Megan's Law -Sexual Offenders vs. Sexually Violent Offenders

[Philster]

I’m confused.

In my home state of New Jersey, I can get a listing of all registered Sex Offenders, and I can see it by state, county, township. It includes all offenders, violent or not, who are are registered.

In my old state of Pennsylvania, I can only get information - with similar geog. breakdown - on sexually violent offenders.

So, In NJ you get hundreds of names and lots of info, but in PA you get a handful of the offenders - just ones deemed violent. Most counties have no one registered.

Didn’t Clinton sign this into law? Can states twist it to fit what they want? I have tons of family in PA, and my kids spend an awful lot of time there. After my sister near me in NJ was notified that a sexual offender moved into the neighborhood, I got to thinking that no one would notify me about PA, since I’m not a resident anymore, and thought I’d view the list myself.

Well, PA’s list is just “Sexually Violent” aggressors, but all sexual offenders were covered under Megan’s Law…no??? :dubious:

Can anyone help?

[doreen]

According to the FBI website, it seems that the states have discretion regarding the release of information. But looking at the list of registerable offenses in Pennsylvania, it seems to include all of the sex offenses, even those that might not ordinarily be considered violent.
I think most of the difference is in the definition- in PA, a sexual offender is someone who commits a sexually violent offense. A sexually violent predator is someone who has been determined to possess a mental abnormality or personality disorder that makes the person likely to engage in predatory sexual behavior. Which is not much different from the NJ sex offender website’s statement that

This sex offender Internet registry includes information pertaining to sex offenders determined to pose a relatively high risk of re-offense (tier 3 offenders) and, with certain exceptions, information about sex offenders found to pose a moderate risk of re-offense (tier 2 offenders). The Internet registry excludes any information about offenders determined to present a low risk of re-offense (tier 1 offenders).

Both states are releasing info about those offenders classified as most likely to re-offend, and not releasing info about those classified as least likely to re-offend. There may or may not be a differnce in those that NJ would classify as level 2.

Also, part of the difference may be in how the diffferent states handle giving out the information. It seems that in PA, you can request the information through the chief law enforcement agency in a community. That agency may not have the info regarding people registered in another community