Sexual offenders are a continuously growing public issue in the United States of America. The memorable sex crime of rape, as well as the murder of a seven-year-old girl, led to the establishment of Megan's law. It was proposed and enacted to offer much-needed assistance in warning the members of the community concerning potential sex offenders in the neighborhood (Donnay, 2008, p. 442). The law provides significant information for the public on sexual predators in an attempt to help parents across the nation as well as the potentially vulnerable victims to enable them to protect themselves and others from sexual offenders. This research paper will mainly focus on the history of the law, which information and data the rules allows to be availed to the public, the implementation of the Megan's law in different states, the concerns on the law as well as the impacts of the law on the society as well as child abuse laws today.
The incident of rape and murder of Megan Kanka resulted in the establishment of Megan's law in the year 1994. Megan was seven years of age when her kidnapper took her, raped and then killed by the kidnapper who had before that sexual offense, and he had been convicted twice of the same crimes. According to (Levenson, 2005, p. 52), the killer who was identified as Jesse Timmendequas had taken the girl after promising her to give her a little puppy. The parents of the victim, Richard together with Maureen Kanka later founded the Megan Nicole foundation in honor of their deceased daughter who was raped and then murdered. The main aim of the permanent foundation was to enable the passing and enacting of laws that will ascertain that all the parents from different communities are aware of the potential sex offenders residing in their local neighborhood. Eight days after the establishment of the foundation by the victim's parents, Megan's law was enacted in the state of new jersey (Hern, 2007,p. 586).
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The general form of Megan's law was passed on May 8 in the year 1996, as a component of the violent crime control as well as the law enforcement act. This act was proposed by Senator Dick Zimmer (Brooks, 1996, p. 57). This mandated all the states across the country to incorporate the sex offenders data and information release programs for the public. The rules which quickly adopted the legislation include the state of Pennsylvania. The version of Megan's law in Pennsylvania had three major purposes; to identify the violent and sex offenders, registering the convicted sex offenders after they have been released into the community as well as specific state procedures of notification in the city. The law was signed in April of the year 1996. Califonia was as well as among the earliest adopters of Megan's law. The state of Califonia had a specific challenge of comprising of the highest rate of sex offenders across the country. The bill was signed in September of the same year in Califonia.
The information that the public is entitled to under Megan's act varies from one state to another depending on various factors. In most cases, the report consists of a photograph of the offender, their name, the last acquired home address, as well as other necessary important information on the convicted predator and the particular offenses they have been arrested for (Levenson, 2005, p.55). In the state of Pennsylvania, the offender's state of their employeras, as well as the city, is additionally given. A description of physical appearance is provided, including the year of birth, race, weight, gender, eye color, height, hair color, as well as any discerning marks, tattoos as well as scars. The car the sex offender is driving is also given, the make, color plate number and the year. The information at the moment of arrest is provided, with the form of offense when he was convicted as well as if the victim was a minor.
As much as the kind and size of information provided to the public vary from one state to another under Megan's law, similarly is the mode of Megan's law implementation and application. In most states across the country, concerned individuals can go to any public website. The websites comprise a database for sexual offenders where the citizens can look for the name, physical location, city, county of the convicted offender (Matson, 2002, p.29). In other several states, flyers on a sex offender are provided, either through the mail or by the form of hands, when the convict wishes to migrate to another local community. For the convict offenders whose offenses involve any minor, most states provide flyers to all the students in the community learning institutions, when the convicted offender moves into their local community. In other countries, the members of the community are allowed to conduct much of the tasks involved themselves. The members are required to visit any public stipulated location like the police station, where they are eventually offered a period to review the information on any sex offender and then handwrite the information. In the state of California, for instance, every department of the county sheriff, as well as police stations, are mandated to create CD-ROMs of identified and registered sexual offenders available in their respective counties to the public.
According to (Chen, 2005, p.278), the best theory that can best explain Megan's law, its effectiveness as well as its impacts on society is the first programme theory. The approach mainly focuses on the four main stakeholders in explaining Megan's law. The four significant stakeholders include; the media, released sex offenders, the wider public as well as the responsible bodies and agencies. This theory also comprises of four critical steps derived from the primary stakeholders in the public information programs across the various states in the country. The method consist of an implementation chain of Megan's law; the chain includes problem identification, general information disclosure, sanction instigation, and lastly offender's response. Megan's law implementation is supposed to go through condemnation, persuasion, information, surveillance, as well as publicity and these factors, are hard to manage.
There exist various concerns regarding the sex offenders registration as well as notifications systems as a result of the enacted federal version of the law (Levenson, 2005, p. 57). Most courts across the country have concluded that as much as the private rights that offenders are entitled to be an issue, the overall mandate to protect the safety of the public and citizens supersedes the specific rights of the sexual offender's privacy. Another concern about the law's notification as well as an information system is the fear of vigilantism. After the members of the community have been given the information concerning a sexual offender in the neighborhood, some of them may decide to come together and look for the sex offender to chase after him or even kill the convict.
Another primary concern associated with the law is that the systems of notification of Megan's law can discourage sexual crime convicts from completely adhering to the mandates of the law to register in their respective states and communities (Witt, 2004, p. 170). Almost twenty percent of convicted sexual offenders usually fails to adhere and comply with the requirements of registration. Comparatively, in England in the year 2001, the nation registered a compliance rate of approximately ninety-seven percent of all the offenders. The fear of community retaliating as well as the stigma of notification of their state as convicts is a significant deterrent for most individuals convicted making them avoid registering. Hence, law enforcement officers are not aware of their present location.
In an approach to identify the impacts the Megan's law has had on our society as well as on abuse laws today since it was passed in the year 1994, a survey was conducted. According to (Levenson, 2005, p. 59), a study with a sample population of 239 sexual offenders was held in the states of Indiana and Connecticut. From the survey, the findings indicated that negative impacts of the community system notification included threats, property destruction, loss of employment as well as the suffering of the members of the family. Most of the participants reported experiencing distress like shame, depression together with hopelessness. Some of the positive impacts reported include motivation to curtail the occurrence of the same crime as well as enhanced honest with family as well as friends.
Another research conducted in the state of new jersey indicated that the law, which was established to identify sexual offenses in the neighborhood they reside in is not effective in lowering the rate of sex offenses as well as deterring recidivists (Pawson, 2002, p.32). The National Institute of Justice funded the research evaluated five hundred different sexual offence cases that were broadly divided into two, the ones who were released from the correctional services prior to the enactment of the Megan's law, ten percent of the total sample population were arrested again on sexual offenses, while 7.7 percent of the other set were as well as re-arrested for the same crimes.
Similarly, the study found no significant difference regarding the number of sexual crime victims between the two sets (Pawson, 2002, p. 32). The sexual offender combined had seven hundred and ninety-six victims, from age one to eighty-seven. Most of the convicted offenders had a relationship with the new sexual offense victims before the incident, and almost half of them were close family members. One issue of concern from the study was the fact that the sexual abuse crimes had begun to decrease even before the adoption of Megan's law community notification, making it a challenge to outline the causes as well as the effects. More so, sex crimes are different from one county to another, decreasing and increasing every year.
References
Brooks, A. (1996). Megan's law: policy and constitutionality. Criminal Justice and Ethics , 56-66.
Chen, T. (2005). Using theory to improve program and policy evaluations. New York City: Greenwood Press, 278.
Donnay, W. (2008). Megan's Law on sexual offenders and their Impacts . Criminology , 412-445.
Hern, A. (2007). Megan's law and its effects on society re-entry. Behavioral Sciences and the Law , 586-601.
Levenson, J. (2005). The Impact of Megan's law on the reintegration of sexual offenders. Journal of Criminal Justice , 50-67.
Matson, S. (2002). Megan's Law: A review of state and federal legislation. Sage Journals , 28-40.
Pawson, D. (2002). Does Megan's Law Work? Evidence-based policy and practices , 29-41.
Witt, H. (2004). Assessing sexual offenders risks and concerns. Journal on Federal policies , 170-176.
