NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Megan's Law

Megan's Law is an informal name for laws in the United States requiring law enforcement authorities to make information available to the public regarding registered sex offenders. Individual states decide what information will be made available and how it be disseminated. Commonly included information includes the offenders name, picture, address, incarceration date, and nature of crime. The information is often displayed on free public websites, but can be published in newspapers, distributed in pamphlets, or through various other means. For the band, see The Police. ... This article is about the criminal term. ...

At the federal level, Megan's Law is known as the Sexual Offender (Jacob Wetterling) Act of 1994 and requires persons convicted of sex crimes against children to notify local law enforcement of any change of address or employment after release from custody (prison, psychiatric facility). The notification requirement may be imposed for a fixed period of time - usually at least ten years - or permanently. The Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act (the Wetterling Act) is a United States law that requires states to implement a sex offender and crimes against children registry. ...

Some states may legislate registration for all sex crimes, even if no minors were involved. It is a felony in most jurisdictions to fail to register or fail to update information.

Legal origins

The origins of Megan's Law began with a variety of state level attempts to protect communities from sexual offenders. Prior to formal legislation, private citizens groups sometimes distributed information regarding specific offenders in their areas. In 1990, Washington adopted one of the first statewide laws, the Washington State Community Protection Act of 1990.

The laws today are named for Megan Kanka who was seven years old when Jesse Timmendequas, a repeated violent sexual offender who lived across the street from her, kidnapped, raped, and murdered her. Timmendequas was found guilty, and is on New Jersey's death row awaiting execution. Jesse Timmendequas (born April 15, 1961) was, on May 30, 1997, convicted of murdering his neighbor, seven-year-old Megan Kanka, in 1994. ...

Megan's parents, Richard and Maureen Kanka began the Megan Nicole Kanka Foundation with the belief that "Every parent should have the right to know if a dangerous sexual predator moves into their neighborhood."^[1] The Kanka's circulated a petition demanding immediate legislative action. The petition garnered over 400,000 signatures, and the law was passed in an unprecedented 89 days. The Megan Nicole Kanka Foundation is a non-profit charity founded by the family of Megan Kanka with the intent of preventing crimes against children. ...

Megan's home state of New Jersey passed the first so-called "Megan's Law" in 1994.^[2]

Federal legislation followed in 1995. 42 U.S.C. § 13701, entitled Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 and amended May 17, 1996, included provisions requiring community notification. The law was nicknamed, "Federal Megan." Authored by Congressman Dick Zimmer, it required every state to develop a procedure for notifying the public when a person convicted of certain crimes is released near their homes. The law has been amended several times since the original bill, and different states have different procedures for making the required disclosures. Title 42 of the United States Code outlines the role of Public Health and Social Welfare in the United States Code. ... This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...

Arguments in favor of the law

The basic intention of Megan's Law, according to its proponents, is to give parents the ability to protect their children by making them aware of the presence of convicted sex offenders in their neighborhood. The individual who murdered Megan Kanka was a convicted sex offender and pedophile of whose background the Kanka family claims not to have been aware. Maureen Kanka maintains that had she known about Timmendequas' prior conviction, she would have warned Megan to stay away from him.

Supporters of Megan's Law say that the law is essential because of the inability of sex offenders to be "cured" and what they maintain are the extremely high recidivism rates of sex offenders. The law's supporters vigorously oppose using the law for the purpose of harassing or otherwise violating the rights of sex offenders, even if only to prevent the law from being repealed on the grounds that it facilitates such illegal behavior. This article is about recidivism in criminology and penology. ...

In addition, proponents of Megan's Law correctly point out that information about convicted criminals has always been public information; Megan's Law, they say, only makes it easier for parents and other concerned individuals to access this information without having to do laborious research.

The supporters of Megan's Law also maintain that the law's retroactive application to offenders who committed their offenses prior to the law's enactment does not constitute ex post facto law because the intent of the law is not to punish, but to enhance public safety. Whatever incidental harm or inconvenience sex offenders may suffer as a result of the law, its supporters say, is the unavoidable consequence of their own illegal behavior and is outweighed by the community's right to know that a potentially dangerous person is living within their midst.

Megan's Law also provides a way for schools, churches, daycare centers, and volunteer youth organizations (e.g. Boy Scout troops and Little League baseball teams) to screen applicants for positions working with children to assure that they have not been convicted of a sex crime. Similarly, parents seeking babysitters or live-in domestic help can check applicants against the registry database prior to offering them employment. Polish Boy Scouts fighting in the Warsaw Uprising Boy Scouts originally denoted the organization that developed and rapidly grew up during 1908 in the wake of the publication by Lord Robert Baden-Powell of his book Scouting for Boys. ... Little League Baseball - Logo Little League pitcher in Winesburg, Ohio Little League, Wayne, Michigan Little League Baseball is the name of a non-profit organization in the United States which organizes particular local childrens leagues of baseball and softball throughout the USA and the rest of the world. ...

Proponents of Megan's Law often point out that it is not the law's purpose to promote vigilantism, harassment, or other illegal acts against registered sex offenders. Indeed, every state sex offender registry's web site contains a notice that the information contained must not be used for illegal purposes. For the aircraft, see A-5 Vigilante. ... Harassment refers to a wide spectrum of offensive behavior. ...

Arguments opposing the law

Some have criticized Megan's Law claiming the sex offender registry could unfairly and improperly include those who have engaged in consensual sexual activities along with sexual predators. Advocates for nudism and topfree equality claim that some arrests for indecent exposure could improperly include certain incidents involving public nudity in which one could become a sex offender. The activities in question include streaking, skinny dipping, public urination, mooning and breastfeeding. Consensual sodomy, adultery, and oral sex have the potential to be crimes in which one could be declared a sex offender and required to register under the laws of some states.^[3] Sex offender registration is a system in place in a number of jurisdictions designed to allow government authorities to keep track of the residence and activities of sex offenders, including those who have completed their criminal sentences. ... A nudist sunning herself on a beach in Formentera. ... A mixed group of people demonstrating the kind of equality that this movement seeks. ... Fashion line Imitation of Christ incorporated toplessness in its public fashion show, which brought comparisons to Vanessa Beecrofts art. ... A participant of the Bay to Breakers. ... Skinny dipping, or skinny-dipping is swimming naked. ... Manneken Pis of Brussels. ... Mooning is the act of displaying ones bare buttocks by removing clothing, e. ... An infant breastfeeding International Breastfeeding Symbol (Matt Daigle, Mothering magazine contest winner 2006) Breastfeeding is the feeding of an infant or young child with milk from a womans breasts. ... FranÃ§ois Elluin, Sodomites provoking the wrath of God, from Le pot pourri de Loth (1781). ... This article is about the act of adultery. ... Oral sex consists of all sexual activities that involve the use of the mouth, which may include use of the tongue, teeth, and throat, to stimulate genitalia. ...

Legal criticism of Megan's Law notes that it creates the problem of "double jeopardy" and "ex post facto protections". From this perspective Megan's Law is viewed as punitive and the notification requirement is analogous to public shaming. Legal critics maintain that the historical context of forced notification should be examined. If Megan's Law is considered punitive, and thus additional "punishment," then the law would have to be deemed unconstitutional. The opinion of the U.S. court varies greatly in interpreting the constitutionality of Megan's Law. For other uses, see Double jeopardy (disambiguation). ... An ex post facto law (from the Latin for from something done afterward) or retroactive law, is a law that retroactively changes the legal consequences of acts committed or the legal status of facts and relationships that existed prior to the enactment of the law. ... Shunning is the act of deliberately avoiding association with, and habitually keeping away from an individual or group. ... Wikisource has original text related to this article: The United States Constitution The United States Constitution is the supreme law of the United States of America. ...

A number of police officers, prosecutors, and crime victims' rights advocates view Megan's Law as an ineffective and unreliable method of preventing sexual predators from repeating their crimes because of their inability to be "cured". Some of these critics consider life imprisonment for high risk sex offenders (especially child sexual offenders) to be better than community notification^[4]. A victims rights group is a legal or political organization, formed for an espoused purpose of advocating social change or legal measures, on behalf of victims of various crimes, injustice, or malfeasance. ... Child sexual abuse is an umbrella term describing criminal and civil offenses in which an adult engages in sexual activity with a minor or exploits a minor for the purpose of sexual gratification. ...

The registration database is built on information provided by former offenders who are complying with the law, and who are therefore inclined toward accepting responsibility and living law-abiding lives. The registry therefore becomes, in effect, a database of those former sex offenders who presently are law-abiding citizens, and who therefore may be the least likely to re-offend. The real threat, critics maintain, is posed by those offenders who do not bother to register or who provide false information. Another similar criticism is that while parents in the neighborhood are informed, it does not order the offender to leave. It is also unknown if Timmenquedas would have been stopped if he had been made to abide by such a law, in which critics of the law have often stated "Megan's Law would not have saved Megan".^{[citation needed]}

Some mental health professionals and social observers believe the laws imposed on released sex offenders may increase, rather than decrease, their likelihood of committing new sex crimes. They assert that the combination of legal restrictions and the shame and harassment resulting from community notification may force offenders to live in isolation. A survey of 133 mental health officials by the University of Memphis revealed that most do not think internet based sex offender directories will be helpful in stopping future attacks. ^[5] The University of Memphis is a public American research university located in Memphis, Tennessee, United States, and is the flagship public research university of the Tennessee Board of Regents system. ...

Also of concern to civil rights advocates and law enforcement officials alike have seen instances of vigilantism against registered sex offenders. There have been some highly-publicized cases of vigilantes using state-run sex offender registry web sites to gather information about registered sex offenders, which was used to murder those individuals. Two of the more notable cases were the murders of two men in Washington state in August of 2005 and of two men in Maine in April 2006. It is difficult to precisely quantify the frequency of vigilante incidents because neither the Justice Department nor any other governmental agency maintains a database of such incidents. In addition, many lesser incidents (verbal harassment, vandalism, etc.) probably go unreported by the offenders themselves, either because they believe that reporting the harassment is pointless, or because they fear retribution. Critics of the law assert that the government's intentions are meaningless compared to the undeniable fact that information made available pursuant to Megan's Law has repeatedly been used to commit violent crimes, including murder. These critics would assert that the government is guilty of gross negligence by reason of intentional and deliberate indifference to the potentially fatal consequences of the law's requirements. Civil rights or positive rights are those legal rights retained by citizens and protected by the government. ... This article deals with the U.S. state. ... Official language(s) None (English and French de facto) Capital Augusta Largest city Portland Area Ranked 39th - Total 33,414 sq mi (86,542 kmÂ²) - Width 210 miles (338 km) - Length 320 miles (515 km) - % water 13. ... The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) is a Cabinet department in the United States government designed to enforce the law and defend the interests of the United States according to the law and to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans. ... Vandalism is the conspicuous defacement or destruction of a structure, a symbol or anything else that goes against the will of the owner/governing body. ... Apathy is the complete lack of emotion or motivation. ...

Sex offender registration laws are often based on an assertion that the recidivism statistics frequently cited by politicians to justify the laws are inflated and are not borne out by actual evidence.

Between the extremes

In between the camps who are respectively in favor of and opposed to Megan's Law, there is an increasing number^[6] of people who believe that the negative aspects of the law can be ameliorated through thoughtful reforms, while still preserving the law's core purpose of making information about convicted sex offenders available to the public.

Opinions of ordinary Americans sometimes seem at odds with the legislative trend toward "toughening" Megan's Law. For example, two respondents suggested that registry information should only be available to adults who walk into a police station, present identification, and make an inquiry regarding a particular individual^{[citation needed]}. They contend that such an approach could allow parents to inquire about an individual about whom they have suspicions, while at the same time discouraging vigilantism by eliminating anonymous access to registry information.

Some of the proposed reforms include repeal of the laws prohibiting consensual sodomy, adultery, oral sex and other consensual sexual activities. Narrowing the legal definition of indecent exposure to public masturbation and unwelcome display of the genitals is another. FranÃ§ois Elluin, Sodomites provoking the wrath of God, from Le pot pourri de Loth (1781). ... This article is about the act of adultery. ... Oral sex consists of all sexual activities that involve the use of the mouth, which may include use of the tongue, teeth, and throat, to stimulate genitalia. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Woman masturbating, 1913 drawing by Gustav Klimt. ...

Many states have three strikes laws as an alternative to Megan's Law. Applying it to child sex offenders and rapists who have been convicted on three or more felony counts related to such an offense or have two or more prior felony convictions would result in a sentence of life in prison for a repeat sex offender.Other alternatives to community notification which mainly require longer periods of incarceration for child predators include the Jessica Lunsford Act or Jessica's Law which carries a mandatory sentence of 25 years in prison for a child sex offender who would then be subject to lifelong electronic monitoring.In addition, President George W Bush signed The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act into law in 2006 which carries mandatory minimum prison sentences for child sex offenders. Three strikes laws are statutes enacted by state governments in the United States which require the state courts to hand down a mandatory and extended period of incarceration to persons who have been convicted of a serious criminal offense on three or more separate occasions. ... It has been suggested that Rapists be merged into this article or section. ... For the record label, see Felony Records The term felony is a term used in common law systems for very serious crimes, whereas misdemeanors are considered to be less serious offenses. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Jessicas Law. ... It has been suggested that Jessica Lunsford Act be merged into this article or section. ... George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is the 43rd and current President of the United States, inaugurated on January 20, 2001 and re-elected in the 2004 U.S. presidential election. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... A mandatory sentence is a judicial decision setting the punishment to be inflicted on a person convicted of a crime where judicial discretion is limited by law. ...

References

Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era in the 21st century. ... is the 320th day of the year (321st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...

Contents

Legal origins

Arguments in favor of the law

Arguments opposing the law

Between the extremes

References

See also

External links