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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 ...

Don't take candy from strangers." We all remember our parents passing on these words of wisdom with the hope that they would protect us from harm. Wouldn't it be wonderful if life were that simple? Unfortunately, children are at risk of abduction and sexual victimization, and most of the individuals who perpetrate these crimes are not perceived as strangers by their victims. Are traditional child safety messages effective, accurate, and complete? Do they adequately warn children about the threats to their safety? Do they unduly frighten children and parents? Are we giving children information that makes them more vulnerable to victimization rather than less? To answer these questions, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) reviewed existing research and its own data base of long-term abduction cases that do not involve family members. This review helped test long-standing child-protection messages while providing a basis for creating more effective messages.

The Indiana Department of Correction's mission statement is "to empower the agency's staff of correctional professionals to increase public safety and reduce recidivism through successful re-entry programs that allow offenders the opportunity to positively contribute to Indiana communities." Since I was appointed in January 2005 by Governor Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr., the Department of Correction has strived to accomplish the goals outlined in our agencies mission statement. Governor Daniels has charged me with increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of the Department, and to that end, there is no better indicator of the success of this Department than the reduction in the return rates of offenders who are released from our custody. The rate at which an offender returns to incarceration after being committed and released from the Department of Correction is referenced throughout this report as Recidivism. Recidivism is the ultimate measurable when we want to identify the extent to which we are improving an offender's life and subsequently increasing public safety.

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.

This article argues that the new preventive law focus in sex offender laws is largely ineffective and too costly to personal liberty. The application of sex offender laws involving civil commitment, sex offender registration, and residency restrictions is often based on an individualized analysis of future dangerousness, i.e., the risk the defendant will sexually recidivate. In assessing future dangerousness, experts and courts place heavy emphasis on the use of actuarial tools, basically checklists that mental health experts use to derive statistical estimates of risk. This article provides substantiation that actuarial tools, while enjoying the imprimatur of science, suffer from significant empirical faults. Yet courts are largely abandoning their gatekeeping roles in accepting the experts' testimony using actuarial tool predictions of risk without critical review as required by the Daubert and Frye evidentiary standards. The paper theorizes that this is likely a pragmatic strategy considering the current political and public thirst for retribution against sexual predators. But, use of this empirically-challenged science exacerbates the practice of applying sex offender restrictions to inappropriately labeled individuals. Finally, this article takes advantage of the interdisciplinary trend of engaging social science with the law on expert evidence. More specifically, it offers an empirical assessment of future dangerousness opinions within the Daubert/Frye scientific evidence frameworks. The significance of the conclusion reached in this article is clear: if the law continues to rely upon suspect science that results in the wrong individuals being subject to liberty-infringing sex offender laws, then the drain on criminal justice resources will leave the truly dangerous offenders without sufficient supervision at the risk of public safety.

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.

The National Criminal History Improvement Program (NCHIP) was initiated in 1995 to support state activities for the establishment of records systems and the collection and use of criminal history and related records. Since 1995, all states, the District of Columbia, and five U.S. territories have received more than $530 million under the program, which is administered by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). The goal of the NCHIP program is to "improve safety and security by enhancing the quality, completeness, and accessibility of criminal history record information and by insuring the nationwide implementation of criminal justice and noncriminal justice background check systems." In order to accomplish this goal, the program provides financial and technical assistance to the states to improve their criminal records systems and other related systems to support background checks.

A MUST READ! Proposed new legislation addressed at policing sex offenders continues to spread throughout the United States. The fear of releasing convicted sex offenders from prison back into society without supervision has captured the attention of the

Despite the fact that the federal and many state governments have enacted registration and community notification laws as a means to better protect communities from sexual offending, limited empirical research has been conducted to examine the impact of such legislation on public safety. Therefore, utilizing time-series analyses, this study examined differences in sexual offense arrest rates before and after the enactment of New York State's Sex Offender Registration Act. Results provide no support for the effectiveness of registration and community notification laws in reducing sexual offending by: (a) rapists, (b) child molesters, (c) sexual recidivists, or (d) first-time sex offenders. Analyses also showed that over 95% of all sexual offense arrests were committed by first-time sex offenders, casting doubt on the ability of laws that target repeat offenders to meaningfully reduce sexual offending.

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.

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.

How well does Alaska's criminal justice system work to protect the public? What works best? What needs improvement? Can less costly alternatives more effectively promote public safety? Knowing what happens after offenders serve their sentences can help answer these questions. This report by the Judicial Council is the first general study of recidivism in Alaska. It describes the percentages of offenders who were re-arrested, had new court cases filed, were re-convicted, or remanded to custody for new offenses or for probation or parole violations. The report shows how soon after release these events occurred, and what factors were most closely related to an increased chance that offenders would be involved again in the criminal justice system. The Alaska Department of Health and Social Services funded the report.

Original Article08/12/2013By Paul HammelLINCOLN - A newly released study (PDF) questions whether public safety has improved because of a four-year-old state law that requires all sex offenders to be listed on a public website. The law, known as ...

Original ArticleBy Charles MontaldoStudies Find They May Not Increase Public Safety Laws requiring sex offenders to register with law enforcement and notifying the public of their location may make us feel safer, but two scientific studies of th...