Thursday, March 4, 2010

Megan’s Law: Sex Offender Registration

People convicted of sex crimes are looked on by society as dangerous people especially when convicted of sex crimes done to children. The federal government enacted a law requiring convicted sex offenders to register addresses with law enforcement agencies notifying citizens, and allowing offenders to be monitored and tracked. The original legislation came in 1994, the Jacob Wetterling Act and was later modified in 1996. Megan’s Law modified the Jacob Wetterling Act allowing registry information to be disclosed to the public (Levenson et al., 2007). The goal of notification is to inform both the public and past victims in order to protect themselves. Megan’s law was established after the murder and rape of a seven-year-old girl named Megan Kanka in New Jersey. The crime was committed by a previously convicted sex offender. Her parents led the way making it mandatory for the public to have access to sex offender registries. Registration was the beginning, paving the way for notification and housing restrictions.

Megan’s Law has had positive results with the public and the public perception of safety. One positive, significantly fewer sexual offenders have been paroled after implementation of Megan’s Law (Zgoba et al., 2008). Megan’s Law has allowed community members to take precautions to protect family members. Studies found that community notification did increase altruistic behaviors to protect members of their households, although the findings are inconsistent with regard to self-protection (Zgoba et al., 2008). The positive effects of Megan’s Law have been so good; England has proposed a similar law “Sarah’s Law.” Sarah’s Law is intended to reduce the 21,618 alleged sex crimes involving children between April 2008 and March 2009 (BBC News). According to BBC news, “Under the measures, families will be able to ask police if someone with access to a child has convictions or has been previously suspected of abuse.” Citizens of England have had positive responses to the new Law. One person saying, “This is an excellent scheme to protect children. It is extremely important for parent to know background of people who are around their children” (BBC News).

On the other hand Megan’s Law has its flaws. Convicted offenders are confronted with finding and sustaining affordable housing, negative effects on family members and some sex offenders have to register based on minimal seriousness of a sex crime. According to Meloy et al., (2008), “Residence restrictions exemplify a moral panic over ‘stranger-danger’ and a widespread fear of ‘sexual predators’ that are based on a plethora of faulty assumptions. Most of the reasons used to justify the need for residence restrictions are either in direct contradiction to empirical data or, at best, associated with equivocal research findings.” Family members also suffer from registration laws. Studies have found 86% of family members experience stresses, 77% feel isolated and 45% feel afraid for their own safety because of their relation to the registered offender. Family members often reported persistent feelings of hopelessness, depression, and frustration as they adjusted to life with a registered sex offender (Levenson & Tewksbury, 2009). Megan’s Law does not discriminate against any sex crimes. An offender has to register whether his crime was rape or a teenager caught sexting. Is it right that a teenager be braded for like as a sex offender for committing such a small crime? Should he be placed in the same bracket as a rapist or child molester? There are obvious flaws to Megan’s Law, but what do the statistics say. Does Megan’s Law work to reduce recidivism and protect children?

There have been studies done that find Megan’s Law does not reduce recidivism or first time sex offenders. Megan’s Law does have a positive effect on the community’s state of mind but does not match up with actual statistical findings. According to Zgoba et al., (2008), Megan’s Law has not effect on first time offenders, shows no demonstrable effect reducing sexual re-offenses, has no effect on the type of sexual re-offense or first time sexual offense and Megan’s Law has no effect on reducing the number of victims involved in sexual offenses. Also costs associated with Megan’s Law have gone up. This may be based on the lack of effect on recidivism and prevention. “Costs associated with the initial implementation as well as ongoing expenditures continue to grow over time. Start up costs totaled $555,565 and current costs (in2007) totaled approximately 3.9 million” (Zgoba et al., 2008). So if Megan’s Law is ineffective why do we still use it? Do all we care about is our state of mind, forget the statistics?

References

BBC News. Offender Alerts Maybe Expanded. http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/

Levenson, J., Zgoba, K., & Tewksbury, R. (2007). Sex Offender Residence Restrictions:
Sensible Crime Policy or Flawed Logic?. Federal Probation, 71(3), 2-9. Retrieved from
Academic Search Premier database.

Levenson, J., & Tewksbury, R.. (2009). Collateral Damage: Family Members of Registered Sex
Offenders. American Journal of Criminal Justice: AJCJ, 34(1/2), 54-0_7. Retrieved
March 1, 2010, from Criminal Justice Periodicals. (Document ID: 1711533721).

Meloy, M., Miller, S., & Curtis, K.. (2008). Making Sense out of Nonsense: The Deconstruction
of State-Level Sex Offender Residence Restrictions. American Journal of Criminal
Justice : AJCJ, 33(2), 209-222,309-310. Retrieved March 1, 2010, from Criminal Justice
Periodicals. (Document ID: 1866825981).

Zgoba, K., Witt, P., Dalessandro, M., & Veysey, B.. (2008). Megan’s Law: Assessing the Practical and Monetary Efficacy. http://soissues.d2g.com/SODocuments

1 comment:

  1. You posting on Megan's Law is very informative and I appreciate the fact you acknowledged both sides, of pros and cons. Do you think that Megan's Law may provide a false sense of security to community members who utilize the information? Also, there is now an app on the iPhone where you can download a Megan's Law deal and it will provide 10 registered sex offenders within the area for free. You can pay for the app and see more than 10 sex offenders if you choose. I was wondering your take on now being able to stand ANYWHERE (with the right technology) and locate a residence (within close proximity) of where a sex offender has registered.

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