Should Sex Offenders Be Public

"In each state, laws require sex offenders to register with police or some other government agency when they leave prison" (Johnson, 1999, p.1). The key word is convicted. I live in the state of Tennessee. The TN law says a sex offender 's information is not private. I have the right to ask questions about suspected offenders.

The United States Supreme Court in the Packingham v. North Carolina first amendment case has ruled in favor of Lester Gerard Packingham. The state from now on may not bar social media access to registered sex offenders. The case’s build up dates back to 2002 when 21 year old college student Lester G. Packingham had a sexual relationship with a 13-year-old girl. For involvement with a minor he received a 10-12 month sentence, but having never met problems with the law, the judge required him to go on a 24 month probation and register as a sex offender. Five years had passed and in 2008 North Carolina forbid any person on the sex offender list to use any type of social media.

Policy Analysis: Megan’s Law Sexual violence, particularly against children, is a significant issue all around the world. In the early 1990’s in the United States, there were multiple well-publicized cases of sexual violence against children. From kidnappings, to rapes, and everything in between, violence was being committed against children and something needed to be done about it. In 1996, Megan’s Law was passed in response to the sexual assault and death of Megan Kanka, a seven-year-old from New Jersey (Corrigan, 2006).

Dominic T. Hicks, DOB 05/01/77 is a known Registered Sex Offender that lives in Unit 6 and was a possible match to the suspect description given by the victim. On 06/24/15, I conducted registered sex offender address verification checks and contacted Hicks at 109 Lake St. S. #6 which is his registered address. At about 0900 hours, Cpl. Crocker and Detective Lansing contacted Wehrman at the hospital.

He includes these statistics to make the issue kairotic. The author goes back and forth between interviews with Greg to the startling statistics about juveniles. He put these in his article to show that the issue is more common than one may have thought. This is an issue everyday people over look and are not concerned about. These studies suggest that juveniles’ being tried as adults is a serious problem that is only going to get worse if the public isn’t educated about it.

Chapter Eight of the book Flawed Criminal Justice Policies, authors take the closer look at the laws and faulty policy regarding the sex offenders. According to the book policy makers started the myriad laws to protect the public from the sex offenders with increased prison sentences, and restricting the residences to the violators. Today we have very similar situation when it comes to treatment of sexual offenders. The process starts with the sex offender being committed to the prison sentence, and lastly to being registered as a sex offender on many public websites, so that the people could distinguish who the sex offender is and where he/she lives. In this chapter we can learn about a lot of different statues that were made to protect people from the sex offenders.

No research to date has indicated that applying harsher penalties or mandating national registries has reduced the recidivism rates among sex offenders, reduced sex trafficking against minors, nor child pornography. Despite the ongoing efforts of The Adam Walsh Act alongside other child safety acts as well, children in the United States are still perishing from sexual and physical abuse each day. According to data from the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS), “49 States reported a total of 1,585 fatalities. Based on these data, a nationally estimated 1,670 children died from abuse or neglect in FFY 2015, which is 5.7 percent more than in 2011. This translates to a rate of 2.25 children per 100,000 children in the general population and an average of nearly five children dying every day from abuse or neglect”.(www.childwarefare.gov) Human Rights Watch shares that “the real risks that children face are quite different: government statistics indicate that most sexual abuse of children are committed by family members or trusted authority figures, and by someone who has not previously been convicted of a sex offense.

A sex offenders register for identification and keeps evidence and tracks anything down. Any one valuable will need to be protected by sex

In previous court cases, such as Manson v. Braithwaite, the Supreme Court deemed that if identification can be determined to be “reliable”, such evidence could be used. The study continues further to document a specific case of mistaken identity. In 1984, Ronald Cotton was sentenced to prison for the rape of 22-year-old, Jennifer Thompson. While many were pleased that a rapist was off the street, the police has gotten the wrong man.

No sooner that he was let out of prison back in the early 90’s, he preyed on little kids by fondling them as young as 5 yrs of age in Kissimmee Florida. This to me says, that this is a Criminals signature that describes not only why? He went to prison but how we as citizens and as a police officer and detectives can know if this is the right man we are looking for to bring to Justice and make sure he never see’s the streets

Megan’s Law was enacted under the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act of 1994, which required sex offenders to register their offender status with law enforcement agencies (Tewksbury, 2005). Both laws converged to create what is now referred to as “Megan’s Laws” which operates on a state level and requires both the registration of sex offenders and notification to the public. The states themselves decide what information will be posted for the public to see, but typically includes their full name, date of birth, nature of offense, and current photograph of the offender. The law enforcement agency that is in the jurisdiction of where the offender resides is responsible for the distribution of the information to the public. Some agencies prefer to use the old-fashioned method and distribute flyers, pamphlets, or newspapers, while others may take a more technological approach and make Facebook posts as means to notify the public.

Additionally, California has a law that allows citizens access to a CD-ROM with detailed information on sex offenders living in the state. The Pam Lyncher Sexual Offender Tracking and Identification Act, signed into law by President Clinton in 1996, called for a national registry of sex offenders, which allows state officials to submit queries and determine whether a job applicant at a day-care center is a registered sex offender in any of the participating states. Overall, communities have the right to be informed about the presence of sex offenders and take measures to protect themselves, such as avoiding contact with the offender or limiting their access to certain areas. However, it's worth noting that some states have more stringent laws than others when it comes to community notification and that the effectiveness of such laws in reducing the risk of recidivism among sex offenders remains a topic of

Argument For my argument project I was asked to do a paper about a problem or situation in my community. I was looking for some ideas and came a across and article about a sex offender moving to our community. I thought that would be an amazing topic to write about.

“Teenager’s Jailing Brings a Call to Fix Sex Offender Registries,” is an article written by Julie Bosman, and published by the New York Times Newspaper. The article is written about a 19-year-old named Zachery Anderson who is listed on a sex offender registry for life. The cause of this was talking to an under aged female through a dating app called “Hot or Not.” Although, Zachary Anderson did not know that the girl who had lied about her being 17, was actually 14, he later plead guilty to what had happened. Reading this newspaper article had me thinking about all sorts of things, whether it was about the fact that Zachary had sex with a female who was under the age of consent in Michigan or the fact that he was put on the sex offender registry.

This is because the law is overly vast when it describes what the sex offender can and cannot due over the internet. This is unfair because in today’s world almost every website use reviews and opinion based comments. Many of these websites don’t require a user to have any sort of account or username. This means that any person, including minors, are able to use this website regardless of whether or not it is allowed, and the very possibility of a minor being on a website restricts it from the use of a sex offender. An example of this is Cooks.com, this website allows users to leave comments without requiring any type of account, email, or identification.