Convicted Felony Rapists Now Welcomed Without Any Questions at SUNY
But High Recidivism Rates Guarantee Many More Rapes, Law Suits By Victims
Felony rapists
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The State University of New York [SUNY] has agreed to no longer ask students seeking admission whether they have ever been convicted of a felony.
But, given the very high rates of recidivism among convicted Felony rapists, this virtually guarantees that many more innocent female students will be raped every year, and a much higher chance that students admitted with felony rape convictions will also commit other serious crimes.
This will almost certainly lead to many large damage suits by students who were raped or otherwise victimized as a result of this deliberate decision to admit convicted felons, says public interest law professor John Banzhaf, noting many law suits in which schools and other businesses have been sued simply for the negligent – not intentional – failure to check applicants’ arrest records. Here the school system is making a deliberate decision to ignore all prior felony convictions, and to not ask any questions.
Although figures do vary, a detailed meta-analysis reported in Scientific America showed adult sex offenders have a 14% chance of committing at least one additional sex crime within a 5-6 year period, roughly the length of time many students spend in college.
While 14% might not seem high, it is much higher for students without sex-crime convictions. It also means that, at these rates, if a university admits only 5 sex criminals, there is a greater than 50% probability that at least one of them will commit another sex crime within a brief time span.
Even more worrisome, since persons committing sex crimes are often “generalists,” and commit both sex and non-sex crimes, there is an almost 90% chance that at least 1 of the 5 will commit a crime within the same time period. More specifically, research has demonstrated that repeat offenders account for a disproportionate amount of crime, and that offenders released from prison are arrested at rates 30 to 45 times higher than the general population.
SUNY currently has 445,000 enrolled students, so that if only 1 in 1,000 are convicted felons, there is a virtual certainty that they will commit numerous rapes and other crimes; crimes which might have been prevented if SUNY simply asked about prior felony convictions, and individually reviewed each such applicant to try to select only those likely to go straight and to complete college.
The chances of repeating a sex crime – much less other crimes – may be even higher among those convicted as juveniles. Sexual recidivism rates for juveniles of over 40% after 5 years have been reported, while general recidivism rates of over 75% during a 5-year followup have also been reported.
SUNY says that it will stop asking about prior felony convictions because it does not wish to discourage felons from applying. But it could accomplish the same result by clearly advising applicants that a prior felony conviction simply warrants some additional scrutiny, and is not an absolute bar to admission.
Many businesses have stopped asking applicants if they have ever been arrested, but this is largely because an arrest could depend simply on the whim or even bias of 1 police officer.
But once a person has been found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, or plead guilty to a felony, the probability that he has in fact committed the crime is obviously much higher, notes Banzhaf.
At the very least, a jury is likely to find that a felony conviction requires that a college should make some further inquires before admitting students, and that blindly admitting felons with high recidivism rates constitutes negligence, making the college liable to anyone raped or otherwise injured as a result.
Felony rapists at SUNY what do you think?
