Recidivism rates

A WSJ columnist reports:

Meanwhile, the existing research raises tough questions about the relative danger child molesters pose to society. Their likelihood of being convicted for a crime after release is much lower than average for all criminals released from prison, and even for all sex offenders, at least in the short term, as measured by a Bureau of Justice Statistics study and others.

A lot of people assume that sex offenders can never be cured, and child molesters must be locked up for life because they have the highest recidivism rates of all crimes. I think that we have some public policies based on some bad data.