Untouchable “Frightening & High” Cut: 20170906 v2 PICTURE LOCK New York Times Op-Docs Submission Script for Fact Check ONLINE REFERENCE SCREENER link: https://vimeo.com/232901687 pass: untouchable123 Woman on street 1: 0:11 Okay, well what I think we ought to do with pedophiles is I think you need to lock them in a room with the parents of the child. Hand the parents a ball bat. No windows, and give parents half an hour, and then whatever’s left you can shovel up and throw out in the garbage. [visuals: interview shot, protesters with signs] Woman on street 2: 0:25 You shouldn’t be a teacher, you shouldn’t be in politics, you shouldn’t work at McDonald’s. [visuals: interview shot] Lower Third: Lauren Book State Senator & Sexual Abuse Survivor 0:30 It’s not if they reoffend, it’s when will they reoffend. And I don’t want to take that chance. [visuals: Miami prison, interview shot] News archival: 0:36 The state passed four bills on the first day of session designed to make the Sunshine State the most difficult place in the country for sex offenders. [visuals: Rick Scott on local news, sex offender registration photos] News archival: 0:44 Governor Cuomo has signed legislation that prohibits registered sex offenders from becoming firefighters. Meghan’s Law will protect millions of families...In a few moments I will sign the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act...President Obama signed the International Meghan’s Law bill into law [visuals: NY legislative buildings, local news archival, three presidents] TEXT ON SCREEN: 1:01 For the past 15 years, the Supreme Court has consistently supported harsh sex offender registry laws. [visuals: black text card] Lower Third: Ira Ellman Professor, UC Berkeley 1:08 The sex offender registry and other things that are imposed on sex offenders are justified by the fact that they have a frightening and high re-offense rate. As high as 80% of sex offenders re-offend . And that’s a frightening and high rate. If 80% of sex offenders reoffend upon release that would be frightening and certainly very high. [visuals: CU sex offender studies, interview shot] TEXT ON SCREEN: 1:33 But the ‘frightening and high’ recidivism rates cited by the Supreme Court are wrong. [visuals: black card] Lower Third: Val Jonas Civil Rights Attorney 1:38 There is a huge disparity between the public’s perception of sex offenders and the truth, the empirical, scientific, actuarial truth. [visuals: interview shot] Ira Ellman: 1:49 In explaining this frightening and high reoffense rate, Justice Kennedy made reference to a manual published by the U.S. DOJ . The Justice Department manual cites only one thing, an article in Psychology Today. A mass market magazine from 1986 . It has no back up data. It has nothing in it that it cites. It’s just 80%. [visuals: DOJ manual, Psychology Today cover and article] Lower Third: Robert Longo 2:28 I began working in the field of treating sex offenders in 1978. When I started in the field there was around 30 or 40 of us, and we’d have a conference and we’d all attend and all present. It was a very small world [visuals: Rob Longo climbing stairs, interview shot] TEXT ON SCREEN: 2:42 Robert Longo wrote the Psychology Today article that is the original source for the frightening and high recidivism rates. Robert Longo: 2:49 I work with some of the most dangerous offenders measuring their sexual response to what we called deviant stimuli with a device called a penile plethysmograph. So if they were getting aroused we would give them a little shock. We were highly criticized for what we were doing. We were compared to A Clockwork Orange. [visuals: Rob Longo in office, with patient in office, phrenology wall hanging, on porch, Clockwork Orange poster and movie still] Robert Longo: 3:13 We wrote an article for Psychology Today that described what we were doing. In that context we felt it important to say the studies all over the country that had been published to date - and this is back in the 80’s - ranged from very low to very high recidivism rates, as high as 80%. That got taken to say all sex offenders recidivate at 80%. That’s absolutely incorrect, it’s wrong. It’s not true. If you’re going to base laws at a federal level, you don’t cite popular psychology magazines no matter who the author is, me or anybody else, it’s not a scientific journal. I’m appalled that this could happen. This is not my intent, not my intent at all. [visuals: Psychology Today article, interview shot] Lower Third: Barbara Schwartz 4:07 In 1988 I was given an assignment by my employer to research sex offender programs around the country. I couldn’t find any so basically I just made up a model. [visuals: rolling into library, interview shot] TEXT ON SCREEN: 4:22 Barbara Schwartz wrote the DOJ manual cited by the Supreme Court. Barbara Schwartz: 4:25 My original research paper had six references including the dictionary, and the paper that Rob Longo did for Psychology Today. The best we were doing was just making a bunch of guesses, but it’s there now. There is hardcore scientifically-based research. [visuals: in library reading, building exterior, interview shot, leaving library] Lower Third: Eric Janus Dean, William Mitchell Law School 4:52 The recidivism of sex offenders has been studied over and over and over again. One of the most comprehensive studies of recidivism found a recidivism rate of among those almost ten thousand sex offenders, of 3.5% . There’s a study in Maine that had a re-arrest rate of 3.9% . A Nebraska study found a two-year recidivism rate of 1.7%; one year recidivism 0.6% . These studies are quite consistent. Criminals of other sorts, property crimes, drug crimes have higher recidivism rates than sex offenders. [visuals: sex offender studies (for State of California Dept. of Corrections and Rehabilitation: 2013 Outcome Study” , interview shot] Barbara Schwartz: 5:34 Why would you go to the first things that were ever written when there have been thousands and thousands of articles written since that time? That is deliberate indifference. [visuals: Psychology Today cover, interview shot, sex offender studies: GRAPHIC OF recidivism rates for sex offenders released in 2001: Alaska 3.4% / Arizona 2.3% / Delaware 3.8% / Illinois 2.4% / Iowa 3.9% / New Mexico 1.8% / South Carolina 4.0% ] Ira Ellman: 5:49 There’s no doubt that the statements about reoffense rates are wrong. They’re just, as a matter of social science fact, those statements are wrong. [visuals: legal books, interview shot] Val Jonas: 6:00 At this point the phrase ‘frightening and high’ has been cited in close to one hundred cases. Legislatures routinely recite it in their preambles to their legislation. They cite the US Supreme Court, which rested it’s assumptions on nothing. [visuals: FL and OK Capitol buildings, legal docs, interview shot] Eric Janus: 6:17 We’ve designed these draconian sex offender laws telling ourselves that the people who are affected by these laws are monsters, the other. The reality is, these laws by severely limiting the ability of offenders to get housing, to get jobs, they’re undercutting the ability of society to reintegrate sex offenders and prevent future sexual violence. [visuals: Burger Federal Bldg, St. Paul, barbwire fence, interview shot, news archival, Miami parking lot, Clyde Newton, sex offender] News Archival: 6:47 You are now classified as a sex offender. You have been kicked out of college, you are not allowed to use the internet, you are not allowed to live with your dad because he lives too close to a school. Do you think that the punishment fit the crime? [visuals: news archival, sex offenders from feature film mixed Broll mixed with registration photos and personal ID archival, sex offenders at home and in Miami parking lot] Val Jonas: 7:02 You’re throwing thousands of people onto the streets, out of their houses, out of school based on frightening and high, decades of recidivism, 80% which came from nothing. [visuals: new archival ‘sex offender’ chyrons, sex offenders Miami, legal doc, interview shot] TEXT ON SCREEN: 7:15 Over 800,000 Americans are now required to register as “sex offenders.” [visuals: OK state capitol building rotunda, homeless sleeping sex offender] Ira Ellman: 7:22 What they’re saying is they’re very dangerous, they’re going to hurt us this fear is exactly the source of these policies about public parks, about libraries, about residency restrictions. [visuals: young sex offender in jacket, sex offender in rear view mirror interview shot] Val Jonas: 7:36 It should worrisome to all of us to see the protections of the constitution cast aside because today we’re frightened. The question is, what kind of measures do you take to secure yourself against these risks. And at what cost to your society and to your values as a society? [visuals: sex offender walking on sidewalk, squad car with lights, interior FL Senate building, neighborhood home exterior, Old FL capitol building] TEXT ON SCREEN: 7:59 Later this year, the Supreme Court will decide whether to hear two cases that would allow it to revisit the treatment of those on the registry and the social science used to justify their punishment. 8:13 Credits END CREDITS directed by DAVID FEIGE producers REBECCA RICHMAN COHEN DAVID FEIGE ADAM POGOFF executive producer DAVID MENSCHEL editors BRYAN CHANG ZARA SERABIAN-ARTHUR JAY ARTHUR STERRENBERG camera NADIA HALLGREN ERIC PHILLIPS-HORST ADAM POGOFF composer MAX AVERY LICHTENSTEIN thank you MEERKAT MEDIA archival footage ABC 2 News CBS 4 News CNN Fox News NBC 6 Miami NBC 7 San Diego Polaris Productions Warner Brothers Inc. William Jefferson Clinton Library and Museum music licensing ASCAP