policy

Introduction

The development of sex offender registration and notification programs in the United States has proceeded rapidly since the early 1990s, and at the present time such programs exist in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and some of the territories and tribes. In its most basic form, sex offender registrations are systems for monitoring and tracking sex offenders following their release from confinement into the community. The registration provides important information about convicted sex offenders to local and federal authorities and the public, such as offender's name, current location and past offenses (U.S. DOJ, 2015).  Sex offenders are a stigmatized population within our country’s criminal justice system and the major impediments to implementation of sex offender registration policies are non-compliance, loopholes, and the difficult reintegration of an offender who has completed his/her sanctions. On the other end of the spectrum, sex offenders provoke a great deal of anxiety in our society, and community members feel safer knowing who is a sex offender and where convicted sex offenders live and that they are being monitored (Levenson et al, 2007). High-profile sex crimes routinely grab headlines, but the question of how well sex offense laws are working in terms of the individual in a community has been examined to a small extent. The aim of this paper is to consider how policies that have been designed to manage the risk of known offenders from reoffending potentially impact the individual as well as the community and its safety.

Background and Significance

The term sex offender refers to an individual who has been convicted of a sex-related crime, or of attempting to commit a sex-related crime. Sex offender registration rulings are promoted as a means of (1) deterring offenders from committing future crimes, (2) providing law enforcement with an additional investigative tool, and (3) increasing public protection (CSOM, 1999). Stricter sentencing, enhanced registration requirements, community notifications, increased residency restrictions, and electronic monitoring are of the few recent trends and policy developments that have contributed to the goals stated above.

According to registration policies, an individual convicted of a sex crime required by law to register must do so prior to leaving state, county or city confinement. They must follow up by registering in person within 24 hours of their release at their county sheriff’s office. It is a federal crime for an individual to knowingly fail to update or register as required. In some states, a sex offender who fails to properly register may face fines and confinement terms of at least 90 days for noncompliance. Other states can impose confinement terms ranging from one up to 10 years in prison and/or a fine of up to $5,000. Furthermore, if a sex offender knowingly fails to update or register and commits a violent federal crime, he or she may face up to 30 years in prison under this statute (U.S. DOJ, 2015). These publicly accessible online registries have been the center of most sex offender controversy due to its revealing format. Any public user is capable of searching features including names, zip codes, cities or towns, counties, and addresses, usually through a mapping option. Sites also provide case-specific characteristics including various personal details about offenders such as appearance, specific offense information, victim information, and place of employment. With this information, there have been a growing number of state and municipal laws that expressly forbid sex offenders from living near places where children gather. The inability of convicted sex offenders to find housing when they are released from prison has become more difficult and a significant barrier to their successful reintegration into society. 

The foundation of it all can be attributed to the implementation of multiple federal laws and acts such as The Wetterling Act, The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, Megan’s Law, and the Lychner Act – all named after the victims of violent/sexual assaults – that were put into place and have been effective for what they were intended to be: putting the sex offenders on notice and notifying the public. The Wetterling Act requires states to register any offender who has been convicted of a sexually violent offense, as well as any person who has been convicted of certain crimes involving a child victim. There is a minimum registration requirement of 10 years for all registrants, but recidivists and sexually violent predators are lifetime registrants. The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act (AWA), also known as the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act, significantly strengthens registration and notification laws across the nation by “increasing the duration of registration for sex offenders; increasing in person verifications; requiring certain juveniles to register; requiring registration for sex offenders entering the country; creating a federal felony for sex offenders failing to register” (CRS, 2006) and the list goes on. Overall, the legislatures as a whole expanded the scope of crimes that qualify as sex offenses, increased sentences for people found guilty of sex offenses, and established strategies designed to manage convicted sex offenders after their incarceration. Examples of these strategies include registration, community notification requirements, residency restrictions, electronic monitoring, and civil commitment.

Literature Review

The bulk of literature applicable to my research is derived from the articles of Day et al. and Ackerman et al. For this paper, the role sex offender registration policies play in how lifestyles are like for both the offender once released into the community and the members of the community is investigated. Because registration requirements are overbroad in scope and overlong in duration, there are hundreds of thousands of registered sex offenders in the US, including individuals convicted of non-violent crimes such as consensual sex between teenagers, prostitution, and public urination, as well as those who committed their only offenses decades ago (HRW, 2007). It is hypothesized that sex offender policies are effective in terms of deterring offenders from committing future crimes, providing law enforcement with an additional investigative tool, and increasing public protection but also create impediments regarding harassment of the individual, their freedom to privacy, and reintegration into society. The following literature reviews attempt to demonstrate and support the given hypothesis.

Day et al (2014) discussed that the limited evidence available to demonstrate that registration, community notification, and residency restriction policies are effective in reducing reoffending has led some to conclude that the laws upon which they are based are ‘ill-considered, poorly crafted, and may cause more harm than good’. Because of this, risk management policies become important in tailoring the level of intervention to the needs of the individual offender. The current approach to sex offender management is targeted at only those offenders who are considered to be at particularly high risk, which contradicts the idea that collaboration is key to the effective management of all sex offenders.

Ackerman et al (2012) examined the effectiveness of current policies on the incidence of rape. Even with legislation implementing new restrictions on convicted sex offenders, including registration with law enforcement agencies, community notification provisions, and sexually violent predator designations permitting civil commitment following a prison sentence, in the end their research show no evidence that current policies reduce the incidence of rape.

Day, Newton, and Hobbs (2014) aimed to report the perspectives of a group of professional staff who routinely work with sex offenders in the community in a jurisdiction in which offender registration schemes are relatively well-established. The results presented that there was a widely held view that the current laws are both over-inclusive and place unfair restrictions on some offenders. The participants in this study strongly endorse such suggestions which involve creating tiered systems of registration based on levels of risk, with varied application, scope, registration periods, and monitoring requirements.

The literature on these subjects is found very relevant for this research project. For individuals accused and convicted of a sex crime, both social and personal tolls are high. Once registered, the individual's name, picture and personal information will be readily available on these databases and easy for anyone to find and share. Although registration provides important information about convicted sex offenders to local and federal authorities and the public, the question of how effective current sex offense laws are in managing the individual and the protection of the public remain.

Effect on Community Members

The adequacy of current sex offender policies is based on the idea that registries, through notification, help communities to better protect themselves from sex offenders. This idea is based on the assumption that sex offenders are more likely to recidivate than other offenders, thus the community should be on guard from these individuals. But because sex offender laws are relatively new, research examining the efficacy of these laws is limited. However, “proponents of sex offender registration and notification argue that such laws are effective because they inform the public of the presence of sex offenders in the community, thereby enabling them to take action to protect themselves. These laws are also thought to reduce sex crimes because the public is able (and more likely) to report suspicious behavior by sex offenders” (Walker, et al). The key take here is that the right of innocent children and others to safety outweighs the right of sex offenders to privacy. However, one thing also needs to be made clear as well – sex offender registries themselves don't keep people safe. They do not do anything to change the behavior of the sex offender. It is useful in letting the public know who previously offended and where they live because parents and the public want to know who have committed sex offenses. And it is clear that there is strong public support for strict policies for the reason that publicly identifying released sex offenders is an attempt to create a barrier between them and the public (i.e., their potential victims). However, the registries are most effective in the sense that they are catalysts for the public to take action to protect themselves.

Effect on Registered Sex Offenders

The literature on sex offender registration and notification laws provided several different insights. One of the biggest issues with sex offender registration laws is the broadness in scope effect of the policy itself. Sex offenders are required to register for sex offenses; however other crimes are also a registerable offense consolidated into sex offender registration laws throughout the country. Among the offenses that have been added to state registration lists are “voyeurism, public exposure, adultery, giving obscene material to a minor, displaying obscene material on a bumper sticker, and bestiality. In some states, a person can be required to register as a sex offender for possessing computer-generated images of virtual children; in other states, registration is required only for those who possess images of actual people under age 18” (Velasquez, 2008). This means that people who are not necessarily sex offenders are subject to registering as sex offenders. Perhaps in one case of an older partner of legal age in a relationship with a minor (defined as a person below the age of 18) would be required to register even if he or she has no tendency to sexually victimize others. He/she would be classified as a predator and lumped together in a database with dangerous pedophiles. It is unfortunate that often these registration policies are applied to people who do not represent any threat to the community. Applying registration may cause great harm to those who, while they are young, must endure the stigma of being identified as and labeled a sex offender, and who as adults will continue to bear that stigma, sometimes for the rest of their lives

The laws do not limit access to online registries: anyone with internet access can find out who is registered anywhere in the country. “The consequences to registrants are devastating. Their privacy is shattered. Many cannot get or keep jobs or find affordable housing. Registrants’ children have been harassed at school; registrants’ spouses have also been forced to leave their jobs” (HRW, 2007). There have been incidences where registrants have been targeted and killed by strangers who found their names and addresses through online registries. Other registrants have even been driven to suicide (HRW, 2007). Residency restrictions have also been put into place prohibiting registered offenders from living within a designated distance (typically 500 to 2,500 feet) of places where children gather, for example, schools, playgrounds and daycare centers. This is one of the most serious and far-reaching consequences associated with sex offender registration is the difficulty registered sex offenders experience in locating and maintaining safe, affordable, and legal housing. If and when they do find housing, they are most likely, but not always, to reside in areas characterized by economic disadvantage, lack of physical resources, relatively little social capital, and high levels of social disorganization (Tewksbury, 2007). Evidence suggests that residency restrictions actually compromise public safety by making it more difficult for offenders to reintegrate into society. Residency restrictions often force offenders to live in areas where there are few opportunities for employment, few social services and poor access to transportation (Velasquez, 2008). It pushes offenders to the outer reaches of communities, making it less likely that they will be able to find a job or receive social support. Restrictions may also make it difficult for otherwise law-abiding offenders to comply with registration requirements – especially those that involve frequent, in-person reporting. This leads to the issue that criminal recidivism poses a serious risk to public safety. Making the world outside of prison more like being in prison all the while posing the threat of sending someone to prison should he commit another sex crime is rendered much less severe (Prescott, 2012). Put differently, the more difficult, lonely, and unstable that laws make a registered sex offender’s life, the more likely he/she is to return to crime – and the less he/she has to lose by committing these new crimes. Despite the rise of these registration and notification laws, it is unclear whether they have been successful in reducing crime by sex offenders. “It is also unknown whether sex offenders respond (or are able to respond) to these laws in other ways (e.g., adjusting how they select their victims)” (Prescott, 2012). The answers to these questions are important for understanding how an important group of convicted criminals responds to changes in legal sanctions.

Recidivism has been conceptually defined as the reversion to criminal behavior by an individual who was previously convicted of a criminal offense. It remains a difficult concept to measure, especially in the context of sex offenders. In much controversy, current registration, community notification, and residency restriction laws may be counterproductive – impeding rather than promoting public safety. Unbound online access to registry information facilitates and allows anyone (neighbors, employers, colleagues, and others) to shun and ostracize former offenders, diminishing the likelihood of their successful reintegration into communities. As mentioned earlier, residency restrictions push former offenders away from the supervision, treatment, stability, and supportive networks they may need to build and maintain successful, law abiding lives. The active identification of sex offenders through public registries is designed to alert potential victims to the threat a nearby released sex offender may pose to them or their households. The logic behind the past push for registries rested on what seem like common sense assumptions: once a sex offender, always a sex offender. But in theory, registration laws may lower sex offense rates through increased police surveillance or by reducing the expected payoff of committing a new sex offense via increased probability of punishment (Prescott, 2012). Registration can make sex offenses easier to solve because a set of likely offenders will have already been identified, and authorities will know where to locate (and apprehend) that set of offenders.

Registration makes information about sex offenders available to law enforcement and criminal justice agencies to facilitate criminal investigations. It requires that sex offenders register their residential locations with a public authority (usually local police), but this information is otherwise kept confidential. Notification laws, in contrast, goes further by making information about individual sex offenders accessible, either freely or by request, to individuals and organizations in the community. Notification laws require the dissemination of information about sex offenders (e.g., criminal history, physical description, home address, and other information). The shift in public policy for sex offenses has resulted in more people being incarcerated for longer periods of time for a wider range of crimes. While registration requirements were intended solely to help law enforcement track and apprehend recidivist offenders, notification laws aimed at both reducing crime through greater public awareness and increasing the likelihood of capture. The effectiveness of these laws will depend on how they are structured and applied. “If notification and its associated burdens make it more difficult for a registered sex offender to find victims, while at the same time not aggravating the risk factors known to lead to recidivism and not reducing a registered offender’s desire to avoid prison, then recidivism rates should drop” (Prescott, 2012). But if these laws impose significant burdens on a large share of former offenders, and if only a limited number of potential victims benefit from knowing who and where sex offenders are, then one should not be surprised to observe more recidivism under notification, with recidivism rates rising as notification expands.

Works Cited

Ackerman, A. R., Sacks, M., & Greenberg, D. F. (2012). Legislation Targeting Sex Offenders: Are Recent Policies Effective in Reducing Rape? Justice Quarterly, 29(6), 858-887.