Essay on "Crime Reform More Stringent Laws and Penalties for Sex Offenders"

Essay 4 pages (1227 words) Sources: 3

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Sex Offenders

More Stringent Laws for Sex Offenders

Of all the violent crimes that plague our society, sex crimes are among the most terrifying. Catching rapists and sex abusers is one thing, but establishing both short- and long-term punitive consequences for this kind of deviant behavior has been a troubling path for policy-makers. Most of the victims of these crimes are youth, and those children are likely to suffer ongoing psychological distress long after the crime has occurred. Moreover, sex offenders are notorious re-offenders; that is, research supports the contention that even offenders that have been jailed are more likely to repeat their crime when released than most other categories of criminals. Since most sex offenses result in short jail terms, the unfortunate reality is that thousands of sex offenders live relatively anonymously in our towns and communities, ready to strike again.

This essay will argue that more stringent laws need to be established to deal with these sex offenders at all stages of the legal process. Reporting requirements must be enhanced to make it easier to identify and capture repeat offenders. Minimum sentences should be increased to keep those offenders locked up. Once they are released, publicly accessible registries must be maintained. By tightening up legal measures at every step of the system, sex offenders can be more reliably caught, more consistently imprisoned, and more effectively tracked once released.

Current Legal Context

Much of the debate surrounding sex offenders has focused on registration requirements for offenders that have been either released from jail or never sentenced at all (but convicted of a sex crime). Until recently, states had widely varying laws in place to manage their sex offenders. Only a few states had registration requirements for convicted offenders.

In 1994, Congress passed the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Act (42 USC 1407). This Act requires all states to develop a registration system for offenders, and states that fail to comply would suffer at 10% loss of federal funds for law enforcement. All states have since complied, and there are now more than half a million registered sex offenders nationwide (Sex Offenders).

However, registration alone was insufficient. Following the tragic death of Megan Kanka, a 7-year-old, who was killed by a recently released sex offender living in her neighborhood, a "public outcry created a call for programs to provide the public with information regarding released sex offenders," (Sex Offenders). Megan's Law was added to the feeral legislation and became Section (e) of the Wetterling Act in 1996. Now, all states are required to provide internet information about registered sex offenders. How or where to provide that information is left to the discretion of each state.

Despite these tightened restrictions, many sex offenders fail to register with the state and may all too easily slip through the cracks of the legal system. An estimated 100,000 sex offenders that should be registered have effectively gone missing (NCME, 2007). Efforts to tighten up the implementation of sex offender laws have helped, but not solved, this problem. In 2006, the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act was passed, focusing on standardizing states' implementation of their registry systems. Each state is also now required to create a searchable database that is available to the public so that people can find out if any sex offenders live in their neighborhood. The Act made it a felony for sex offenders who move across state lines to fail to register their new address.

Proposed Reforms

Although some new laws, most notably the Adam Walsh Act, are steps in the right direction, there is still a great deal of work to be done to keep children safe… READ MORE

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