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Megans Law: Protecting American Families Everywhere Essay

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Megan’s Law: Protecting American
Families Everywhere
In the summer of 1994 in Hamilton, New Jersey, a small girl by the name of Megan Kanka was raped and murdered by a convicted pedophile, Jesse Timmendequas. The shocking crime rocked not only the small town, but the entire country. A desperate mother told reporters “Please, please help us find our daughter, she’s a wonderful girl ... she’s only seven. Let her come back.” (www.crimelibrary.com) No mother should ever have to beg for her daughter’s life. People thought that everyone had a right to know if a child molester was living in their midst. Dick Zimmer, then a state senator in New Jersey, and later a one-term congressman,…show more content…
Another positive aspect of Megan’s Law is that it makes the pedophile, who had to register themselves as a sex offender, more weary of their actions. People are less likely to act a certain way or do things if they know that everyone is keeping watch over almost all their actions (www.nj.gov).
Like most things there is always a negative aspect. A negative aspect of Megan’s Law is how some people consider it to be unconstitutional. People believe that it is unconstitutional in that the rights of the pedophile to live a normal life have been taken away (Star-Ledger). Many argue that they deserve this violation but when it comes down to it, their rights really are being revoked. If a sex offender who has already served their time in prison and has gotten the help that they needed want to start a new life as a new person, they can not do this because of Megan’s Law. Megan’s Law makes it very hard for the person to try and start over now that everyone knows what they had done and their privacy had been violated (Amoroso). Megan’s Law also only lists people who are of moderate or high risk. Basically if you have done something along the lines of pedophilia but nothing that made the newspaper, no one will know about it (Amoroso). People also try to use the pedophiles as a reason why you
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