Minnesota's Naive New Ad Campaign Targets Sexual Predators
Nice effort, Minnesota...but too idealistic.
Billboards, print ads, posters at bus stops and signs in public restrooms will go up next week with messages such as, "I'm not like those guys on the news who get caught being sexual with children. Am I?"
A confidential hot line and secure Web site will be offered to direct potential offenders to counseling.
The advocacy group Stop It Now! Minnesota believes its $35,000 ad campaign is the first of its kind in the country.
"If there are people out there looking for this kind of help and they can't find it, that's a tragedy," said Yvonne Cournoyer, program director at the nonprofit, which addresses sexual abuse as a public health problem and focuses on prevention.
Working with a focus group including sex offenders, researchers learned potential abusers were less likely to respond to ads featuring happy, smiling people.
"These are, by and large, individuals who are miserable, depressed, out of control," Cournoyer said.
One ad features a photo of a middle-aged man shielding his face from the camera. Another shows an obviously distressed mother shielding a young girl from her father.
The campaign will be focused in the Twin Cities and last a few months, Cournoyer said, but they hope to expand it.
Such "social marketing" is increasingly being used to prevent destructive behaviors, experts say.
"Rather than outsiders preaching to do the right thing and be noble and virtuous, you're trying to understand your target audience and the mechanisms that are driving them," said Alan Andreasen, a marketing professor at Georgetown University.
David Clohessy, the national director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said he "would welcome any new, sincere initiative to make a difference." But he remained skeptical.
"I think it may prove a little naive to think that a couple phone calls with a counselor would fundamentally change someone's destructive sexual drive," he said.
- Within 3 years of release, 2.5% of released rapists were rearrested for another rape, and 1.2% of those who had served time for homicide were arrested for a new homicide.
- Sex offenders were less likely than non-sex offenders to be rearrested for any offense –– 43 percent of sex offenders versus 68 percent of non-sex offenders.
- Sex offenders were about four times more likely than non-sex offenders to be arrested for another sex crime after their discharge from prison –– 5.3 percent of sex offenders versus 1.3 percent of non-sex offenders.
- On a given day in 1994 there were approximately 234,000 offenders convicted of rape or sexual assault under the care, custody, or control of corrections agencies; nearly 60% of these sex offenders are under conditional supervision in the community.
- The median age of the victims of imprisoned sexual assaulters was less than 13 years old; the median age of rape victims was about 22 years.
- An estimated 24% of those serving time for rape and 19% of those serving time for sexual assault had been on probation or parole at the time of the offense for which they were in State prison in 1991.
- Of the 9,691 male sex offenders released from prisons in 15 States in 1994, 5.3% were rearrested for a new sex crime within 3 years of release.
- Of released sex offenders who allegedly committed another sex crime, 40% perpetrated the new offense within a year or less from their prison discharge.
- Approximately 4,300 child molesters were released from prisons in 15 States in 1994. An estimated 3.3% of these 4,300 were rearrested for another sex crime against a child within 3 years of release from prison.
- Among child molesters released from prison in 1994, 60% had been in prison for molesting a child 13 years old or younger.
- Offenders who had victimized a child were on average 5 years older than the violent offenders who had committed their crimes against adults. Nearly 25% of child victimizers were age 40 or older, but about 10% of the inmates with adult victims fell in that age range.
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