Sex Offender Research Paper

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.

He also served six years in a treatment facility and had been released. Many people said that he was a quiet man, and this left them to think he was harmless. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case. This sex offender lived in the same town, as a matter of fact, he lived across the street from the Kanka family.

Megan’s Law was named after a seven year old girl from New Jersey Megan Nicole Kanka. On July 29, 1994 she was invited by a neighbor to see his puppy. He was a twice convicted pedophile; he sexually assaulted and murdered her. Due to the brutality of the crime that was done to Megan it mandate registration of sex offenders and corresponding community notification.

Not only that but they are labeling them as sex offenders for the rest of their lives. How confusing this must be to the young people of America today. So many young people are finding this out the hard way by being accused of a sex offense for being

Sexual violence in the United Stated has become a significant problem over the past decade. Besides being a health problem for the individual, it is a crime that every State punishes in accordance to their laws. In an effort to decrease the incidents of sexual assault, many states and legislators have passed laws geared towards reducing recidivism among convicted sex offenders. As a result, sex offenders living in the United States are subject to different laws, including sex offender registration, community notification, monitoring via a global positioning system (GPS), and loitering and internet restrictions. In addition to these boundaries, sex offenders are subject to civil

In the year of 1994, the New Jersey Legislature passed a law known as Megan’s Law. The law was named after Megan Kanka, a seven year old girl who was raped and killed in Hamilton Township, New Jersey, by a known child molester who had moved across the street from the family. Megan’s Law, in short, created a registration and notification procedure to alert law enforcement, schools, community organizations and neighbors to the presence of a sex offender who authorities believe may pose a risk to the community (Morris County Office of the Prosecutor, 2015, p. 1). States must provide relevant information about these sex offenders to their communities in order to enhance public safety

Megan’s Law is named after a girl, Megan Kanka, who at only 7 years old was kidnapped, sexually assaulted then murdered in cold blood. The man who did this had a prior conviction for sexual assault. The murderer, Jesse Timmendequas moved across the street from Megan and her family. He was sentenced to death but never got put to death because on December 17, 2007 the New Jersey Legislature abolished the death penalty. His new sentence was life in prison without any possibility of parole. However, they did not have the proper resources to know about his criminal history. Megan’s Law is a legislation that exists in the United States. It requires individuals that are convicted in sex crimes involving children or minors to register in the database containing all the names of all known and

Barbaree looked at 224 sex offenders. Of those men, 33 committed a new offense of some kind for a general recidivism rate of 14.7 percent. Even more interesting was the study did not support the idea that good treatment behavior, as in positive or appropriate behavior in group sessions, good homework assignments, and positive ratings of motivation, could be associated with a less of a chance for recidivism. They gave two possible reasons for this finding. Sex offenders, by the very nature of their criminal behavior, are masters of manipulation and exploitation. These individuals can exhibit behavior that contributes to favorable assessments. The second possible reason is these skills are learned, or enhanced, in the treatment setting. Data from a program

Sex offenders tend to blend in to society virtually unnoticed until they offend or reoffend (Polizzi, MacKenzie, & Hickman, 1999). Currently, there is a large group of mental health professionals representing a variety of disciplines, including psychology, psychiatry clinical social work, counseling, and medicine, that continue to believe in the potential efficacy of treating sex offenders. Over the past decade, the sex offender treatment field has grown rapidly and the treatment of juvenile sex offenders is on the rise (Parks & Bard, 2006). The rationale for treating juvenile offenders is based on research which indicates that inappropriate sexual behavior patterns develop early and a failure to intervene and change behavior early often means that the offender will continue to escalate his/her inappropriate behavior, which could present an even greater danger to society (Ayland & West, 2006). Vivian-Bryne, (2004) suggests that professionals who treat adult sex offenders report that offenders who are incarcerated will eventually return to the community and therefore, therapeutic measures should be taken to reduce the likelihood that they will reoffend even if those measures have not conclusively been identified as effective. Sexual offenders may find therapy valuable because it can allow them to retrace their upbringing to help them identify and understand the roots of their

Megan’s Law created a registration and notification procedure to alert law enforcement, schools, community organizations and neighbors to the presence of a sex offender who authorities believe may pose a risk to the community ( Verniero 1) .When sex crime offenders are released from prison according to this new law, they must register themselves with the police. If they are thought to be dangerous and will possibly strike again, they must also register with the

There has been much debate about why people commit sexual crimes. As far as to what causes people to become sex offenders, there is no real answer to this question. No single factor can fully interpret why someone commits a sexual offense, though it is believed that some combination of factors may combine to increase sexual deviancy dramatically. These factors include biological, circumstantial, environmental, and sociocultural aspects of the person, describing the development of abnormal sexual expression through the same mechanisms by which conventional sexuality is also learned (Terry and Tallon). There are a number of sub-theories which have been designed to explain the onset of sexual deviancy. However, because no one can pinpoint the dynamics of sexual deviancy, different theories have been developed to study and account for the development of sexual aggression and behavior. An explanation of the main theories is offered below:

Treatment providers recognized that sex offenders evidenced had a high prevalence of cognitive distortions, or thought processes that allowed the offenders to neutralize their feelings of guilt and shame (Abel, 1989). No matter what setting that cognitive therapy is used in, its purpose is to focus on the way an individual thinks and to change any type of “thinking errors”. For our purposes, cognitive treatment is used in the correctional and community setting to help offenders think rationally and responsibly before they act.

Sexual assault is one of the fastest growing violent crimes in America. Approximately 20% of all people charged with a sexual offense are juveniles. Among adult sex offenders, almost 50% report that their first offense occurred during their adolescence. (FBI, 1993) There are many different opinions, treatment options and legislation to manage the growing numbers of juvenile sex offenders. In today’s society the psychological and behavioral modification treatments used to manage juvenile sex offenders is also a growing concern. To understand and determine the proposed treatment methods, several related issues will need to be reviewed such as traditional sex offender therapy methods like cognitive therapy and alternative therapies like

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.

Sex crimes include acts considered as either sexual abuse, or a non-tolerable behavior considered inappropriate to social norms. The law forbids certain sexual acts, despite expressed consent from both parties. Sex laws vary from region to region, and may evolve over time. Furthermore, sexual acts forbidden by law in a proscribed jurisdiction are coined as sex crimes.