“America’s Unjust Sex Laws” is an editorial published in the Economist that argues that America’s laws for sex offenders is too stringent. The author makes tenacious arguments that gets the reader thinking, however most of the arguments that were made I contest with. “America’s Unjust Sex Laws” argues that the sex offender laws in America are too harsh. It begins by discussing “Megan’s Laws” and the Adam Walsh Act of 2006 to describe the current sex offender laws. The author then goes on to discuss how large the sex-offender registry is in order to support their first point that harsh penalties shouldn’t be imposed for minor crimes. The author argues that with so many people on the list it makes it hard to distinguish between people who are really threats on the list and those who are not. The second point the author argues is that sex-offender registries shouldn’t be made public because it causes sex offenders to be harassed and even fired from their jobs (“America’s Unjust Sex Laws” 655). The author suggest that the list should be held by the police who could then share it with people who need to know instead of the public having easy access to it (“America’s Unjust Sex Laws” 656). The author then explains how many teenagers have sex before they are legally allowed too and how this shouldn’t be reason to …show more content…
The last point the author makes is
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).
Kimball engaged in what “appeared to be a consensual” relationship with a minor; meaning that upon information and belief, Mr. Kimball and the minor’s relationship was consensual. This is an important fact when analyzing the gravity of Mr. Kimball’s crime and evaluating the risk he truly poses to society. Additionally, James Kimball committed this crime in 1991, pleaded guilty and complied with his three year probation. His actions during and post-judgment prove that he is fully capable of fulfilling his duty as an atoning citizen in enduring consequences, via his three year probation. Lastly, the only reason that Kimball was still on the Sex Offender Registry is because of the psychosexual evaluator’s technicality deeming him a “low risk” rather than “no risk” to the
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.
A final criticism is that it subjects sex offenders to indefinite punishments (Levenson,
Megan’s Law is a federal law that has changed the course of the criminal justice system in the United States of America. Prior to Megan’s law, convicted sex offenders were able to easily re-offend due to lack of public notification. In the year 2000, it is estimated that there were more than 248,000 sexual victimizations and over an 8-year period in the United States there were 366,460 attempted or completed rapes and sexual assaults (Welchans, 2005). The prevalence of sexual assault, rape, and pedophilia in the United States has sparked a large conversation over the last decade, which has led to the creation of several laws, including Megan’s Law. This analysis of Megan’s Law will focus on the positive aspects that implementing this law has
Megan's Law is a controversial law that requires sex offenders to register with law enforcement authorities upon their release from prison. The law was enacted in response to the sexual assault and murder of 7-year-old Megan Kanka by a neighbor who had twice been convicted of similar sex offenses and was on parole. The law requires offenders to provide their name, photograph, physical description, list of offenses, current address, place of employment or school, and automobile license plate number. In terms of the ideal characteristics of criminal law, Megan's Law can be seen as a positive step towards protecting public safety. The law aims to prevent future crimes by providing the public with information about convicted sex offenders in their
In my opinion, I would believe that the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution to be the most important amendment out of all twenty-seven amendments. Moreover, the first amendment would be the most dynamic of all the other amendments, laying a resilient groundwork towards the other amendments. Correspondingly, the first amendment decrees American’s the right and freedom to free speech, without restriction or limitation. As, the first amendment right permits individual to speak up against injustice, speak out against the government, and express our religious views. After all, I strongly believe that no individual should be limited to what they can say.
I. INTRODUCTION In 2015, the Sex Offender Registration Act (Penal Code section 290) is a California sex offender registration statute. Section 290 was intended to promote the state interest in controlling and preventing recidivism in sex offenders. In addition, it serves an important public purpose by compelling registration of sex offenders who were violent and required public surveillance. This statute gave judges the choice to enforce registration on an adult who has non-forcible vaginal sex with a 16 year old or older.
Many people see Megan’s Law as a necessity for different communities and neighborhoods. Others see it as a danger to the offender who will most likely not re-offend again. The main purpose of this essay is to understand and look at the different views on what advantages and disadvantages there are to Megan’s Law. History 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.
America has a strict law, which protects our citizens from predators; sex offender registries are exemplifications. In the article “Protect Yourself, Family From Sex Offenders,” Rick Schneider argues that sex offender’s name should not be taken off even after they had served their time. Many can argue that registries are a good way for the government authorities to keep track, and to protect the community from any violence caused by sex offenders. For example, many people may believe the registry protects people from predators because it allows others to know where the predators are and how likely they are to strike again. On the other hand, some people consider that it is “horribly unfair” to release the names and addresses of offenders
This is because the law is overly vast when it describes what the sex offender can and cannot due over the internet. This is unfair because in today’s world almost every website use reviews and opinion based comments. Many of these websites don’t require a user to have any sort of account or username. This means that any person, including minors, are able to use this website regardless of whether or not it is allowed, and the very possibility of a minor being on a website restricts it from the use of a sex offender. An example of this is Cooks.com, this website allows users to leave comments without requiring any type of account, email, or identification.
Megan Kanka was seven-years-old when she was brutally raped and murdered by a neighbor Jesse Timmendequas on December 7, 1986. Prior to killing Megan Kanke, Jesse Timmendequas was convicted of sexually assaulting two young girls and sentenced to prison (Glaberson, 1996). Upon his release from prison, Jesse moved into the neighborhood where Megan lived with her family, Jesse lured Megan to his home where he brutally raped and murdered her (Glaberson, 1996). This horrific case is what lead to the enactment of Megan’s Law which was first signed into law in 1996. Megan’s Law was an amendment to the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act of 1994 (National Alert Registry, n.d.).
Now in the United States, many young girls who are about 18 years old get married to adult men, with approval from local judges, or if their parents signed the marriage. It is becoming a serious problem. Some states even allow the marriage even of the elementary school students. Shockingly, 91 percent of children were married to adults recently. Forced marriage is a widespread but often ignored problem in the Unites States.