Resolved: Megan’s law decreases the likelyhood of an offender being convicted and identified, because the stigma of the sex offender registry provides a strong incentive for offenders to mount vigorous defenses.
This is inspired by a discussion with a co-worker. First off, he helped fight my ignorance. Apparently the online sex offender information base rules have been amended so that there don’t seem to be any (that I could find) people who obviously can be assumed not to be a threat. (Indecent exposure due to pissing in public, as my favorite example) All the offenders I looked at were listed as either CSP (Criminal Sexual Penetration), or CSC (Criminal Sexual Contact) with a minor.
So that negates the problem I had with the law about having far too broad a reach. I still have a big issue with the retroactive nature of the law, and that bears on the issue I’d like to discuss.
As I looked at the offenders, I saw lots and lots of feeble old men…more than one wearing an oxygen cannula. Many didn’t look like they would survive a sex act with a willing partner. So I started looking at the dates of the offences. Most were prior to 1992. I had to look through literally dozens before finding one after 1996 when (I think, not sure) my state enacted it’s version of Megan’s law. It was after 1994 for sure since it was in that year that “Megan” was raped and killed. Googling is very difficult, since it seems to be one of the hotter topics on the web.
There are many problems with trying to study the effectivness of the law. Comparing stats from before and after the law was enacted is problematic, first due to my premise, and second because it is difficult to control for other factors.
Comparing states that enacted Megan’s law early and those that did so later is problematic because there was a documented migration of offenders toward late adopting states.
Your reasoning seems fine to me. I think Megan’s Law is really bad law, and the more arguments I see against it, the better.
(Sorry to hijack, but I think it’s bad for these reasons (at least):
Your reason above.
If there is a high probability that these offenders will be repeat offenders, then extend the jail time. By letting them out, now the burden is on me to figure out who they are and where they live.
Serious danger of vigilantism.
Makes it even more difficult for these offenders to rejoin civilian life, making it more likely they will repeat.
Hey, why stop at sex offenders? Why not murderers and burglers? Drunk drivers? For people without kids, those are more dangerous to have in the neighborhood anyway.
Punishment after jail time is served seems so fundamentally unfair to me.
There are probably more reasons, that I can’t think of right now
/hijack)
I agree with most of RitterSport’s points, particularly #2/6 - the idea of this level of punishment after jail troubles me and I think it’s much simpler to keep an RSO in jail, if he or she is actually dangerous, instead of maintaining a database. However that would require some decisionmaking and study, and I suppose no politician wants to be accused of saying some sex offenders don’t belong in jail or on this list. The inclusion of anybody arrested for a non-sexual crime like public urination, or for that matter a non-aggressive crime like a sexual relationship just outside the acceptable age ranges, does not belong in a registry with child predators. I think most people know this but there’s no easy answer to fixing it that I’m aware of, or nobody cares enough to do anything about it. As it is, it’s hard to figure out if RSOs are incredibly likely to reoffend, as some people assert, or no different from any other type of criminal.
I don’t agree with the OP’s idea that the laws are counterproductive because they encourage a more vigorous defense. Even if that’s true, it’s a small price to pay and I don’t see it as a real negative. If it was preventing a lot of convictions, it might be a good point, but I don’t know that’s the case.
I don’t know if it works this way in every state, but at least in some places, the police notify families by mail when an RSO moves into the area.
Presumably some largeish proportion of the post-1996 offenders will still be in jail (how long is the typical sex-offence sentence anyway?). That’s got to skew your data somewhat.
It’s been federal law since 1996, I think. And this is probably handled differently in different places, but I thought the idea was that people are notified directly by the police (usually by mail - I’ve seen one or two of these letters) and supplemental information is provided by Web sites, rather than the authorities just hoping parents check the site from time to time to see if anyone dangerous has moved into their neighborhood. Internet use was not as widespread 13 years ago.
Well, I don’t think I’ve ever received such a letter in my state (confusion, no, wait, New Jersey). I did do a search once and there are some in the surrounding neighborhoods, I don’t think there were any in my exact neighborhood. Not that it would be so hard to drive or walk a mile or so from one of the surrounding ones – NJ is a pretty densely populated state.
Would be funny (well, ironic funny, not Ha Ha funny) if NJ didn’t send out the letters – wasn’t Megan from Hamilton NJ?
A letter, though – it’s like the police telling the people to grab their torches and pitchforks and head over to this address. Stupid law.
Back to the OP – one could argue that it’s a good thing that people are defending themselves, since it’s not a good thing for innocent (or not guilt, I guess) people to be punished.
Of course, it’s probably clogging up the courts, costing the state and the people money. At least the lawyers are happy.
I don’t know how neighborhood is defined in any jurisdiction, but there’s obviously a geographical limit or else everybody would be getting letters about people across the state.
Or don’t let your kids go over there and play. Whichever. I think there’s been a lot more of that than of the pitchfork and torch thing, although there have been a few cases of vigilantism.
Whatever happened to the 14 year old girl who was being prosecuted in PA for sexual abuse (and would have thereby been covered by the law if convicted) when all she did was send pictures of herself nude to friends? Is this prosecution gone demented?
I have read about sex offenders asking to be castrated before being released. The authorities refused because that would constitute cruel and unusual punishment. Well, my personal opinion is that Megan’s law is worse in that regard, since the perp can do noting to expiate it. The man in question was asking not to be parolled since he felt he could not stop himself from doing it again once he got out.
The law does not distinguish between a true sexual predator and a 16 year who sleeps with his 16 year old girlfriend. The basic idea is that a 16 year old girl is not mature enough to give consent (fair enough) but a 16 year old boy is mature enough to be convicted as an adult for sexual predation.
Sometimes I think the function of American law is to keep as many people behind bars as possible.
I just don’t get the double standard. If it is a good idea to know who the criminals are, then okay. But why don’t we get to know who the convicted murderers are? Aren’t they dangerous? Armed robbers, rapists, etc? How about con men? Why aren’t we warned not to get into financial relationships with them? It is either a good idea to warn communities of criminals in their midst, or it isn’t.
Why is one tiny spectrum of the criminal population terrible enough to justify the albatross around their neck forever after, but the rest have paid their debt and are free to start anew?
I know of people who quietly plea bargained to lesser charges (with probation/community service sentences) in the pre-Megan days, only to be forced to register after the laws were passed. They claim that they were really innocent, and would never have agreed to the plea bargain had they known what was coming. At the time, however, it looked like there was little consequence to the guilty plea, and big publicity and possible jail if they fought it.
The German penal law is founded also on the principle of social rehabilitation. Its purpose is the reintegration of the delinquent into society after having served his sentence. The law described here seems to indicate a different point of view. So, what’s the goal?
That’s the problem: the goal isn’t clear. The most important element to the public seems to be protecting children from dangerous people, but that goal isn’t served by letting sex offenders out of jail. Sentences may have been toughened but that hasn’t received nearly as much attention as RSO lists and Web sites and restrictions on where they are allowed to live, or laws that allow judges to confine some of these people to psychiatric facilities after their jail sentences are over. Playing into all of this is the idea of politicians wanting to look tough on child predators, so they are proposing new punishments that look harsh but don’t make much sense. I agree that reintegration is difficult under these conditions (I don’t know if it makes reoffending any more likely) and if the idea is for punishment to get tougher and tougher and tougher, we need to exclude people who don’t deserve it at all.
Probably to help someone’s election chances. It’s easy for a politician to bleat “Won’t someone think of the children??!?!?!!?”, but no one is going to say “Won’t someone think of justice, fairness, effectiveness, etc.”, because people will think they are saying “Won’t someone think of the sex offenders???!?!”
The database notes offenders that are currently incarcerated, and since I was initially looking via the alphabitical listings, that shouldn’t be a factor.
Of course some times even politicians can support justice over easy votes. In Georgia it seems that kidnapping and false imprisonment are sex crimes even if there was no sex or no intention of sex, but the Senate just votedto undo that.
Just to clear something up-you ARE talking about chemical (meaning, medicinal) castration, correct? Fotheringay-Phipps, I’d like a cite for that. NOT that I don’t believe you, necessarily, but wouldn’t that be considered an ex post facto law?