Sex Offender Laws and Wrongful Convictions Essay

Megan’s Law and it purpose are good, but however the laws leaves some loophole for a sex offender to get around some of them. In the state of Tennessee a sex offender are allowed to have access to an electronic mail address or internet must report within 3 day. An offender has 48 hours prior to their release to notify the TBI in person unless the facility they are house at is the register Violent offender must be on the registry for life, but those that are classify as sexual offenders my apply to have their name remove from the registry ten years after their expiration of their sentence (Klass Kids Foundation, 2016). Political elected official demonize sex offender and presenting to the public that they have an interests in protecting children.

Child molestation and sexual assault is an ever growing problem in the United States today, but an even bigger problem is that these pedophiles are being released after only serving as little as one quarter of their sentence. In California alone (at the time the bill was first passed), there was an estimated 680 individuals on parole for molestation and other sexual assaults including sodomy by force with a victim under the age of thirteen as well as child molestation with foreign objects.

Being in a world full of billions of people with billions of different stories, never truly knowing who someone is, is a fearful and anxious thought. Among those billions of people are approximately 747,408 sex offenders, found in a 2013 survey done across America (Facts). How does it sound letting children out without an adult in a world like this with those kind of sick “people”? Why put the public in danger, instead of getting rid of the fear, all together and forever? Although there are many reasons sex offenders should be sentenced to death or face life in prison, here are three main points: they are likely to commit the crime again after being released, they ruin the child and family's lives, and the safety of the public is in danger. Being a sex offender isn’t an accident, so why treat such a serious offense like one?

In 1996, Megan’s Law was created to help police during their investigation of sex crimes and to let the public know about the identities and location of the offender. Along with the Adam Walsh Child Protection and the Safety Act of 2006, sex offenders must fill a list of information about themselves in a database; this includes their names, finger prints, a recent photo, etc. this database has three risk tiers in order to know how dangerous the offender is, with tier one is the lowest risk and tier three being the highest. With the community being a big part in dealing with sex offenders, notification statutes were made for people who want information about them. With community notification laws in place, parents must take extra precaution

California enacted the first sex offender register law in 1944. However, sex offender registers in the United States did not become widespread until the 1990s. The Jacob Wetterling Act 1994 was named after 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling who was abducted and to this day has never been found. The Jacob Wetterling Act implemented the first nation-wide sex offender register. Originally, the concept of a sex offender register was intended to for use solely by law enforcement; it was not an intention for the sex offender register to be public. However in 1996, Megan’s Law was added to the Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act 1994 and made it a requirement for the information on sex offender registers to be accessible by the public. Megan’s Law was enacted as a result of a heinous crime where 7-year-old Megan Kanka was raped and murdered by her neighbour, who had two previous convictions for sexually assaulting young girls. In 2006, Congress passed the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act. This Act required states to enact stricter registration requirements, including an increase in the penalty for not registering and more frequent verification of sex offenders’ locations. Since 2006 public access to sex offender registers has been accessible on the Internet in most states. On these websites you can search for an offender by name or location, and find information such as their photo, convictions, address,

There have been many federal acts passed in correspondence with sex offenses that illicit feat with the public. There are many different types of ways in which Levenson & colleagues’ (2007) describes the perceptions that the public has based on certain factors. For instance, in relation to the perception about the sex offender notification system, a survey produced results of around 80 percent in favor of these registries, because these individuals felt safer in their communities knowing who was in their neighborhood. Further, due to this fear that resonated in the early 1990’s communities do have tools such as residential restrictions, civil commitment, notification procedures, etc. that aid in the protection. However, there are myths associated with sex offenders, for example legislation often states that the reasoning for new laws and regulations is due to the high recidivism rates. However, sex offenders have significantly lower recidivism rates than believed. Also, there are countless people who do not believe that sex offenders can be assisted with techniques from a psychological standpoint. Most people think that these offenders cannot be treated, however, there is research being conducted that is promising. Finally, there is a common misconception that sex offenders kill their victims, especially children more often than other killers, however this is not true.

When we hear the phrase, sex offender, we normally feel repulsed. We think of dirty old creepy men. I for one used to do this, I won’t lie. This is because people like to rush to judgment. But my opinions changed when I came to the realization that it’s not just creepy old men who are sex offenders. I want to talk about them, but not those who are serial rapists or child molesters; they don’t deserve to be talked about. I’m talking about people who are convicted, whether it’s falsely, or unjustly, and have to wear a stamp on their forehead for the rest of their lives saying they are a sex offender.

Sexual offenders are the most vilified type of offenders within public opinion and the criminal justice system. The American precedent cases of Jacob Wetterling, Pam Lyncher, Megan Kanka, and other notorious crimes perpetrated by sexual offenders with a prior history of conviction have demanded a response from the criminal justice system to increase public safety. In 1994, the Jacob Wetterling Crimes against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Program was passed (Scholle, 2000), the first piece of legislation to advocate for the development of state-maintained registries of convicted sexual offenders. The legislation has been amended numerous times since then; in its present state, the law requires all states to maintain a registry, the mandatory registration of convicted sex offenders after release, community notification laws in place, and public access to the registry (Burchfield and Mingus, 2012; Lees and Tewksbury, 2006; Petrunik, Murphy, and Fedoroff, 2008; Scholle, 2000; Tewksbury and Lees, 2006; Wagner, 2011).

Sex offenders have damaged their victims for life, and should be held more accountable for their actions. America has such a prison overcrowding issue that we cannot possibly

Sex offenders have been a serious problem for our legal system at all levels, not to mention those who have been their victims. There are 43,000 inmates in prison for sexual offenses while each year in this country over 510,000 children are sexually assaulted(Oakes 99). The latter statistic, in its context, does not convey the severity of the situation. Each year 510,000 children have their childhood's destroyed, possibly on more than one occasion, and are faced with dealing with the assault for the rest of their lives. Sadly, many of those assaults are perpetrated by people who have already been through the correctional system only to victimize again. Sex offenders, as a class of criminals, are nine times more likely to repeat their

The number of registered sex offenders have increasingly grew over the years. Every day you see a man or women added to the registry for crimes against women and mostly children. The sex offender registries biggest and main focus is to keep the people in the community in each city and state informed and protected. ”Sex offenders and sex crimes provoke a great deal of anxiety in our society.” Baker, J, Brannon, Y, N., Fortney. , Levenson, J.S. (“Public Perceptions about Sex Offenders and Community Protection”). The sex offender registry is based solely on protecting the public from being a victim

     When people think of their neighbors, do they think of violent sex crime offenders? Many people have to deal with this every day of life. There are now laws that inform people of a community when a sex crime offender moves into their town. These laws are said to keep violent sex crime offenders from striking again, but do these laws really work is the question that many people ask? The answer all depends on the opinion of the person who is being asking. Many supporters say that the law is keeping sexually violent predators from striking again, but many critics say that the law is unethical and breaks many amendments. This is another question proposed when the topic of Megan’s Law is brought up, is it breaking any of the

Stories of sex offenders have been increasingly a focus of attention by the criminal justice system over the past years. By legal definition, a sex offender “is a person who is convicted of a sexual offense (Sex Offender Law & Legal Definition),” an act which is prohibited by the jurisdiction. What constitutes as a sex offense or normal/abnormal sexual behavior varies over time and place, meaning that it also varies by legal jurisdiction and culture. In the United States of America, for example, a person can be convicted of wide range of sexual behavior that includes prostitution, incest, sex with a minor, rape, and other sex offenses (Sex Offender Law & Legal Definition). As the nature of sex crimes have long held the

There are very few things that people agree on universally, however one of them is their attitude toward pedophiles. No other type of person elicits the same kind of reaction as those who prey on arguably our most vulnerable population. Pedophiles alone out of other sex offenders drive intense fear and anger into the public, so much so that they are the reason for Megan’s Law requiring sex offenders to register as such since 1994. More recently, the enactment of an “International Megan’s Law” that was voted on last year requires for all sex offenders to get their status added to their passports. The only issue with all of this is being a pedophile isn’t a sex crime.

Misguided laws are compounded by media outlets use of the very words regarding sex offenses. I found an interesting study by the National Center For Reason