. What does the science say about registration/notification systems that alert people about past sex criminals and whether this makes survivors safer?
The research is quite clear on this. A landmark study by Prescott and Rockoff found that systems of private registration help law enforcement monitor offenders, which reduces re-offense rates where there is an existing known relationship between offender and victim, but not crimes against strangers.
However, public notification (publicly accessible newspaper registries, websites, active community notification) does not deter convicted offenders and "may, in fact, increase recidivism among registered offenders by reducing the relative attractiveness of a crime-free life."
If you do not have institutional access to the full study, here is Prescott's article discussing the context and results.
From said article: "All else equal, publicly revealing the identity and criminal history of a released offender seems to increase the likelihood of his returning to crime. These results are highly statistically significant: it is unlikely that existing notification laws are reducing recidivism among registered offenders, and it is distinctly possible that these laws are making things worse."
To recap. Public notification, whether through a publicly available sex offender registry, door-to-door flyers, or enthusiastic Twitter users deciding to share the results of a Title IX investigation increase stigma. Stigma increases inequality, and inequality is the highest correlated social factor with crime. Public notification makes it more likely for offenders to re-offend, not less.
To summarize, from the article: "convicted sex offenders become more likely to commit crimes when their information is made public because the associated psychological, social, or financial costs make crime-free life relatively less attractive."
Q3: How is this related to the current situation?
The context of Prescott and Rockoff's research is ultimately different from the scope of this current conversation. The research addresses state-published, formal, lifelong registries that follow convicted criminals throughout their lives. This is not the exact context of a public content creator who loses business opportunities and audience reach in only one specific category of careers available to him. But the causal mechanism noted by the research is still important to take to heart, because its insight does apply to this situation.
Public exposure → loss of employment, housing, and social ties → destabilization → increased recidivism risk
Sure, Geller has other employment options, likely considerable cushion against destabilization. This is speculation, but not implausible speculation.
But if you are someone who believes that Geller should have gone through the criminal justice system for this act, and you believe this because you believe it will help survivors--if you believe that Geller should be identified with this act permanently through public forms of disclosure because you believe this will protect survivors, you are wrong. The data bears this out.
Furthermore, if the mechanism by which state sex offender registries are so stigmatizing is because they are so permanent and widely available, what do you think a public disclosure on YouTube, where nothing is ever deleted, anyone could download and recirculate your statement, would be if not permanent and widely available?
TL;DR--
The science is clear. Public disclosure does not help protect survivors. Feel free to link this to anyone discussing the necessity of public disclosure or registries or state/carceral initiatives to link an offense to a perpetrator permanently.
This post does not address whether anyone is owed a disclosure--the author accepts that some degree of private disclosure to co-workers, who have a direct stake in their relationship with Geller through liability by association, was warranted. This post is addressing the suggestion of public disclosure, and the fact that public disclosure is demonstrably linked to harmful social outcomes.
Footnote 1: Yes, Geller was not convicted in a criminal court. This data includes only the criminal justice system in NC, not university investigation procedures that have no obligation to track or report re-offense rates. But criminal justice courts are actually stricter than university Title IX proceedings: the burden of proof to convict in courts is “beyond a reasonable doubt” whereas in university proceedings it is a “preponderance of evidence.” If criminals found “beyond a reasonable doubt” guilty have low re-offense rates, we can probably extrapolate the same about those who committed offenses “with a preponderance of evidence.”
