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Does a Watched Pot Boil? A Time-Series Analysis of New York State's Sex Offender Registration and Notification Law
Abstract and Figures
Despite the fact that the federal and many state governments have enacted registration and community notification laws as a means to better protect communities from sexual offending, limited empirical research has been conducted to examine the impact of such legislation on public safety. Therefore, utilizing time-series analyses, this study examined differences in sexual offense arrest rates before and after the enactment of New York State's Sex Offender Registration Act. Results provide no support for the effectiveness of registration and community notification laws in reducing sexual offending by: (a) rapists, (b) child molesters, (c) sexual recidivists, or (d) first-time sex offenders. Analyses also showed that over 95% of all sexual offense arrests were committed by first-time sex offenders, casting doubt on the ability of laws that target repeat offenders to meaningfully reduce sexual offending. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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... Research exploring the efficacy of SORN policies has focused primarily on individual states, with a small number of studies examining multiple state effects (NCJA-SOMAPI, 2017). Within this research, with limited exceptions (Barnoski, 2005;Bierie, 2016;Duwe & Donnay, 2008;Freeman, 2012), little evidence of a SORN impact has been found for either first-time sexual offending or reoffending (Adkins et al., 2000;Agan, 2011;Maddan et al., 2011;Sandler et al., 2008;Schram & Milloy, 1995;Vasquez et al., 2008;Zgoba et al., 2008;Zgoba et al., 2010;Zgoba et al., 2018). ...
... The authors determined that individuals subjected to community notification were rearrested more quickly for new sexual offenses, compared with those offenders who were not subject to notification; however, overall recidivism rates between the two groups did not differ. Similar state studies in New Jersey and Iowa also found negligible results associated with SORN (Adkins et al., 2000;Tewksbury et al., 2012;Zgoba et al., 2008;Zgoba et al., 2010), while a time series analysis in New York found that 95% of all sexual offense arrests were committed by first-time offenders (Sandler et al., 2008). Adkins et al. (2000) examined the effects of registration in Iowa. ...
... No significant differences were noted between the groups for both general and sexual reoffending. Sandler et al. (2008) utilized a time series analysis to examine differences in sexual offense arrest rates before and after the enactment of New York State's Sex Offender Registration Act. The authors found no support for the effectiveness of SORN laws in reducing sexual offending by rapists, child molesters, sexual recidivists, or first-time sex offenders. ...
Objectives
Examine 25 years of Sex Offender Registration and Notification (SORN) evaluations and their effects on recidivism.
Methods
We rely on methodology guidelines established by the Campbell Collaboration for meta-analyses to systematically synthesize results from 18 research articles including 474,640 formerly incarcerated individuals. We estimate the effect of SORN policies on recidivism from 42 effect sizes and determine if the effect of SORN varies by sexual or non-sexual recidivism when examining arrest or conviction as outcomes.
Results
The random-effects meta-analysis model demonstrated that SORN does not have a statistically significant impact on recidivism. This null effect exists when examining a combined model and when disaggregating studies by sexual or non-sexual offenses, or conceptualizing recidivism by arrest or conviction.
Conclusions
SORN policies demonstrate no effect on recidivism. This finding holds important policy implications given the extensive adoption and net-widening of penalties related to SORN.
... Although sex offender laws were designed to decrease sexual violence, there is evidence suggesting that not only are these laws largely ineffective in preventing sexual recidivism, but in some cases, they may increase the risk for reoffending (Calkins et al., 2014;Jeglic & Calkins, 2016;Levenson & Cotter, 2005;Sandler et al., 2008). Registration and community notification policies were originally created to combat predatory child sexual abuse; however, 95% of all sexual offenses are committed by those not on the registry (Sandler et al., 2008). ...
... Although sex offender laws were designed to decrease sexual violence, there is evidence suggesting that not only are these laws largely ineffective in preventing sexual recidivism, but in some cases, they may increase the risk for reoffending (Calkins et al., 2014;Jeglic & Calkins, 2016;Levenson & Cotter, 2005;Sandler et al., 2008). Registration and community notification policies were originally created to combat predatory child sexual abuse; however, 95% of all sexual offenses are committed by those not on the registry (Sandler et al., 2008). This suggests that current legislation is inaccurately allocating scarce resources to prevent sexual violence among released individuals convicted of sexual offenses when research indicates that it may be better spent on prevention efforts (Jeglic & Calkins, 2016;Letourneau et al., 2010;Sandler et al., 2008;Zevitz, 2006). ...
... Registration and community notification policies were originally created to combat predatory child sexual abuse; however, 95% of all sexual offenses are committed by those not on the registry (Sandler et al., 2008). This suggests that current legislation is inaccurately allocating scarce resources to prevent sexual violence among released individuals convicted of sexual offenses when research indicates that it may be better spent on prevention efforts (Jeglic & Calkins, 2016;Letourneau et al., 2010;Sandler et al., 2008;Zevitz, 2006). Since the enactment of SORNA, there has been no significant impact on total rates of sexual offending, rape or child molestation, in general, by first-time offenders, or by individuals previously convicted of sexual offenses (Ackerman et al., 2012;Mercado et al., 2008). ...
Sex offender laws were designed to decrease sexual violence. The current mixed methods study examined attitudes and opinions of parole and probation officers who have supervised individuals convicted of sexual offenses (n = 361) regarding sex offender legislation and how these policies can be most effective in preventing recidivism. About half of the officers reported that registration and notification, sexually violent predator and Halloween laws were largely effective in preventing sexual victimization. Conversely, they perceived residence restriction laws and the tier system to be largely ineffective. A consistent theme that emerged from the qualitative responses was a movement away from blanket approaches towards a case-specific approach, tailoring the laws to individuals based upon their needs and risk level.
... Ackerman et al., 2012;Agan, 2011;Letourneau et al., 2010) or sexual recidivism (see, e.g. Tewksbury & Jennings, 2010); in fact, they may actually increase risk for recidivism as a function of social sanctions, namely, collateral consequences (Letourneau & Armstrong, 2008;Prescott & Rockoff, 2011;Sandler et al., 2008;Wakefield, 2006). Indeed, Jennings et al. (2012) found that sexual offender registration and notification policies have little effect on sexual offender recidivism trajectories yet possess unique responsibility in generating collateral consequences for those who sexually offend. ...
... Many studies have recognised the potential for sexual offender laws and policies to increase, rather than decrease, recidivism by impeding individual access to reintegration opportunities (Bonnar-Kidd, 2010;Jennings et al., 2012;Letourneau & Armstrong, 2008;Prescott & Rockoff, 2011;Sandler et al., 2008;Wakefield, 2006). A subset of these works has similarly acknowledged the lack of empirical research demonstrating the proposed link between collateral consequences and recidivism (Bonnar-Kidd, 2010;Craun & Bierie, 2014). ...
The relationship between collateral consequences and recidivism among individuals who sexually offend continues to be proffered in the literature, yet empirical evidence of these links has yet to be established. This exploratory study investigated the correlational and predictive relationships between social and psychological collateral consequences and overall recidivism, sexual recidivism specifically, and probation/parole/registry violations among a sample of 180 registrants. Results revealed significant relationships between demographic indicators (age, years registered, education), social and psychological collateral consequences, overall recidivism, and sexual recidivism and violations. Results of the hierarchical logistic regressions indicated that neither social nor psychological collateral consequences significantly improved model fit for overall recidivism or sexual recidivism. Social collateral consequences, however, predicted an individual’s likelihood to accrue probation, parole, or registry violations post-offence. Practical implications are discussed within the context of building an empirical basis for the potential contributory effects of the registry on recidivism, via collateral consequences.
... Primary interventions focus on worldwide initiatives for the general population, secondary preventions focus on the perpetrator or an at-risk child, and tertiary preventions concentrate on the perpetrators who have already offended or children who have already been victims. With first-time offenders making up 95% of CSA cases (Sandler et al., 2008), and research suggesting that it can take up to 10 years before a perpetrator commits CSA (Piché et al., 2018), it appears that primary prevention has a more pivotal role in stopping OCSA. Law and legislation are a crucial part in helping this primary prevention. ...
Online child sexual abuse is highly prevalent in current society, in part, due to how technologically advanced children and adults have become. While much of the focus has been on perpetrator intervention, it is prudent to consider responses safeguarding children from potential perpetrators. Therefore, this review aimed to identify all the available empirical research on the prevention methods linked to education and awareness to determine the approaches' effectiveness, successes, and failures to aid future interventions. Databases were systematically searched for studies published between 2000 to 2020. Nine studies providing different prevention methods for online child sexual abuse were selected. A total sample of n = 672 and a descriptive approach was used for this study. While the interventions seemed to improve knowledge retainment of online safety, there was no significant change for risky online behavior. These findings provide specific suggestions for future interventions, particularly those focusing on risky online behaviors.
... We concur with Stevenson and colleagues' (2013) argument that educated persons may be more likely than less-educated individuals to understand that many youth offend due to cognitive and developmental immaturity, are less likely to recidivate than adult offenders, and have greater chance for treatment (see also Salerno et al., 2010). Those with more education may also be more aware of the collateral consequences and ineffectiveness of SORN policies (Chaffin, 2008;Letourneau & Armstrong, 2008;Sandler et al., 2008), and thus less likely to support applying some of the punitive policies adult sex offenders are subjected to on juveniles. Regardless of the reason why more educated persons are less punitive toward JSOs, this implies that increasing the public's understanding of JSOs and SORN laws in general could reduce public support for these policies, at least among Nebraskans. ...
A controversial part of the Adam Walsh Act (AWA) mandates that states require minors adjudicated of certain sexual offenses to be on the sex offender registry, but not all states have complied. Our article examines how far the public in one Midwestern state that has not complied with the AWA is willing to go to manage juvenile sex offenders. We use a statewide survey of adults to examine attitudes toward applying adult sex offender penalties to minors adjudicated of a sex crime (residency restrictions, prohibitions from public schools, school zones, public parks, and social networking sites). Results indicate more than half (60%) of participants agreed that juveniles should be on the public sex offender registry. However, there was less consensus on how punitively juveniles should be treated compared with adult sex offenders. Results indicated which demographics in this state were more likely to hold punitive views toward juvenile sex offenders.
Child sexual abuse is a significant public health concern that has long-lasting consequences for victims and their families and poses a significant financial cost to the public. Prevention efforts, including sex offender treatment programs, are intended to prevent further instances of sexual abuse. Most sexual offenses, however, are committed by individuals who are not yet known as sexual offenders, and therefore traditional sex offender treatment programs fall short of this goal. It is crucial to provide services to people who may be at risk for committing a sexual offense and those who have not offended, including those individuals who are attracted to children. While primary prevention programs such as Prevention Project Dunkelfeld and Talking for Change have begun to address this issue internationally, there are significant barriers to providing preventive services of this nature to non-offending minor attracted persons (NOMAPs) in the United States. Barriers include concerns about mandated reporting laws, stigmatization, and lack of knowledge by therapists about MAPs. This paper explores these barriers and provides solutions for practitioners to offer services to this population. This paper includes the development of specific programming for non-offenders and specialized training for clinicians who work with non-offenders as used by The Global Prevention Project.
An overview of knowledge about adult sexual offenders against children
Sexual grooming has been deemed an integral part of the child sexual abuse (CSA) process. However, there has yet to be a widely accepted definition or model conceptualizing the construct. Sexual grooming behaviours are complex and often mirror normal adult–child interactions, which makes them difficult to detect and define. This chapter first provides an overview of the literature on in-person sexual grooming, and then identifies several challenges that impede our ability to better understand sexual grooming. Lastly, the chapter sheds light on future directions for research and important implications for the topic as it relates to clinical evaluation and treatment, investigation, and prosecution of CSA cases, primary prevention, and policy.
Preventing child sexual abuse (CSA) requires comprehensive multi-agency criminal justice and public health approaches. Yet, marginal attention has been given to secondary prevention strategies that target “at risk” populations. Thus, we carried out a scoping review examining secondary prevention interventions for people at risk of sexual offending by considering their effectiveness, challenges and barriers. We identified N = 43 sources and completed a qualitative analysis. Our appraisal found five themes: (a) essential features needed for secondary prevention programmes (plus summary of interventions); (b) barriers to examining, implementing and accessing secondary prevention programmes; (c) methodological limitations; (d) the ethical justification; and (e) economic benefits for preventing abuse before it occurs. Over the last two decades, sources report greater public tolerance to the notion of tackling CSA using public health prevention approaches. Thus, we call for policy makers to embrace this positive shift and invest resources to further examine this area.
Although federal legislation for the implementation of sex offender registration and notification systems is now a decade old, empirical studies on the efficacy of this policy are relatively nonextant. This article explores the impact of registration legislation on the incidence of forcible rapes. Using monthly count data of rapes aggregated at the state level, this analysis uses Box–Jenkins autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) models to conduct 10 intervention analyses on the enforcement of Megan's Law. The results of the analyses are mixed on whether the enforcement of sex offender registration had a statistically significant effect on the number of rapes reported at the state level. Although several states showed a nonsignificant increase in the number of rapes, only three states had a significant reduction in rapes. Policy implications are discussed in terms of the efficacy of sex offender registration and whether changes in these laws should be considered.
This study examined the recidivism rates of 195 adult male sex offenders who were referred to a prison-based cognitive-behavioral treatment program. Of this sample, 56 participants completed treatment, 49 entered but did not complete treatment, and 90 refused treatment services. Although participants were not randomly assigned to treatment conditions, there were no between-group differences on participants' pre-treatment risk for sexual recidivism as appraised on two actuarial risk measures, the RRASOR and Static-99. Over a mean follow-up period of almost 6 years, the sexual reoffense rate for the completed-treatment group was 5.4% versus 30.6% for the some-treatment and 30.0% for the no-treatment groups. Lower sexual recidivism rates were also found among those participants who received aftercare treatment and correctional supervision services in the community.
This article presents an exploratory assessment of the potential of Megan's Law to prevent subsequent sex offenses in Massachusetts. Using secondary data on 136 criminal sexual psychopaths, the authors found that 27 percent of the sample had a prior conviction that met the requirements of the Massachusetts Registry Law before their most recent sex crime. Of these 36 offenders who would have been eligible for the registry, 12 committed a stranger-predatory sex offense; the remaining 24 offended against family, friends, and coworkers. Assuming a registration and notification system of complete integrity, proactive police warnings could have potentially reached subsequent victims in 6 of the 12 stranger-predatory cases.
This paper was prepared by the Safer Society Foundation, Inc., regarding the issue of public notification of convicted sexual offenders' release to the community. It does not represent the views or opinions of any other organization or group, professional or otherwise. The Safer Society advocates for community safety, victim restitution and treatment, and quality comprehensive sexual offender treatment. While the Safer Society supports adult sexual offender registration laws in general, it is totally opposed to public notification laws. Presently, 47 states have sexual offender registration laws, 30 states have sexual offender public notification laws, and 15 states have laws allowing indefinite civil commitment of sexual offenders to state mental institutions. This document is designed to assist states considering public notification, or states that have enacted such laws, and to explore related issues and the impact of public notification on the greater community, including citizens, families, victims, and offenders. Numbers preceding the following points do not indicate relative importance, but are used for ease of reference.
Conventional explanations of crime rate trends assume that changes in the rates follow a process that is linear and constant, and that draws its inputs from a normal distribution. These features ensure that the present is linearly predictable from the past and that the future will be linearly predictable from the present. Questioning the conventional assumptions, an emerging class of historical contingency theories stresses variation in the crime-generating mechanism. According to contingency explanations, the process underlying the rates is nonlinear or non-normal, or has a structure that shifts over time. Future rate changes can then differ greatly depending on current conditions, and unanticipated developments will limit the accuracy of linear predictions. This article examines U.S. crime rates during the past two-thirds of the twentieth century, and finds little evidence of historical contingency. This supports the standard explanations, but it also raises deeper questions about the forces that produce the rates.
This article presents a literature review of the empirical evaluations of sex offender registration and community notification policy, commonly known as Megan’s Law. A background of the social problem that stimulated the policy formation of Megan’s Law is provided. Literature searches presented 12 empirical evaluations on different aspects of Megan’s Law. These evaluations focused on stakeholder, client-centered, goal-oriented, and process evaluations. Many sex offenders found some value to Megan’s Law in both deterring future abuse and when DNA collection was used in reducing false accusations. Implementation of this policy varied both within states and between states. Community members generally support the policy’s concept. Goal-oriented evaluations are not supportive of the policy’s effectiveness. Suggestions for future evaluative research on this policy are given.