Highlighting some takeaways from a fairly good Lincoln Journal Star story about Nebraska’s public policy regarding sexual offending:
- Right now, 1,120 sex offenders are in Nebraska prisons or state institutions and another 450 are supervised under parole and probation programs at a cost of more than $58.5 million. That does not include the cost to taxpayers for the state shaming and monitoring of people who pose no risk to re-offend.
- Re-offense rates are low among sex offenders. Most people just don’t want to believe this, and that might be why this fact is buried so deeply in the LJS story.
- Even with the low, low re-offense rate, there are some things that will make it more likely that someone will re-offend. Those things include taking away their jobs and homes. Nebraska law currently does just that.