Group items tagged

To most people, the sex offender registry seems to be a valiant government effort. Popular assumptions are made about registered people without really knowing anything about who they are and how they got on the list. But as a man who grew up reading about men being sent to prison for consensual sex with each other (until the 2003 Lawrence decision decriminalized it1), I find myself skeptical that things are more noble this time around. Since 2007, I've been doing research on the registry and related laws. With hundreds of thousands of people advertised as "sex offenders" on government websites across the country, I looked into the laws and procedures that landed them there. A lot of the results were frightening. Thousands of people are on the registry for the rest of their lives as a result of behavior when they were children or adolescents, as young as eleven years old.2 A woman is on the registry for breastfeeding her baby and several men are on it for public urination.3 Perhaps most incredible, US federal sentencing laws make the penalty for taking a picture of a 17-year-old boy with an erection worse than the penalty for killing him!4 These findings became the core of this website, SOL Research.

I use three separate datasets and designs to determine whether sex offender registries are effective. First, state-level panel data is used to determine whether sex offender registries or public access to them decrease the rate of rape and other sexual abuse. Second, a dataset which contains information on the subsequent arrests of sex offenders released from prison in 1994 in 15 states is used to determine whether registries reduce the recidivism rate of offenders required to register compared with the recidivism of those who do not. Finally, I combine data on locations of crimes in Washington, D.C., with data on locations of registered sex offenders to determine whether knowing the locations of sex offenders in a region helps predict the locations of sexual abuse. The results from all three datasets do not support the hypothesis that sex offender registries are effective tools for increasing public safety.

Title: Sex Offender Registries as a Tool for Public Safety: Views ... Excerpt: Sex Offender Registries as a Tool for Public Safety 2 distinct differences. Responsibility for maintaining the registry is held by different state agencies, including ...

Title: Sex Offender Registries as a Tool for Public Safety: Views ... Excerpt: Sex Offender Registries as a Tool for Public Safety 2 distinct differences. Responsibility for maintaining the registry is held by different state agencies, including ...

The Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA)1, which mandates a national registry of people convicted of sex offenses and expands the type of offenses for which a person must register, applies to both adults and children. By July 2009, all states must comply with SORNA or risk losing 10 percent of the state's allocated Byrne Grant money, which states generally use to enforce drug laws and support law enforcement. In the last two years, some states have extensively analyzed the financial costs of complying with SORNA. These states have found that implementing SORNA in their state is far more costly than the penalties for not being in compliance. JPI's analysis finds that in all 50 states, the first-year costs of implementing SORNA outweigh the cost of losing 10 percent of the state's Byrne Grant. Most of the resources available to states would be devoted to the administrative maintenance of the registry and notification, rather than targeting known serious offenders. Registries and notification have not been proven to protect communities from sexual offenses, and may even distract from more effective approaches.

Original Article12/22/2013This is by far the most extensive article ever written about registries. Worth reading. (PDF) Contrary to popular belief, offender registries are not a recent phenomenon. Offender registries are government-controlled sy...

What conclusion can we draw about Borror's statement for the Ohio Public Defender's Office, that research shows the sex offender registry has no positive impact? We found that research has been done generally on the effectiveness of sex offender registration and notification laws. We found that studies indicate the laws have no clear effect on recidivism, or repeat offenses, which is their intended target, and are ineffective in assessing and managing risk. Although there is some indication that registration and community notification may deter first-time adult offenders, the studies find that the deterrence doesn't extend to juveniles -- and that community notification likely increases repeat sex crimes and other crimes. With that information needed for clarification, we rate the statement Mostly True.

This 111-page report details the harm public registration laws cause for youth sex offenders. The laws, which can apply for decades or even a lifetime and are layered on top of time in prison or juvenile detention, require placing offenders' personal information on online registries, often making them targets for harassment, humiliation, and even violence. The laws also severely restrict where, and with whom, youth sex offenders may live, work, attend school, or even spend time.

Recently, the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit ruled that a policy banning registered sex offenders from entering Albuquerque's public libraries is unconstitutional. Over the past decade the availability of online sex offender registries has enabled widespread awareness of sexual offenders living in the community, increasing concerns for the safety of children and leading politicians to pass laws restricting where sex offenders can live, work and even be present. Residence restrictions in 30 states and countless municipalities typically prohibit individuals convicted of sex crimes from residing within 500 to 2500 feet of schools, parks, playgrounds, daycare centers, bus stops and other places where children congregate. Few court challenges have been successful in overturning such restrictions. Research shows that politicians and citizens are overwhelmingly in favor of such laws, which are often based on stated (but empirically unsupported) assumptions that almost all sex offenders reoffend and that they are immune to therapeutic intervention. In fact, recidivism rates of known sex offenders are much lower than commonly believed, and properly designed treatment, though not equally effective for all offenders, can significantly reduce the risk of re-offending. Restrictions also reinforce the myth of "stranger danger," despite research from the Justice Department indicating that over 90 percent of child sexual abuse victims are well known to their perpetrators, who typically cultivate opportunities for molestation through familiar relationships with relatives and acquaintances.

The availability of online sex offender registries has increased awareness of sexual offenders living in the community and has increased concerns for the safety of children, leading politicians to pass laws restricting where sex offenders can live. Residence restrictions typically prohibit individuals convicted of sex crimes from residing within 500-2500 feet of schools, parks, playgrounds, daycare centers, bus stops, and other places where children are commonly present. Currently, 30 state laws have been adopted to prohibit sex offenders from residing near places frequented by children, and thousands of similar municipal ordinances have been passed in cities, towns, and counties throughout the U.S.

As interest and concern over sex offenders has increased, so have efforts to control the extent to which they reoffend. As a result, the State of Minnesota has enforced civil commitment statutes, created a sex offender registry, implemented community notification, enhanced the penalties for sex offenders, and increased both the intensity and length of post-release supervision. In examining recidivism among 3,166 sex offenders released from a Minnesota Correctional Facility (MCF) between 1990 and 2002, this report addresses the following question: What are the factors associated with sex offender recidivism?

The technological phenomenon of "sexting" has seen such a dramatic increase in popularity that it is now defined in the Merriam Webster Dictionary: "the sending of sexually explicit messages or images by cell phone." Moreover, if you ask a high school student to describe sexting, you may be surprised to hear it is a social norm. In a 2009 survey conducted by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen & Unplanned Pregnancy, twenty percent of teens said they had sexted. That number has since increased to over twenty-five percent. What these students and many others do not know is that sexting could land them on a sex offender registry for life. As a result, their names and reputations could forever be ruined by the simple push of a computer key, or touch of an iPhone.

Original Article10/13/2013By Keith EdwardsAUGUSTA - Sex offenders are the only type of criminal with their own registry so the public can keep an eye on them, so they must be the most likely to commit more crimes, right?Wrong. Contrary to the se...

Concern about sex offenders and their behavior is understandably a topic of great public interest. Numerous public policy proposals target the management of sex offenders in prisons and in communities post‐release. Recent examples of such proposals include, but are not limited to, enhanced sanctions for convicted and repeat sex offenders, civil commitment for predatory sex offenders, the development of sex offender registries, and the use of advanced technology to monitor sex offenders and residency restrictions.1 Unfortunately, the quality and extent of the body of knowledge concerning sex offender behavior has not kept pace with either the sophistication or potential cost of some of these proposed policies.