Talia Houston
1120-10
Jasmin Ziegler
4/25/16
Imagine a life of not choosing how a person’s day will go, being forced to life a certain way. Most people have no idea what it feels like to be in prison, statistically only one out of every five people will know what it’s like to be in prison. Most of us imagine that prison life must be hard and extremely difficult to endure, but because of the life long lasting debt to society many struggle with adapting to life on the outside. Much of their time is structured, as they are told where they can live, how they can interact with people, or even where the can work. Many lives of the convicted are hindered because of the laws we have set in place for them.
The words “sex offender” immediately make you think of horrible memories of a crime show that portraits sex offenders being a stranger who over and over again rapes women, or a pedophile harming multiple children but in many cases this is not the case. Worldwide sexual offenders are the most sought out to continue to offend even after sentencing. Investigated by the bureau of justice statistics it showed that us of 9,700 tracked sex offenders only 5.3% of these were re-arrested for a sex offense. No matter what the offense was if you’re convicted of all have to register as a sex offender. This means you have to give out your name, address and photograph because you could potentially “offend” again, but this registry can begin to cause more unintended harm.
For over centuries, the only form of punishment and discouragement for humans is through the prison system. Because of this, these humans or inmates, are sentenced to spend a significant part of their life in a confined, small room. With that being said, the prison life can leave a remarkable toll on the inmates life in many different categories. The first and arguably most important comes in the form of mental health. Living in prison with have a great impact on the psychological part of your life. For example, The prison life is a very much different way of life than what us “normal” humans are accustomed to living in our society. Once that inmate takes their first step inside their new society, their whole mindset on how to live and communicate changes. The inmate’s psychological beliefs about what is right and wrong are in questioned as well as everything else they learned in the outside world. In a way, prison is a never ending mind game you are playing against yourself with no chance of wining. Other than the mental aspect of prison, family plays a very important role in an inmate’s sentence. Family can be the “make it or break it” deal for a lot of inmates. It is often said that “when a person gets sentenced to prison, the whole family serves the sentence.” Well, for many inmates that is the exact case. While that prisoner serves their time behind bars, their family is on the outside waiting in anticipation for their loved ones to be released. In a way, the families
The original intent of registry was to help identify those that were convicted of violent crimes against children but now it has led to unintended consequences of shaming youth by calling them preparators of sex and labeling them as criminals. It becomes their identity and then is put in these residential treatments to ‘cure’ them. Furthermore, when juveniles get accused of a crime, they are handled in the adult court making them exposed to harsher sentences. In addition, to getting harsh sentences, juveniles are put in treatment facilities which only make situations worse. When you put a child who’s young with other kids who committed worse crimes. Frequently, youths accused of sexual crimes are grouped with kids that are at high risk. Stillman wrote that “researchers had already observed that most youths who are charged with a sex offense—upward of ninety-five percent, Letourneau told me—don’t reoffend sexually” (). For this reason, children are not aware of what they’re doing is inappropriate making them unlikely to commit
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.
Whenever you imagine prison, you think up ideas and violent images that you have seen in the movies or on TV. Outdated clichés consisting of men eating stale bread and drinking dirty water are only a small fraction of the number of horrible, yet “just” occurrences which are stereotypical of everyday life in prison. Perhaps it could be a combination of your upbringing, horrific ideas about the punishment which our nation inflicts on those who violate its’ more serious laws that keeps people frightened just enough to lead a law-abiding life. Despite it’s success in keeping dangerous offenders off the streets, the American prison system fails in fulfilling its original design of restoring criminals to being productive members of society, it is also extremely expensive and wastes our precious tax dollars.
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,
Every civilization in history has had rules, and citizens who break them. To this day governments struggle to figure out the best way to deal with their criminals in ways that help both society and those that commit the crimes. Imprisonment has historically been the popular solution. However, there are many instances in which people are sent to prison that would be better served for community service, rehab, or some other form of punishment. Prison affects more than just the prisoner; the families, friends, employers, and communities of the incarcerated also pay a price. Prison as a punishment has its pros and cons; although it may be necessary for some, it can be harmful for those who would be better suited for alternative means
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.
Sex offender registry laws were intended to increase public safety and to reduce the reoffending rates of sexual offenders. However, this paper will argue that registration has no effect on recidivism rates and that the law actually negatively impacts rehabilitative goals because of the unforeseen issues stemming from registration. An analysis of the existing body of literature concerning registration from the United States will address the
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
Sex offenders have been a serious problem for our legal system at all levels, not to mention those who have been their victims. There are 43,000 inmates in prison for sexual offenses while each year in this country over 510,000 children are sexually assaulted(Oakes 99). The latter statistic, in its context, does not convey the severity of the situation. Each year 510,000 children have their childhood's destroyed, possibly on more than one occasion, and are faced with dealing with the assault for the rest of their lives. Sadly, many of those assaults are perpetrated by people who have already been through the correctional system only to victimize again. Sex offenders, as a class of criminals, are nine times more likely to repeat their
In a criminal point of view individuals, they fine it ver difficult and tend to struggle with adapting to the norms of life after being locked in a cell for long period of time. Adjusting to this includes getting a jobs, living freely (without probation) , and many other key points of survival.
The number of registered sex offenders have increasingly grew over the years. Every day you see a man or women added to the registry for crimes against women and mostly children. The sex offender registries biggest and main focus is to keep the people in the community in each city and state informed and protected. ”Sex offenders and sex crimes provoke a great deal of anxiety in our society.” Baker, J, Brannon, Y, N., Fortney. , Levenson, J.S. (“Public Perceptions about Sex Offenders and Community Protection”). The sex offender registry is based solely on protecting the public from being a victim
“Society and policy makers have long struggled with finding effective ways to protect the public from sex offenders. A sex offender is a person who has been convicted of certain sex offense crimes. Examples of sex offenses include:
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
When the average person thinks of jails and prisons, they typically think of horrible criminals being locked up in order to protect the rest of society. They think justice has been served, and those who did the crime are now doing the time. But what goes on inside a prison, and inside the minds of the inmates? What about after those offenders have served their time, and are now being released back into the general public? People don’t really think about how prison affects a person’s mentality, or how incarceration impacts both relationships the inmate currently has, or ones that will develop in the future. Although it isn’t something most people think of first, incarceration is an experience that can have a negative psychological impact on a person for quite some time.