[bmelton]

I had the same thought as you, having also skimmed the articles. Having now read them more fully, it seems that patzerhacker's (admittedly, somewhat kneejerk) reaction draws closer parallels than I initially thought.

The approximation is here: http://www.codon.org.uk/~mjg59/ted_mail/0037.html

In that email, Ted Ts'o disputes the common knowledge that 1 in 4 women are raped. It does not, in my opinion, rise to the level of rape apology (though clearly, that is subjective), and attempts to explain that perhaps the "1 in 4 women are raped" statistic (that seems pervasive) is an exaggerated claim. His best piece of evidence, IMO, is that of the women cited in the statistic that results in the 1 in 4 claim, only 1 in 4 of the 1 in 4 even categorize their own reports as "rape". Whether that's right, wrong or indifferent is not mine to say, as I can see merit on both sides of the argument.

The article here, regarding recidivism of sexual offenders is doing the exact same thing as what Ted Ts'o attempts to do, which is to take a popular, but possibly wrong statistic, and give it more context which may render the original statistic moot.

The parallels are indeed close, which makes me glad that I did not initially downvote patzerhacker's comment without reading both articles. That said, I am not savvy to the nuances of either statistic, so I cannot claim to be authoritative on either, but as a non-interested, passive observer, it seems that Ts'o's branding as a rape apologist seems unfounded, from the information that was linked in the article, and Garrett's claims seem overblown, and predicated on the false dichotomy that because Ts'o doesn't believe A, he must believe B, which does not seem to be the case in his email.

[mfoy_]

I would half-disagree. There are some high level parallels like you mentioned, but the Ted mail is attacking the statistic by it's definitions, whereas this article attacks the statistic directly because it has no basis in reality and simply persists due to the nature of politics. (Publicly trying to correct this misconception would make a judge/lawyer/politician look like a rape apologist, or weak on crime, or sexual predator friendly in headlines)

[bmelton]

By my reading of this article, it is also attacking the statistic by its definition.

The implied definition is that recidivism means "repeated the crime for which they were convicted" or "relapsed into criminal behavior". When it clarifies that the highest rate of recidivism is related to merely parole violations, like going to a bar, or visiting a friend who is also an ex-con, it is attempting to clarify the definition of recidivism, or at least our perception of it.

Side note: On this matter, I'm actually somewhat torn. I think that parole can be onerous and unjust, and some parole officers can tenaciously seek out any and all infractions, while on the other hand, parole is the alternative to a longer prison term, and the parolee has agreed to abide by those extra-stringent rules in exchange for an earlier, supervised release.