Megan’s Law A Policy Review

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Megan’s Law: A Policy Review

7-year old Megan kanka and her parents lived in Hamilton Township without knowledge that a twice-convicted sex offender was living across the street. Megan’s parents only knew when it was too late during the arrest of the man after the brutal rape and murder of their daughter (Weiss & Watson, 2008). A similar incident had occurred in Monmouth county two months prior, promoting the passage of laws requiring the notification about sex offenders who may be a risk to the community. This gave birth to the “Megan’s Law,” New Jersey’s Law requiring sex offenders to register with the local police.

The Law also establishes a three-tier notification process giving information concerning sex offenders to law enforcement agencies, and when suitable, to the community. The notification depends on the an evaluation of the risk the a particular sex offender poses to the community. The evaluation is carried out by county prosecutors who are given the factors used in the determination of the level of risk an individual poses by a 12-member council in consultation with the Attorney general’s office (Wilson, 2010). With this information, communities will be able to protect their children better.

The sex offenders are given a form that is filled out and submitted to the local police department. The information requested in the form includes the personal information of the sex offender, including their home address and place of employment. A Division of State Police confirms the information and keeps it in a sex offender registry.

The following offenses are required for registration:

Sexual assault

Criminal sexual contact with a minor

Aggravated sexual assault

Aggravated criminal sexual contact

Engaging in sexual conduct endangering the welfare of a child by possibly impairing or debauching the morals of the child

Kidnapping

Promoting child prostitution

False imprisonment of a minor

Endangering a child’s welfare through pornography featuring a child

Criminal restrain

Luring or enticing

People required to register include:

Sex offenders convicted after Megan’s Law took effect on October 31, 1994

People serving a sentence for a sex offense when the Law took effect

Repetitive offenders

People found compulsive by courts and experts regardless of the date they were convicted

The Law also requires juvenile sex offenders to register as well. If convicted in other states, sex offenders are required to register within 10 days of moving to the state of New Jersey. This registration is compulsory even for individuals who are only attending school or working in the state. When they change address, they are required to notify the locals police 10 days before they move to the new address. Law enforcement monitors whether these people have changed address and whether they reported it. Some offenders a required to do annual verifications of their addresses while others are required to do so every 90 days.

People subject to Megan’s Law are required to register for the remainder of their lives. Those wishing to be removed from the register may send an application to the court if they are one-time offenders and have not committed the offense within the last 15 years and have proof there is no likelihood of them reoffending or pose a threat to the safety of the community. Juvenile sex offenders convicted under the age of 14 can register when they attain the majority age of 18 years.

The Law only permits the information on all high risk (Tier 3) offenders and particular moderate risk (Tier 2) offenders to be published on the internet. The Law excludes most juvenile sex offenders excluding Tier 3 Juvenile sex offenders, a majority of Tier 2 sex offenders who committed the crimes against members of the same household or their families, and most moderate sex offenders who committed statutory crimes or crimes considered so because of their age.

Failure to register or to comply with the Megan’s Law is a third degree offense.

The original Megan’s Law has been strengthened over the years particularly in 2006 where Senator Skelos the pioneer of the laws wrote a new law that kept 3,579 people convicted of sex offense from escaping the sex offender registry kept by the state in 2006. Tier 2 and Tier 3 sex offenders are required by these laws to register for life and be able to petition the court for removing after 30 years. Tier 1 sex offenders are also required to register for 20 years. The old Law removed Tier 1 and Tier 2 sex offenders from the register automatically after ten years. It also allowed offenders registered before March 11, 2002, and not designated as a heightened risk by Federal Law to petition for removal after 13 years.

These sex offender laws have, however, been criticized for doing little or dealing with the actual sex offenses particularly those that go unreported. Megan’s Law and civil commitment and emerging trend in in anti-sex offender legislation, or banishment zones, which keep criminals away from certain geographic areas, all play to the fears of the public. When it is about preventing sex assaults, these measures do more harm than good.

The Megan’ Law Reform Act

After three hearings in Albany, Brooklyn, and Long Island, the Megan Law Reform Act (Senate Bill 4793-B) was written (Zgoba, 2011). Senator Skelos strengthened the Law in twenty-five areas, including being the police creating a notice once a sex offender joined the community, registering sex offenders for life, requiring comprehensive information about sex offenders being published on the internet, and the monitoring of worst offenders by GPS.

The legislation was drafted to consider the inputs of teachers, parents, law enforcement officials, school representatives, and advocates before being presented in Senate where it passed. The first hearing featured a speech by Megan’s mother, who worked with Senator Skelos during the original enactment of the Law in 1995. Since the enactment of the Law, the New York State Senate has acted upon on Megan’s Law on 100 different occasions and 200 times of other laws concerning sex offense.

An Empirical Analysis and Review of the Policy

Megan’s Laws are based on Sex Offender Registration and Notification (SORN). Research exploring the success of SORN laws to particularly reduce recidivism in convicted sex offenders monitored under Megan’s Laws, or the overall rate of general sexual crimes, has reported little to no deterrence effect. As a result, most researches have concluded that these laws have not reduced sexual offending by first-time offenders nor impacted the reoffending of convicted rapists, molesters, and other offenders in a meaningful way. Only a few studies have recorded limited positive results with SORN.

There is significant evidence to indicate that SORN legislation for crooks sentenced for sexual offenses does not have a palpable effect on future offending. A study by Zgoba, Jennings, & Salerno (2018) indicates that the effects of SORN are not just limited to the short term but also the long term, as these researchers find no evidence in the differences in recidivism rates in cohorts of criminals released before and after the enactment of Megan’s Law in New Jersey. The researchers, however, collected evidence that showed being subjected to SORN laws have impacted on the trajectory of offending within a decade of release from prison where high-rate offenders released under these laws appeared to commit crimes almost immediately before decreasing offending to almost zero after a period of about seven years. Although SORN laws such as Megan’s Laws may not affect recidivism rates, they may have a small effect on the timing of crimes committed after a prison release. This does not, however, provide a guarantee for the safety of communities.

Why SORN Measures May Be Doing More Harm than Good

To understand why these measures do more harm than good, we should look at the realities of sex offenses in New Jersey and the nation as a whole. Most sex offenses are committed by trusted people such as family members, the clergy, and friends, and they go unreported because the victims are manipulated or the reprehensible decisions by other adults or a combination of the two. This is evident when a string of lawsuits uncovered that the Catholic Church and its hierarchy chose to cover up sex assault cases with child victims for decades by choosing to protect its reputation over the minors put under its care (Wilson, 2010). Unfortunately, this is more common in family hierarchies.

Because most cases of a sex crime are not reported, the majority of offenders are never subject to Megan’s Law. For this reason, the public feels a false sense of security where they believe sex offenders have been banished from the community. This belief appears to be a disservice to the children because this sense of security means child supervision is not strengthened as it ought to be because sex offenders are in every community in American, whether registered or not. Children need supervision regardless of the case.

Megan’s Laws make neighborhoods less safe because they hinder offender rehabilitation and increase the likelihood of re-offense (Chaudhuri, 2017). People transitioning from prison into society are faced with unimaginable challenges such as limited resources, financial or otherwise. Those seeking to lead law-abiding lives after serving time cannot be able to establish stable homes, families, or get jobs. The consequences of stigma increase the hardship or hinder the achievement of these things. The fear of the stigma of Megan’s Law leads offenders underground under the watchful eye of law enforcement.

Offenders move from environments where they can access a support system to communities where they have none, putting the residents of these communities at risk. Considering everybody in the community can point to a sex offender, these people get the worst treatment; they lose jobs, are beaten up, and sometimes get their houses burned down. Some suffer from acts of vigilantism. Although their actions are not remotely excusable, coping with this kind of stress causes a relapse, most are doomed to fail, and when they do, then the community will most likely count another victim and more severe case (Levenson, & Cotter, 2005). If people doubt whether the stress of sex offenders should be their concern, they should consider the consequences if such an individual fails. When nothing works out, mental torture results in giving and increases the probability of reoffending significantly.

Recommendations for Improving These Policies

It would be better to focus resources on programs and policies that rehabilitate offenders because either way, they are let back to the society when they have served their sentence. Megan’s Law, similar to banishment laws, ask people to survive in a hostile environment, and expect them to reform. The laws are not doing enough because they do not cover even half the number of offenders. To raise this number, there should be programs that educate the public on the effects of sexual abuse and the importance of reporting it. Even if the names of these people are recorded, it should be for the purposes of helping them integrate back to society through beneficial parole procedures rather than introducing them back to society the way they left and having them in an environment that would increase their threat probability to the community.

These improvements do not call for the repeal of Megan’s Laws but the introduction of certain sections that improve the handling of reported abuse. Wynona’s House in Essex County is a good model because it brings together relevant agencies to ease the burden of reporting abuse on victims. Mental health treatment for offenders and victims should be paramount; otherwise, allowing offenders to live in the same society would be reckless and talking about having people aware of the presence of a sex offender in their neighborhood so as to closely monitor their children is rather naïve. Megan’s Law considering it was named after a girl whose young life was ended tragically, should be something meaningful in actually ensuring whatever happened to Megan does not happen again.

Fixing the devastating problem of sexual abuse is not a simple issue. Instead of pursuing measures that are politically popular but make no difference or, in fact, make the community less safe, the authorities should turn their attention and resources to measures of addressing the epidemic that is sexual abuse. These measures are not popular but will actually work to spare potential victims.

References

Chaudhuri, T. (2017). Megan’s Law and Durkheim’s Perspective of Punishment: Retribution, Rehabilitation or Both?. Journal of Arts and Humanities, 6(7), 62-73.

Levenson, J. S., & Cotter, L. P. (2005). The effect of Megan’s Law on sex offender reintegration. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 21(1), 49-66.

Weiss, K. J., & Watson, C. (2008). NGRI and Megan’s Law: no exit?. Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online, 36(1), 117-122.

Wilson, M. G. (2010). The Unintended Consequences of Megan’s Law for Citizens, Law Enforcement, and Offenders: An Empirical Analysis (Doctoral dissertation, Kent State University).

Zgoba, K. M. (2011). Residence restriction buffer zones and the banishment of sex offenders: Have we gone one step too far. Criminology & Pub. Pol’y, 10, 391.

Zgoba, K. M., Jennings, W. G., & Salerno, L. M. (2018). Megan’s Law 20 years later: An empirical analysis and policy review. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 45(7), 1028-1046.