Megan's Law

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by tpksstories

by tpksstories

Megan's Law is the name for afederal law (and informal name for subsequent state laws) in theUnited States requiring law enforcement authorities to makeinformation available to the public regarding registered sexoffenders. Laws were created in response to the murder of MeganKanka. Federal Megan's Law was enacted as a subsection of the JacobWetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent OffenderRegistration Act of 1994, which merely required sex offenders toregister with local law enforcement. Since only few states requiredregistration prior to Megan's death, the state level legislation tobring states in compliance—with both the registration requirementof Jacob Wetterling Act and community notification required byfederal Megan's Law—were crafted simultaneously and are oftenreferred as "Megan's Laws" of individual states.Thus, federal Megan's Law refers to community notification (makingregistry information public), whereas state level "Megan'sLaw" may refer to both sex offender registration andcommunity notification.

Individual states decide whatinformation will be made available and how it should be disseminated.For example, they disseminate the information via social mediaplatforms such as Facebook. Commonly included information is theoffender's name, picture, address, incarceration date, and offense ofconviction. The information is often displayed on free publicwebsites, but can be published in newspapers, distributed inpamphlets, or through various other means.

At the federal level, Megan's Lawrequires persons convicted of sex crimes against children to notifylocal law enforcement of any change of address or employment afterrelease from custody (prison or psychiatric facility). Thenotification requirement may be imposed for a fixed period oftime—usually at least ten years—or permanently. Some states maylegislate registration for all sex crimes, even if no minors wereinvolved. It is a felony in most jurisdictions to fail to register orfail to update information.

Together, the Wetterling Act andMegan's Law provide two major information services: sex offenderregistry for law enforcement, and community notification for thepublic. The details of what is provided as part of sex offenderregistration and how community notification is handled vary fromstate to state, and in some states the required registrationinformation and community notification protocols have changed manytimes since Megan's Law was passed. The Adam Walsh Child Protectionand Safety Act supplements Megan's Law with new registrationrequirements and a three-tier system for classifying sex offendersaccording to certain listed offenses requiring registration.

History

Precedent of Megan's Law, federal JacobWetterling Act of 1994, required each state to create a registry forsexual offenders and certain other offenses against children. Underthe Wetterling Act, registry information was kept for law enforcementuse only, although law enforcement agencies were allowed to releasethe information of specific persons when deemed necessary to protectthe public. After the high-profile rape and murder of seven-year-oldMegan Kanka in Hamilton Township, Mercer County, New Jersey by JesseTimmendequas, a sex offender with two previous convictions of sexcrimes against small children living across the street from Megan,her parents Richard and Maureen Kanka worked to change the law bydemanding mandatory community notification of sex offenders, arguingthat the registration required under the Jacob Wetterling Act was nota sufficient protection measure. They said that Megan would still bealive had they known of the criminal history of Timmendequas. PaulKramer sponsored a package of seven bills known as Megan's Law NewJersey General Assembly in 1994. 89 days after Megan was murdered,New Jersey enacted Megan's Law, which required sex offenderregistration, with a database tracked by the state, and whereaboutsof high-risk sex offenders moving into a neighborhood to be madepublic. Before Megan's death, only five states required sexoffenders to register with local law enforcement as required in JacobWetterling Act.

The New Jersey law became model forfederal legislation, introduced in the House of Representatives byCongressman Dick Zimmer. On May 17, 1996, President Bill Clintonsigned federal Megan's Law, an amendment to the Jacob Wetterling Act,that set the guidelines for the state statutes, requiring states tonotify the public, although officials could decide how much publicnotification is necessary, based on the level of danger posed by anoffender.

International Megan's Law

International Megan's Law to PreventChild Exploitation and Other Sexual Crimes Through AdvancedNotification of Traveling Sex Offenders was signed into a law byPresident Obama on February 8, 2016. International Megan's Lawrequires the notification of foreign governments when a citizen ofUnited States registered as a sex offender for sexual offenseinvolving a minor is going to be traveling to their country. The lawrequires a visual "unique identifier" to be placed on thepassports of covered registrants and requires offenders to notify lawenforcement 21 days before traveling abroad. The law was challengedshortly after being enacted.

Public notification

States differ with respect to publicdisclosure of offenders. In some states all sex offenders are subjectto public notification through Megan's Law websites. However, inothers, only information on high-risk offenders is publiclyavailable, and the complete lists are withheld for law enforcementonly. Under federal SORNA tier I registrants may be excluded frompublic disclosure, with exemption of those convicted of "specifiedoffense against a minor." Since SORNA merely sets theminimum standards the states must follow, many SORNA compliant statesdisclose information of all tiers. These disparities have promptedsome registrants to move into states with less strict rules.

Criticism

Evidence to support the effectivenessof public sex offender registries is limited and mixed. Majority ofresearch results do not find statistically significant shift insexual offense trends following the implementation of sex offenderregistration and notification (SORN) regimes. A few studies indicatethat sexual recidivism may have been lowered by SORN policies, whilea few have found statistically significant increase in sex crimesfollowing SORN implementation. According to the Office of JusticePrograms' SMART Office, sex offender registration and notificationrequirements arguably have been implemented in the absence ofempirical evidence regarding their effectiveness.

Opponents of Megan's Law, like WomenAgainst Registry, National Association for Rational Sexual OffenseLaws, and Human Rights Watch, have called the law overbroad and aninvitation to vigilante violence.

Treatment professionals such as ATSAcriticize the lack of evidence of the laws' effectiveness, theautomatic inclusion of offenders on the registry without determiningthe risk of re-offense (by applying scientifically validated riskassessment tools), the scientifically unsupported popular belief inhigh recidivism, and the counter-effectiveness of the laws, which canactually undermine, rather than improve public safety by exacerbatingfactors (e.g. unemployment, instability) that may lead to recidivism. In addition, civil rights and reformist organizations highlight theadverse collateral effects on the family members of registrants, andquestion the fairness of the registries as indefinite punishment, andwhen applied to certain offender groups, such as juveniles and youngadults engaging in consensual acts. Some victims' rights advocateslike Patty Wetterling have presented similar critique.