Summary
An accused person is classified as a Dangerous Offender (DO) if they have inflicted or attempted to inflict serious harm on somebody else and suffers from a severe personality disorder. The offender must have endangered somebody else’s life, have a previous record of conviction of at least one felony, or be suffering from a personality disorder that indicates a propensity towards criminal behavior. A long-term offender (LTO) is a person who is likely to commit a form of sexual violence in the future hence a risk to society. Court-applied experts must determine if a suspect is an LTO and the offender must be worth at least two years of imprisonment, while one is termed as a DO after their crime is evaluated. This is one of the striking differences between LTO and DO. In most cases, long-term offenders are monitored after serving their jail term and they must adhere to restrictions that prohibit them from going to certain places or interacting with certain people (Nagin & Telep, 2020). Failure to abide by the rules will force them to serve more time in jail.
LTOs are commonly compared to dangerous offenders due to the existence of many loopholes in the law administration system. Some research shows that around a quarter of the federal offender population is serving a long-term sentence. These numbers are because most offenders prefer to plead guilty to a long-term offense than serve a sentence for dangerous offenders. Therefore, the difference between LTOs and Dos is the terms of conviction of the dangerous offenders. Peter Whitmore was a pedophile with a criminal record of sexually assaulting and abducting children. During Peter’s case, he pleaded guilty to avoid a dangerous offender’s sentence (Kim, 2017). I disagree with the outcome of this case, as Whitmore has been found guilty of raping and abducting children several times over the last 15 years. If this man had been labeled a dangerous offender during the first case, he would have been stopped from hurting many other victims during all the times when he was released.
Methodological Issues
Methodology Used in the 1970s
Risk assessment during the 1970s involved seven main principles namely, disaggregation of danger, choosing an array of risk factors in various domains, scaling harm, giving priority to actual research, using retrospective sample, and managing the risk as the final goal. The homicide rate would usually be used to determine the level of violence in a certain area. Therefore, the higher the cases of homicide reported in an area, the more ‘violent’ the area is said to be. In Whitmore’s case, risk assessment of violence would have been termed as very high due to previous records, yet he was still not termed as a dangerous offender. His violent record would have been high due to the previous cases of rape and abduction he had been found guilty of.
Research Study in Measuring Risk Assessment
The problem in Mr. Whitmore’s case is a loophole that exists in the judicial system that allows him the option to choose between being an LTO or a DO. Due to this loophole, strict laws should be put in place to only allow that privilege of choice to first-time offenders. The case of Paul Bernardo, a rapist and murderer in the Scarbrough area, led to him being sentenced to 25 years of imprisonment and parole after serving the sentence. Bernardo was denied the parole granted in 2018; hence he did not end up having more victims like Whitmore did (Regehr et al., 2022). Whitmore had been given a smaller sentence despite having had more victims and was released several times from jail. Mr. Bernardo’s case was more effective because he was not presented with the option of choice. Violence was measured in reference to the number of victims hence proving that his release would only lead to more harm. Therefore, strict rules should be put in place in the way violence is measured and the choice should be made by the judicial system, not the accused.
References
Kim, S. Y. (2017). In a summary way, with expedition and at a small expenc: Justices of the peace and small debt litigation in late colonial New York. American Journal of Legal History, 57(1), 83-117.
Nagin, D. S., & Telep, C. (2020). Procedural justice and legal compliance: A revisionist perspective. Criminology & Public Policy 19(3), 761-786.
Regehr, C., Regehr, K., Birze, A. (2022). Traumatic residue mediated remembering and video evidence of sexual violence: A case study. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry 81, 101778. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijlp.2022.101778