Megan's Law Essay

Chapter four refers to specificity "as the scope of criminal law" (Bohm & Haley, 2014, p.97). These acts can be ruled not criminal if certain information is not proven to have been present when the crime was committed. The state rules for sex offenders that have been convicted of this crime be persecuted and their information made public. This reminds

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).

The same year Hendricks was facing release Kansas enacted legislation to address the civil commitment of individuals known to be sexual predators. The result was the Sexually Violent Predator Act, Kan. Stat. Ann. § 59-29a01 et seq. (1994), known as K.S.A. 59-2901 et seq.

Megan’s Law How Megan's law came to be in 1994. Megan's law was made because of 7yr old Megan Nincole Kanaka. Megan was kidnapped by her neighbor, Jesse Timmendquas. She was then sexually assaulted and murdered. They found Megan's body the next day, July 30, 1994.

On July 29, 1994, New Jersey resident Megan Kanka was lured into the home of Jesse Timmendequas, a convicted sex offender, with promises of seeing a puppy (Corrigan, 2006). Once she entered his house, she was raped twice, strangled with a belt, and suffocated with a bag (Corrigan, 2006). Timmendequas was arrested soon after and confessed to this crime (Corrigan, 2006). This event outraged Kanka's parents and the surrounding community (Corrigan, 2006). They used this tragic death to create Megan's Law as an addition to the Jacob Wetterling Crimes against Children Violent Offender Registration Act, which required sex offenders to register within their counties (Welchans, 2005).

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.

SOMTA is divided into four stages, the first stage is the initial referral, in this stage a sex offender’s case is looked over by the Office of Mental Health. Once approved, the sex offender meets with an psychologist who determines if he does not have any mental abnormalities, then the case goes to the Attorney General, which is the second stage, or evaluation. During the third stage or litigation, the Attorney General has to prove that the sex offender is unsafe to be released because of mental abnormalities. In the last stage, which is supervision, treatment and review, the sex offender is either released from prison but he is placed under supervision of the Division of Parole and must receive treatment. However, if the sex offender is found unable to be released, he will be sent to a civil confinement where he will also receive treatment (New York State Division of Criminal Justice,

It is known that some individuals listed do have repeat offenses, but some offenders are reformed and live successful lives. One minor incident could haunt someone for years and impact his or her career, relationships, and community involvement. A person who wants to live a better life and be a better person may have trouble escaping the label of a sex offender (The Law Office of George Gedulin, 2017). Another major criticism is that it affects the family members of those on Megan’s Law. It might degrade the whole family's reputation, because one member is listed.

Furthermore, this leaves room for states to implement their own practices and ways to address status offenders. It has also been argued that the Act “fractured the juvenile justice system so that officials in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare handled white, middle-income youth” (Hinton, 2015, p. 816). Programs which labeled white youths as “children in trouble” marked minority youths as “chronic offenders” who were deemed a danger to society, and tried as an adult. The exceptions and revisions that have been made to the Act make it possible for repeat status offenders to be detained in secure

The prison population increased by 91% between the years 1993 to 2014. More offenders were being sentenced over these years and for a longer period of time. No progress was made. The 1989 Children’s Act held that a child’s welfare should be paramount (Muncie

“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.

Introduction Crime, its punishment, and the legislation that decides the way in which they interact has long been a public policy concern that reaches everyone within a given society. It is the function of the judicial system to distribute punishment equitably and following the law. The four traditional goals of punishment, as defined by Connecticut General Assembly (2001), are: “deterrence, incapacitation, retribution, and rehabilitation.” However, how legislature achieves and balances these goals has changed due to the implementation of responses to changing societal influences. Mandatory minimum sentences exemplify this shift.

Should Sex Offenders Name be Public? It is debatable if sex offenders names should be public, some people believe is a invasion of there private life, “There is a real danger of vigilantism and publicizing their names (and the info required goes far beyond just their names) is an invasion of privacy of the wives, children and families of these offenders, which is an invasion of privacy no other class of criminal faces”(debate.org) . Others believe this is not even debatable, that Sex offenders name should be public, period, “Once somebody commits a sexual crime, they have given up their right to anonymity.

The notification system is based on the sex offenders risk to reoffend and the danger they may pose to the community. Many states adopted a three-tier notification system for the sex offender registry; tier one is for offenders evaluated to be low risk for reoffending, tier two is for those offenders assessed at a medium risk and tier three are for those offender that meet criteria for the highest risk of reoffending (National Institute of Justice, 2009a). Megan’s Law is a federal law with subsequent state laws, states have discretion in developing criteria for reporting Megan’s Law however; private and personal information related to the registered sex offender must be available to the public (National Institute of Justice, 2009b). Under Megan’s Law, the tracking database is monitored by states and involves community notification when a sex offender moves into a