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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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... Despite debate over whether even adults should be required to register as sex offenders (Sandler et al., 2008), juvenile sex offender registration policy is prevalent. Experts estimate that the number of sex offenders who were registered as juveniles across the U.S. ranges from 37,000 to hundreds of thousands (Stern et al., 2019). ...
A policy's general deterrent effect requires would‐be offenders to be aware of the policy, yet many adolescents do not know they could be registered as sex offenders, and even adolescents who do know may still commit registerable sexual offenses. We tested whether peer influences shape the perceived costs/benefits of certain sexual offenses and, subsequently, registration policy's general deterrent potential in a sample of policy‐aware adolescents. The more adolescents believed their peers approve of sexting of nude images, the more likely they were to have sexted. For forcible touching, having more positive peer expectations about sex and perceiving forcible touching as more prevalent among peers related to adolescents' likelihood of engaging in that behavior. Perceiving registration as a possible consequence was unrelated to sexual offending. Findings highlight the nuanced roles peers play in adolescent sexual decision‐making and support emerging evidence that juvenile registration policy has limited general deterrent efficacy.
... Furthermore, research has repeatedly shown that the majority of sexual offenses are perpetrated by first time offenders against victims that are well known to them; prolific media accounts of rare cases of repeated sexual offending against strangers promote the inaccurate belief of threat by "stranger danger" [22,30]. Publicizing cases of repeat offending perpetuates the erroneous belief that the majority of individuals convicted of sexual crimes will sexually reoffend [22]. ...
Purpose of Review
We review the non-punitive intents and goals of sexual offender civil commitment (“SOCC”) proceedings. We apply the impacts of open courtrooms in SOCC hearings to what is known about the provision of effective, ethical, and constitutional interventions to those committed and we examine whether open proceedings are consistent with evidence-based practices, including the risk, needs, and responsivity principles.
Recent Findings
The use of open courtrooms in SOCC proceedings presents numerous barriers to ethical, effective, and efficient interventions. Open courtrooms fuel treatment resistance, low treatment enrollment, exacerbation of risk factors, and mental conditions, and they disrupt protective factors, undermining the integrity of SOCC systems. These negative consequences are punitive and inconsistent with evidence-based practices, the RNR principles, and do not facilitate positive treatment outcomes.
Summary
The SOCC’s purpose is to prevent sexual re-offense by helping those committed improve their sexual offense risk-related mental conditions. Open courtrooms and the harm they cause undermine the constitutionality pillars of SOCC proceedings and are inconsistent with best practice principles. Legislators, judges, attorneys, and policymakers should monitor and reform courtroom procedures to ensure they are consistent with evidence-based practices and the non-punitive intent and goals of civil commitment.
... While the sex offender policies are popular among the public (Kernsmith, Craun, & Foster, 2009;Levenson, Brannon, Fortney, & Baker, 2007;Phillips, 1998;Proctor, Badzinski, & Johnson, 2002), there is a lack of convincing evidence that sex offender policies substantially reduce sex offender recidivism (Caputo & Brodsky, 2004;Prescott & Rockoff, 2008;Welchans, 2005). For instance, studies that evaluated SORN policies in Arkansas (Maddan, 2008), New York (Sandler, Freeman, & Socia, 2008), Iowa (Adkins, Huff, Stageberg, Prell, & Musel, 2000); (Tewksbury & Jennings, 2010), Massachusetts (Petrosino & Petrosino, 1999), New Jersey (Tewksbury, Jennings, & Zgoba, 2012;Zgoba, Witt, Dalessandro, & Veysey, 2008), and Washington (Schram & Milloy, 1995) found that the policies had no measurable effects on recidivism (Connor & Tewksbury, 2017). Caldwell and Dickinson (2009) also found that SORN requirements did not lower the risk of recidivism among juvenile offenders. ...
Registered sex offenders can find sex offender registration and notification (SORN) requirements disruptive to finding employment, housing, and cultivating social stigmatization that causes other difficulties. To further unpack these issues, the scope of challenges and reasons why certain registered individuals fail to comply with SORN standards were investigated. Toward this end, a survey was sent to the email addresses of registered sex offenders in Florida, yielding 967 respondents. The survey assessed their opinions of and compliance with SORN requirements. In addition to holding unfavorable views of sex offender public registries, results indicated that most respondents experienced difficulties due to SORN, such as finding jobs, obtaining an education, and locating housing. Notably, the most common reason for failure to comply with SORN standards was forgetting to meet some SORN obligation obligations. The second most reported reason for compliance failure was not understanding the SORN requirements. It is recommended that registering agencies periodically notify registered individuals of upcoming registration deadlines and other requirements. Registering agencies should also establish orientations for newly registered individuals to provide essential information pertaining to SORN requirements and resources available to registered individuals.
Community notifications are released by law enforcement to warn the public of a high-risk offender re-entering the community. Unfortunately, negative media attention generated from community notifications can impact an individual's ability to successfully reintegrate, leading to increased recidivism. This study examines whether modifications to community notifications can change public perceptions of offenders. Participants were presented with community notifications including jargon or simple language, an explanation of release or no explanation, and various sentence lengths served by the justice-involved individual. Notable results included a higher tolerance for justice-involved individuals when legal jargon was used in the explanation of release. Moreover, justice-involved people were perceived to be more likeable when information on sentence length was not provided. These findings contribute to a greater understanding of factors that affect public perceptions of justice-involved individuals. Addressing these factors could decrease recidivism rates by adequately informing the public of risks without negatively impacting offender reintegration.
What are termed the ‘collateral legal consequences’ (or CLCs) of criminal conviction have been defended in a variety of ways. The focus in this article is on efforts to justify the burdens and restrictions they involve as nonpenal measures designed to secure public safety. Zachary Hoskins' careful defense of such public‐safety CLCs is utilized as a point of departure. Although it is granted that such measures might be defensible, the many complications and problems of ensuring that they do not amount to further legal punishment and are kept within reasonable bounds are explored. I argue that the state is unlikely to deploy such public safety measures wisely and with sufficient restraint.
In order to prevent child sexual abuse before it occurs, laws must be in place to intervene before the sexual abuse begins. Despite there being many challenges to defining sexual grooming, this chapter reviews current United States Federal and State Enticement statutes as well as international sexual grooming legislation designed to criminalize sexual grooming before the abuse occurs. Sexual grooming as it may be applied in civil cases of sexual abuse will also be examined. Next, additional laws that can be used to prevent sexual grooming such as mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse, mandatory background checks, and “pass the trash” legislation will be described. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the development of future legislation and policies directed at the prevention of sexual grooming.KeywordsSexual abuseSexual groomingSexual Grooming ModelFederal enticement statuteState enticement statutesInternational sexual grooming legislationCriminalCivilDaubertFryemandatory child abuse reportingBackground checksPass the trash legislationLawyersProsecutionCrimeInvestigationEvidenceIntent
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.