Sex Offender Registration Research Paper

When entering the social work program I never gave much thought to who I did not want to work with, rather my focus was entirely on what population I do want to work with. After long thought, I decided I do not want to work with sex offenders, I’d rather work with children and perhaps that is where I get my bias against sex offenders or perhaps it stems from other reasons. Through my research, I am hoping to discover new information about sex offenders that may change my opinion and help me to see them in a new light.

An Alabama convicted sex offender was charged Thursday with kidnapping and murdering 12-year-old Naomi Jones after finding Jones's body in a creek near her house.

California enacted the first sex offender register law in 1944. However, sex offender registers in the United States did not become widespread until the 1990s. The Jacob Wetterling Act 1994 was named after 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling who was abducted and to this day has never been found. The Jacob Wetterling Act implemented the first nation-wide sex offender register. Originally, the concept of a sex offender register was intended to for use solely by law enforcement; it was not an intention for the sex offender register to be public. However in 1996, Megan’s Law was added to the Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act 1994 and made it a requirement for the information on sex offender registers to be accessible by the public. Megan’s Law was enacted as a result of a heinous crime where 7-year-old Megan Kanka was raped and murdered by her neighbour, who had two previous convictions for sexually assaulting young girls. In 2006, Congress passed the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act. This Act required states to enact stricter registration requirements, including an increase in the penalty for not registering and more frequent verification of sex offenders’ locations. Since 2006 public access to sex offender registers has been accessible on the Internet in most states. On these websites you can search for an offender by name or location, and find information such as their photo, convictions, address,

Summary of Article or Findings: The key problem the authors raise is if there is a stigma directed at registered sex offenders. The research focuses on certain consequences that register sex offenders deal with because of their status. The data gather in the research shows key problems in being a registered sex offender. The evidence that shows the key problem of being a registered sex offender is actual insight from actual registered sex offenders. The key finding of the research is there are main consequences that registered sex offender’s deal with because of being a registered sex offender. The sex offender’s deal with family and intimate relationship issues, loss of employment, denied promotions at work, lack of housing, different types of harassment. The key concept which leads to the conclusion is that there is a stigma directed at registered sex offenders. Since the registered sex offenders have consequences because of their status as a registered sex offender it gives the look that no matter what, they will never fulfill their debt to society. The conclusion the author’s made is that there are problems with registered sex offenders in locations that have need been studied and those that have been studied. The consequences the registered sex offenders receive could cause further problems such as reoffending and that the stigma regarding sex offenders is still active.

When we hear the phrase, sex offender, we normally feel repulsed. We think of dirty old creepy men. I for one used to do this, I won’t lie. This is because people like to rush to judgment. But my opinions changed when I came to the realization that it’s not just creepy old men who are sex offenders. I want to talk about them, but not those who are serial rapists or child molesters; they don’t deserve to be talked about. I’m talking about people who are convicted, whether it’s falsely, or unjustly, and have to wear a stamp on their forehead for the rest of their lives saying they are a sex offender.

Additionaly, the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act is seen as a positive as well by law enforcement, “…believing it leads to improved community surveillance of sex offenders and deters them from reoffending” (Lasher & McGrath 9). The downside to this concept is the cost of implementing the notifications. It is a concern for law enforcement that the public could overreact, which would result in the need to allocate funds due to harassment (Lasher & McGrath 9). It has an impact on the economic system because people believe it needs to be implemented to keep everyone safe, and do not take into consideration the large amounts of money needed to put this act in place. An article tiled, “Sex Offenders Registration and

In my opinion, Mary Kay Leourneau was and still is a rapist, and I would qualify her has a female sex offender. Leourneau was educated and knew right from wrong, she was an elementary school teacher and she was also a respected member of society (Mary Kay Letourneau Biography 2016). Even though her marriage had problems, in no way does this make it ok for her to become involved with a child? Vili Fualaau is a victim for life; she took this kid a 13-year-old adolescent with his hormone changes and swings. At this age boys bodies are experiencing physical changes combined with mental changes, what do boys at this age think about sex. She manipulated the situation to her liking, by having him in her home and becoming friends with her son (Mary Kay Letourneau Biography 2016). I can’t even think what kind of psychological mental abuse her children had to face. She's not sick in the sense she has a psychological problem(s) from her past or her marriage, she knew exactly what she wanted and went for it.

With the sex offender’s registries controlled by each individual jurisdiction, maintaining a registry is time consuming and costly. The separate jurisdictions maintain their own registry is through the Justice Assistance Grant (JAG). The grant only deducts 10% of their budget if that jurisdiction in not following the minimal guidelines of SORNA. We see an issue with who to hold accountable when the inaccurate information and lack of information is projected to society. Take for instance an article wrote titled, Sex offender registration changes: not worth the cost? by Gunnarsson. In her article she states, “Estimates of how much Illinois risks losing for its noncompliance with SORNA range from $900,000 to $1.6 million. But the loss of Byrne

“Prosecutorial Remedies and other tool to end the Exploitation of Children Today Act “were passed in 2003. This Act allowed people to search different state borders for information on sex offenders in other cities and states. Some effective community notification strategies are alerting the public through News, press releases, newsletters, and sometimes door-to- door warnings of the sex offenders in the area serves a good purpose. Now days states are mandated by the Federal government to put the sex offender registry online so that anyone web access can stay notified.

We estimate that notification laws reduce the number of sex offenses when the size of the registry is small but that these benefits dissipate as more offenders become subject to notification requirements. This pattern is consistent with notification deterring nonregistered individuals but encouraging recidivism among registered offenders, perhaps be- cause of the social and financial costs associated with the public release of their criminal history and personal information.

After criminals pay their debt to society, many criminals will start a fresh life, those convicted of felons are limited to job selection, they lose the ability to vote and if they are a sex offender then they go on a list of sex offender registry. However, not all crimes are readily available with information about their offense except for sex offender. Their criminal records for any sex offenders is required to be visible and available for anyone in society to have access to. The Texas Department of Public Safety website has a database that you can access and you are available to view how many sex offenders are within your zip code. In my 77076-zip code, there is total of 62 sex offenders within my areas. Sixty of those offenders are male and two are female. The type of crimes these sex offenders were convicted were a variety of differences offenses for example: Raymond Acosta; risk level listed as moderate, convicted of sexual assault of a 35 year female, Alfred Alvarado; risk level listed as low, convicted of procession of child pornography, victims age unknown,

The purpose of this literature review is to discuss the importance of sexual offender treatment, to compare and contrast research points regarding treatment, and to address the validity of the peer reviewed articles. Every year 6,000 sex offenders enter treatment (Waldram, 2008). Various therapeutic treatment options are offered, and the primary focus is to rehabilitate and change behavior. The body of research reveals different therapeutic treatment models and discusses the purpose and effectiveness of each model. This paper will also discuss some of the challenges of implementing therapeutic treatment schemas as viable alternatives to treat sex offenders. Lastly, the research will also examine the impact of treatment as it relates to

Stories of sex offenders have been increasingly a focus of attention by the criminal justice system over the past years. By legal definition, a sex offender “is a person who is convicted of a sexual offense (Sex Offender Law & Legal Definition),” an act which is prohibited by the jurisdiction. What constitutes as a sex offense or normal/abnormal sexual behavior varies over time and place, meaning that it also varies by legal jurisdiction and culture. In the United States of America, for example, a person can be convicted of wide range of sexual behavior that includes prostitution, incest, sex with a minor, rape, and other sex offenses (Sex Offender Law & Legal Definition). As the nature of sex crimes have long held the

Perpetrators of sex crimes committed against children often start by gaining the trust of potential victims and the adults in their lives’ by using a tactic called “grooming.” The purpose of this memo is to give the court a baseline understanding of what sex offender victim grooming is, its purpose, and techniques. Because of the extensive amount of research and information on this topic, this paper does not detail all of the grooming techniques used by child sex offenders to groom potential victims.

There have been hundreds to thousands of treatments that have been conducted, some similar and others drastically different. In this paper, I will go over just a few of the more important types of treatments. Brown et al, (2017) demonstrates three types of treatments. Pharmacological treatment, behavioral therapy, and most importantly cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). With pharmacological treatment’s their purpose is to reduce sex drive. The most common types of drugs used are antiandrogen, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), and gonadotropic releasing hormone (GnRH) agonists. to go into more detail antiandrogen’s like cyproterone acetate (CPA) and medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA)