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This article is part of a series on the
Sex offender registries in the United States
Legislation Federal Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act Megan's Law Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act International Megan's Law to Prevent Demand for Child Sex Trafficking State Jessica's Law California Proposition 83 (2006) Other PROTECT Act of 2003 Sexually violent predator laws
Constitutionality Constitutionality of sex offender registries in the United States Supreme Court decisions Smith v. Doe Connecticut Department of Public Safety v. Doe
Effectiveness Effectiveness of sex offender registration policies in the United States
Social issues Homelessness Julia Tuttle Causeway sex offender colony Miracle Village Pervert Park Controversial designations as offender Genarlow Wilson Janet Allison Kevin Gillson
Reform activism Alliance for Constitutional Sex Offense Laws National Association for Rational Sexual Offense Laws Women Against Registry - W.A.R. Movement to reform sex offender laws in the United States
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Sex offender registries in the United States exist at both the federal and state levels. They assemble information about persons convicted of sexual offenses for law enforcement and public notification purposes. All 50 states and the District of Columbia maintain sex offender registries that are open to the public via Web sites, although information on some offenders is visible to law enforcement only. According to NCMEC, as of 2015 there were 843,260 registered sex offenders in United States.

Sex offender registries have become highly controversial. While sections of the public strongly support them, many experts in sex offender treatment, law enforcement officials, and victim advocates characterize them as ineffective and wasteful at best, and counterproductive at worst, making the public less rather than more safe. Registries, and the legislation behind them, often treat all offenders as equally dangerous, applying measures appropriate for a violent rapist to someone guilty of public urination, or of having sex on a beach. The impact on offenders and their families, often severe, is sometimes grossly disproportionate to the crime committed. A growing grass-roots protest movement calls for legal reforms.

Overview

The requirement to register as a sex offender is a consequence of conviction of or guilty plea to a "sex offense", although the definition of a sex offense can vary significantly from one jurisdiction to another. Sex offenders must periodically report in person to their local law enforcement agency and furnish their address, and often other information such as place of employment and email addresses. The offenders are photographed and fingerprinted by law enforcement, and in some cases DNA information is also collected. Registrants are often subject to restrictions that bar them from working or living within a defined distance of schools, parks, and the like; these restrictions can vary from county to county and even from one community to another. In some cases, restrictions force registrants into homelessness, as there is nowhere they can legally reside; some live beside train tracks or under bridges.

Anthropology professor Roger Lancaster has called the child safety zones “tantamount to practices of banishment” that he deems disproportionately harsh, noting that registries include not just the “worst of the worst” such as child rapists and violent repeat offenders but also “adults who supplied pornography to teenage minors; young schoolteachers who foolishly fell in love with one of their students; men who urinated in public, or were caught having sex in remote areas of public parks after dark.” In many instances, individuals have pleaded guilty to an offense like urinating in public decades ago, not realizing the result would be their placement on a future sex offender registry, and all of the restrictions that come with it.

Depending on jurisdiction, offenses requiring registration range in their severity from public urination or adolescent sexual experimentation with peers, to violent rape and murder of children. In some states non-sexual offenses such as unlawful imprisonment may require sex offender registration. According to Human Rights Watch, children as young as 9 have been placed on the registry; juveniles account for as many as 25 percent of registrants. The federal Adam Walsh Act pressures states to register juveniles, by tying federal funding to state and local law enforcement to the degree to which state registries comply with the federal law’s classification system for sex offenders.

The majority of states apply systems based on conviction offenses only, where sex offender registration is mandatory if person pleads or is found guilty of violating any of the listed offenses. The trial judge has no discretion, and is barred from considering mitigating factors. In these cases, all offenders receive identical treatment.

States apply differing sets of criteria to determine which registration information is available to the public and which to law enforcement only. In some states, a judge determnes the risk level of the offender, or scientific risk assessment tools are used; information on low-risk offenders may be available to law enforcement only. In other states, all sex offenders are treated as equally dangerous, and all registration information is available to the public on a state Internet site, with automated email notifications about new sex offenders sent to anyone who requests them. In some states, the length of the registration period is determined by the conviction offense or assessed risk level; in others all registration is for life. Some states offer possibility to petition to be removed from the registry under certain circumstances.

Civil rights groups, law reform activists, academics, and some child safety advocates, politicians and law enforcement officials have stated that current laws have become too broad and often target the wrong people, misusing finite law enforcement resources, which are then less focused on the truly dangerous offenders, while severely and sometimes unnecessarily impacting the attempts of offenders to live as law-abiding citizens, as well as impacting their families, sometimes severely.

The Supreme Court of the United States has upheld sex offender registration laws twice, in two respects. Several challenges to some parts of state level sex offender laws have succeeded, however.

History

In 1947, California became the first state in the United States to have a sex offender registration program. In 1990, Washington State began community notification of its most dangerous sex offenders, making it the first state to ever make any sex offender information publicly available. Prior to 1994, only a few states required convicted sex offenders to register their addresses with local law enforcement. The 1990s saw the emergence of several cases of brutal violent sexual offenses against children. Heinous crimes like those of Westley Allan Dodd, Earl Kenneth Shriner and Jesse Timmendequas were highly publicized. As a result, public policies began to focus on protecting public from stranger danger. Since early 1990s, several state and federal laws, often named after victims, have been enacted as a response to public outrage generated by highly publicized, but statistically very rare, violent predatory sex crimes against children by strangers.

Several scholars have referred the public outrage and fear following rare but high-profile predatory sex crimes as moral panic or public hysteria. Responding to this moral panic has been seen as reason why politicians have crafted one-size-fits-all solutions that contradict with policy recommendations of scientific research and has lead to current state of broad registration and community notification, and residency and presence restriction schemes.

Jacob Wetterling Act of 1994

In 1989, a 11-year-old boy, Jacob Wetterling, was abducted from a street in St. Joseph, Minnesota. Even though it is not known who abducted Jacob, many assumed the perpetrator to be one of the sex offenders living in a halfway house in St. Joseph. Jacob's mother, Patty Wetterling, current chair of National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, led a community effort to implement a sex offender registration requirement in Minnesota and, subsequently, nationally. In 1994, Congress passed the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act. If states failed to comply, the states would forfeit 10% of federal funds from the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act. The act required each state to create registry of offenders convicted of qualifying sexual offenses and certain other offenses against children, to track known offenders by confirming their place of residence annually for ten years after their release into the community or quarterly for the rest of their lives if the sex offender was convicted of a violent sex crime. States had certain time period to enact the legislation, along with guidelines established by the Attorney General. The registration information collected by was treated as private data for law enforcement purposes only, although law enforcement agencies were allowed to release relevant information that is necessary to protect the public concerning a specific person required to register. Another high-profile case, abuse and murder of Megan Kanka led to modification of Jacob Wetterling Act.

Patty Wetterling, has since removed her support for current laws and has openly criticized the evolution of sex offender registration and management laws in the United States since the Jacob Wetterling Act was passed, saying that the "registries have been hi-jacked". She says, laws are often applied to too many offenses and that the severity of the laws often makes it difficult to rehabilitate offenders.

Megan's Law of 1996

In 1994, 7-year-old Megan Kanka from Hamilton Township, Mercer County, New Jersey was raped and killed by a recidivist pedophile. Jesse Timmenquas, who had been convicted of two previous sex crimes against children, lured Megan in his house and raped and killed her. Megan's mother, Maureen Kanka, started to lobby to change the laws, arguing that registration established by the Wetterling Act, was not a sufficient form of community protection. Her goal was to mandate community notification, which under the Wetterling Act had been at the discretion of law enforcement. She said that if she had known that a sex offender lived across the street, Megan would still be alive. In 1994, New Jersey enacted Megan's Law. In 1996, President Bill Clinton enacted a federal version of Megan's Law. The federal Megan's Law was a subsection of the Jacob Wetterling Act. The two acts required all states to implement Registration and Community Notification Laws by the end of 1997. Prior to Megan's death, only 5 states had laws requiring sex offenders to register their personal information with law enforcement. On August 5, 1996 Massachusetts was the last state to enact its version of Megan's Law.

Adam Walsh Act of 2006

The most comprehensive legislation related to the supervision and management of sex offenders is the Adam Walsh Act, named after Adam Walsh, who was kidnapped from a Florida shopping mall and killed in 1981, when he was 6-years-old. The AWA was signed in 25th anniversary of his abduction as a result of the advocacy of his father, John Walsh.

One of the significant component of the AWA is the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA). SORNA provides uniform minimum guidelines for registration of sex offenders, regardless of the state they live in. SORNA requires states to widen the number of covered offenses and to include certain classes of juvenile offenders. Prior to SORNA, states were granted latitude in the methods to differentiate offender management levels. Whereas many states had adopted to use structured risk assessment tools classification to distinguish “high risk” from “low risk” individuals, SORNA mandates such distinctions to be made solely on the basis of the governing offense. States are allowed, and often do, exceed the minimum requirements. All states were required comply with SORNA minimum guidelines by July 2009 or risk losing 10% of their funding through the Byrne program.

Extension in number of covered offenses and making the amendments apply retroactively under SORNA requirements expanded the registries by as much as 500% in some states. Ironically, John Walsh has admitted having a relationship with 16 year old Reve, his former wife, while in his 20s while knowing that the age of consent in New York state is 17. Had Walsh been convicted at the time, expansion of covered offenses and retroactivity of SORNA would require him to register as a sex offender. Since passage of the AWA, John Walsh has said: "You can't paint sex offenders with a broad brush".

As of April 2014, the Justice Department reports that only 17 states, three territories and 63 tribes had substantially implemented requirements of the Adam Walsh Act.

Classification of offenders

Since the emergence of contemporary sex offender registration and notification (SORN) policies, states have developed varied methods of classifying registrants. Thus, identical offenses committed in different states may produce different outcomes in terms of public disclosure and registration period. An offender classified as level/tier I offender in one state, with no public notification requirement, might be classified as tier II or tier III offender in another. Although the sources of variation are diverse, they may be viewed across three dimensions — the extent to which classes of registrants are distinguished from one another, the criteria used in the classification process, and the systems and processes by which classification decisions are made.

The first point of divergence concerns the extent to which states distinguish among those on their registries. At one end of the spectrum are states operating single-tier systems that make no substantive distinctions among registrants for purposes of reporting, registration duration, notification, and related factors. Alternatively, other states operate multi-tier systems, typically involving two or three major categories that are (at least ostensibly) calibrated in accordance with presumed public safety risk and, in turn, with required levels of attention from law enforcement and the general public. Depending on the state, registration and notification systems may also include special designations and provisions for populations such as juveniles or those deemed “sexual predators” by virtue of certain standards.

The second dimension of variation in SORN classification practice relates to the criteria employed in the classification decision. States operating offense-based systems utilize the conviction offense and/or the number of prior offenses as the principal criteria for tier assignment. Other jurisdictions utilize various risk assessments that consider factors that have been empirically linked by research to sexual recidivism risk, such as age, number of prior sex offenses, victim gender, relationship to the victim, and indicators of psychopathy and deviant sexual arousal. Finally, some states use a hybrid version of offense-based and risk-assessment-based systems for SORN classification. For example, Colorado law sets forth specified minimum terms of registration based on the type of offense for which the registrant was convicted or adjudicated but also utilizes a risk assessment for identifying and designating sexually violent predators — a limited population deemed to be at higher risk and subject to more extensive SORN requirements.

Third and finally, states distinguishing among registrants vary in terms of the systems and processes employed in establishing tier designations. In general, offense-based classification systems have been adopted for their relative simplicity and uniformity, and they permit most classification decisions to be made via standardized administrative or judicial processes. Risk-assessment-based systems, which generally employ the use of actuarial risk assessment instruments and in some cases clinical assessments, require higher levels of personnel involvement in the classification process. Some states, like Massachusetts and Colorado, utilize multidisciplinary review boards or judicial discretion to establish registrant tiers and/or sexual predator status.

In some states, such as Kentucky, Florida, and Illinois, all sex offenders who move into the state and are required to register in their previous home states are required to register for life, regardless their registration period in previous residence. Illinois reclassifies all registrants moving in as a "Sexual Predator".

Registration process

Sex offenders are required to register in person with the appropriate law enforcement agency upon conviction of or guilty plea to a sex offense, and must reappear at a regular interval usually determined by the conviction offense and in some cases, by the assigned risk level and whether the resident is homeless. A registrant whose residence or other information changes must promptly reappear in person to update the information, for example, under Adam Walsh Act within 3 days of changes. If a registrant moves to another state the registrant may be required to register simultaneously in more than one state; the states' requirements are seldom identical. Information states collect may include name, nicknames, aliases, photograph, social security number, current physical and mailing address, former living address, address of places where offender habitually lives, name and address of school or institution of higher education, if any, telephone numbers, email addresses and other Internet identifiers, place of employment, professional licenses, DNA sample, race, place of birth, fingerprints, palm prints, height, weight, hair color, eye color, birth marks, scars, tattoos, copies of passport and immigration documents, vehicle make, model, color, and license numbers, sometimes including the vehicles of all other (non-sex offender) persons residing at the same address; driver’s license number; every offense for which registrant has been arrested or convicted and date and place of any arrest or conviction. In some states, drivers' licenses and official state identification cards identify the holder as a sex offender.

Public notification

The United States is the only country allowing public disclosure of most offender information. Other countries do not allow public notification unless the offender has been determined to pose a high risk of re-offending.

Just as states differ with respect to classification level of offenders/offenses, they also differ with respect to public disclosure of their information. In some jurisdictions the lists of all sex offenders are made available to the public through newspapers, posters, email, or Internet-accessible database. However in others, only information on high-risk offenders is publicly available, and the complete lists are only available to law enforcement.

In SORNA compliant states, only tier I registrants may be excluded from public disclosure, but since SORNA merely sets the minimum set of rules that states must follow, many SORNA compliant states have adopted stricter system and have opted to disclose information of all tiers. Some states have disclosed some of tier I offenders, while in some states all tier I offenders are excluded from public disclosure.

These disparities in state legislation have caused unexpected problems to some registrants moving across state lines, becoming subject to public disclosure and longer registration periods (sometimes for life) under the destination state's laws. While these disparities may cause problems to migrant registrants, they have also caused some registrants to move between states in order to avoid adverse effects of public disclosure they were experiencing in their original location.

Exclusion zones

Laws restricting where registered sex offenders may live or work became increasingly common since 2005. At least 30 states have enacted statewide residency restrictions prohibiting registrants from living within certain distances from schools, parks, day-cares, school bus stops, or other places where children may congregate. Distance requirements range from 500-2500 feet, but most common are 1000-2500-foot boundaries. In addition hundreds of counties and municipalities have passed their own local ordinances that exceed the requirements of state laws. In addition to areas defined in state laws, some local communities have created exclusion zones around churches, pet stores, movie theaters, libraries, playgrounds, tourist attractions or other areas considered as "recreational facilities" such as stadiums, auditoriums, swimming pools, skating rinks and gymnasiums, regardless whether publicly or privately owned. Although restrictions are tied to distances from areas where children congregate or may congregate, most states apply exclusion zones indiscriminately to all registrants. In 2007 report, the Human Rights Watch found only 4 states that limited restrictions to those convicted of sex crimes involving minors, in rest of the states and localities restrictions applied, regardless of whether registrants crime involved a minor. Furthermore the report found that laws preclude registrants even from homeless shelters within restriction areas. In 2005, some localities in Florida banned sex offenders from public hurricane shelters during 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. In 2007 Tampa, Florida city council considered simply banning registrants from moving within the city limits.

Restrictions may effectively cover entire cities and leave only few "pockets" of allowed places to live for registrants. For example, residency restrictions enacted in California in 2006 covered more than 97% of rental housing area in San Diego County. As an attempt to further banish registrants from living in communities, local politicians have decided to build small "pocket parks" to drive registrants out of their homes and eventually out of the area. In 2007 news reports revealed that registered sex offenders were living outside or under the Julia Tuttle Causeway in Miami, Florida because state laws and Miami-Dade County ordinances made it virtually impossible for them to find housing. This encampment of 140 ostracized registrants became known as Julia Tuttle Causeway sex offender colony. The colony generated international coverage and criticism around the country. Colony was disbanded in 2010 when city found acceptable housing in the area for the registrants, but reports five years later indicated that some registrants were still living on streets or alongside railroad tracks.

In addition some communities have loitering and/or travel exclusion zones which prohibit registrants from being within certain distance of certain facilities, if they don't have legitimate reason to be there. In some localities sex offenders are completely banned from entering any city park, playground or other recreational facilities, even with their own children. These restrictions bar registrants from picking their children from school or attending parent-child activities with their own children. In 2006 Tennessee adopted a law which prohibits sex offenders from attending treatment facility “within one thousand feet...of the property line of any public school, private or parochial school, licensed day care center, other child care facility, public park, playground, recreation center or public athletic field available for use by the general public".

Impact on registrants and their families

Sex offender registration and community notification (SORN) laws have numerous costs in the form of collateral consequences for both, sex offenders and their families. These collateral consequences include difficulties in maintaining employment, relationship difficulties, public recognition, harassment, attacks, difficulties finding, and maintaining suitable housing, as well as an inability to take part in expected parental duties, such as going to school functions. In at least two instances, convicted sex offenders were murdered after their information was made available over the Internet. In addition, registrants tend to disproportionately reside in the most socially undesirable neighborhoods, and in some situations are banned from certain jurisdictions altogether due to the residency restrictions. Potentially deleterious effects of collateral consequences on offenders may in fact contribute to sex offenders failing to register and to the related potential for re-offending. In addition, some of the collateral consequences, such as social stigma and lack of job opportunities or housing, cause emotional stress and undermine offenders ability to re-integrate into society, which in turn may further increase the risk of re-offending, and may hamper the public safety value of SORN policies.

Registration and notification laws affect not only sex offenders, but also their loved ones. For example, laws may force families to live apart from each other, because of family safety issues caused by neighbors, or because of residency restrictions. Interviews with 72 family members of registrants in six states identified common themes among family members. Family members often reported persistent feelings of hopelessness, depression, and frustration. In many cases, a family members decision to maintain contact with the offender led to hostility from other relatives, leaving the family member feeling isolated. Many reported that housing and employment disruptions, often caused by limitations imposed by the offender’s probation or registration status, resulted in economic hardships for the entire family. Close scrutiny and intrusion from law enforcement agents were seen as an invasion of privacy, and public notification often generated an enormous sense of shame and stigma. Many family members discussed feeling “overwhelmed and demoralized”, struggling to cope on a daily basis. Some remarked that re-entry assistance policies, such as the Second Chance Act, seemed to unfairly exclude sex offenders. Conclusion of the study was that stress for family members can hinder the crucial role they play in aiding the sex offender to successfully reintegrate.

Impact on registrants

A growing body of research has identified the adverse effects of registration and notification laws for sex offenders. Adverse effects have unintended consequences that can undermine successful re-entry and potentially increase the risk of future criminal activity. Most studies show that community notification appears to limit employment opportunities for up to half of registrants. Housing disruption is common, with 20–40% of sex offenders reporting that they have had to move because a landlord or neighbor became aware of their RSO status. A majority report psychosocial consequences such as depression, hopelessness, and fear for their own safety. Some have experienced vigilante activities such as property damage, harassment, and even physical assault.

Impact on family members

A direct survey of 584 family members of registered sex offenders, published in 2009, found that most family members (86%) reported that SORN has caused stress in their lives, 77% often felt a sense of isolation, and 49% often felt afraid for their own safety due to public disclosure of the sex offender’s status. Half had lost friends or a close relationship as a result of community notification, and 66% said that shame and embarrassment often kept them from engaging in community activities. Many of the respondents reported having to move out of rental house because landlord (22%) or neighbors (17%) found out that registrant was living in the same apartment. 12% percent had to move out of home they owned because of neighbors. 44% of respondents reported being harassed by neighbors, 27% their property being damaged, 7% being physically assaulted because of someone finding out that registrant lived in same address. 30% reported that a non-registered third person living in the same home had faced one or more of adverse consequences mentioned above. 33% reported that they were not able to live with their registrant because of residency restrictions. 44% reported difficulties in finding housing outside safety-zones, and wanting to live with the registrant.

Impact on children of registrants

More than half (58%) of the respondents who were parent or a care taker of a child whose other parent is registered sex offender, said that the child was treated differently by other children at school, and 78% indicated that the child’s friendships had been impacted in some way. It was common for other children’s parents to be reluctant to allow the registrant's child to play at the friend's home (56%) or to let a child come to the registrant’s child’s home to play (70%). Many respondents said that the child has been treated differently by other adults (teachers, neighbors, friends’ parents) (63%), and that the child has been stigmatized due to the parent’s status as a registered sex offender (71%). Most children were reported to have unrestricted contact with their registrant parent (63%), though 23% were allowed only supervised contact and 14% had no contact at all. A majority (74%) indicated that the registrant parent has been unable to participate in some of the child’s activities, such as attending school plays or other events, attending or participating in the child’s organized sports, or attending the child’s birthday party.

Children of registrants are reported to most often exhibit anger (80%), depression (77%), anxiety (73%), feeling left out by peers(65%), and fear (63%). Additionally, more than one in eight (13%) of the children of registrants were reported to exhibit suicidal tendencies. The Human Rights Watch organization criticized these laws in a 146-page report published in 2007, and another report in 2013.

Effectiveness

Sex offender registration and notification laws are highly accepted by the public, who believe that knowing the location of sex offenders residence may improve their ability to guard themselves and their children from sexual victimization. Empirical observations do not typically support this assumption, however. Majority of research results do not find significant shift in sexual offense trends following the implementation of sex offender registration and notification (SORN) regimes. A few studies indicate that sexual recidivism may have been lowered by SORN policies. Particularly, the states where community notification has indicated of having any effectiveness employ empirically derived risk assessment procedures and apply public notification only on high risk offenders.

According to the New York Times Editorial Board, "there is not a single piece of evidence" that sex offender residency restrictions make children safer. The California Supreme Court found that the restrictions reduce safety, by driving sex offenders into homelessness, which makes them harder to monitor and less likely to receive rehabilitative services.

According to Sondra Miller, president of the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center, "the registry gives the appearance that our community is safer, but we really question whether it lives up to that expectation." It is well-established that the vast majority of incidents of child abuse are committed by people the child already knows: a family member or relative, a family friend, someone in a position of authority like a teacher or religious leader. Only a small minority is committed by strangers. First-time offenders are by definition not on the registry.

Effectiveness of registration and notification

In Minnesota, a law requiring community notification on high-risk offenders was implemented in 1997. To examine the relationship between community notification and recidivism, the Minnesota Department of Corrections conducted a study comparing differences between three groups. A notification group consisted of 155 Level 3 ("high public risk") sex offenders. This group was subject to broad community notification after release from Minnesota prisons between 1997 and 2002. Two control groups were compared with this notification group. The first control group -prenotification- was built using a statistical matching technique and consisted of 125 offenders released between 1990-1997 who likely would have been assigned to Level 3, and would have been subject to community notification had the law been at place at the time of their release. A second control group -non-notification- consisted of offenders assigned to Level 1 and Level 2 who were released between 1997-2002 and not subject to broad community notification. The sexual re-conviction rates within a 3 year period for the notification, pre-notification and non-notification groups was found to be 3.2%, 32.8% and 9.6%, respectively. The authors concluded that these results suggest a community notification system based on tiered risk-management has an effect of reducing recidivism, although they noted that part of the effect might arise from heightened penalties and post-release supervision, improved treatment, or unmeasured historical factors unique to the 1990-1996 period. They further concluded that applying community notification to low-risk offenders would hinder their ability for successful community re-entry, and probably would not produce appreciable reduction in sexual recidivism given the low base rate (5-7% within 3 years) of recidivism in that sample.

Study conducted in University of Michigan Law School in 2008, distinguishing between the effects of registration (police- only) and community notification (public registries), analyzed Uniform Crime Report data from 15 states over more than 10 years. The study found evidence that police-only registration laws reduce the frequency of reported sex offenses, particularly when the number of registrants is large but making the registry information available to the broader public may "backfire", leading to higher overall rates of sex crime. An average-size registry was estimated to decrease crime by approximately 1.21 sex offenses per 10,000 people, which correspond to 13 percent reduction on average. This drop in crime was found to benefit local victims (acquaintances, neighbors, and victims of known offenders, as well as possibly family members, friends, and significant others). Study found no evidence that registration had any effect to the level of crime against strangers. The same study found that notification laws may affect sex offense frequency, although not in a way as lawmakers intended. Notification laws were found to reduce the number of sex offenses when the size of the registry is small but these benefits disappear when more offenders are made subject to notification requirements. Making the registration information public was found to increase the number of sex offenses by more than 1.57 percent. Authors concluded that providing information on convicted sex offenders to local authorities may be beneficial as this increases monitoring and likelihood of punishment for recidivism, which translates to lower rate of recidivism as predicted in simple model of criminal behavior. By making the same information public offenders become more likely to commit crimes because the associated psychological, social, or financial costs make crime-free life relatively less attractive.

Another study done in University of Chicago Law School compared data on over 9,000 sex offenders released from prison in 1994. About half of those offenders were released into states where they needed to register, while the other half did not need to register. The study found little difference in the two groups' propensity to re-offend. In fact, those released into states without registration laws were slightly less likely to re-offend. The study also showed that blocks in Washington DC where sex offenders lived did not have higher rate of sex crimes nor over-all crimes. Study concluded that registered sex offenders do not appear to have lower rates of recidivism than those sex offender who are not required to register, and that knowing where a sex offender lives does not reveal where sex crimes, or other crimes, will take place.

Perceptions

High rates of sex offender recidivism are commonly cited in support of sex offender related legislation, despite several studies, including those by agenciies of both the U.S. and Canadian governments, that found considerably lower sex offense recidivism rates than is commonly believed. Contrary to the public belief that sex offenders have a very high recidivism rate, sex offenders are among the least likely criminals to be rearrested for repeating their crimes. According to two Office of Justice Programs of the United States Department of Justice studies recidivism rate for sex offenders is lower than any other group of criminals except those convicted of homicide.

Public perceptions

Research on public perceptions about sex offenders has found that general population holds inaccurate beliefs: Public perceives sex offenders having very high risk of recidivism, views offenders as homogeneous group regard to that risk and are skeptical about effectiveness of treatment, when in fact offenders represent diverse offense patterns - ranging from non-violent statutory offenses to violent sexual assault, and a wide range of re-offense risk. Furthermore, public believes that many sex offenses are committed by strangers, and that nearly half of sex offenses are reported to authorities, when in fact, contrary to the media depictions vast majority (93%) of sexual offense victims are known to the offender, either related, or intimate to the victim. Reports also suggest clearly higher rates of perpetration than of detection. Majority of public endorses broad community protection policies and opine that such policies successfully reduce sexual crime. Small proportion acknowledges that registrants pose different risk levels and think that low level offenders should be excluded from community notification.

Policy-makers' perceptions

Study on policy-makers perception found that politicians see sex offender laws as necessary for enhancing public safety and as proof that they are reacting to the concerns of the public. Additionally, majority of politicians who sponsored and passed at least one sex offender law in their state believed that laws are too broad as they extend to nonviolent offenses, low-risk offenders, and thus dilutes sex offender registries as a law enforcement tool. Media coverage of sex crimes were involved in policy-makers’ decisions to sponsor sex offender laws. Another study from Illinois interviewing 35 legislators found that only 4 of them were confident that sex offender registration and notification policies were effective in reducing sexual crime. However, nearly all agreed “that current sex offender legislation...successfully addressed the public’s demand for action”. Study concluded that media indirectly affected sex offender policies by affecting the public’s perceptions, and directly affected policy-making as respondents admitted that the media serves as their major source of information.

Maine state senator William Diamond opined in an interview that current policies have "inherent flaws" but reforming them is problematic to policymakers:

“Year in and year out, the public wants us to be tough on sex offenders, and as lawmakers, we don’t want to be seen as weak. But the more you learn, the more you realize that a knee-jerk reaction doesn’t help.”

Constitutionality

Registration and Community Notification Laws have been challenged on a number of constitutional and other bases, generating substantial amount of case law. Those challenging the statutes have claimed violations of ex post facto, due process, cruel and unusual punishment, equal protection and search and seizure. A study published in fall, 2015 researching underlying U.S. Supreme Court decisions shed a light to case laws behind current sex offender policies, and questioned their constitutional grounds.

Two U.S. Supreme Court decisions have been heavily relied upon by legislators, and other courts in their own constitutional decision, mainly upholding the registration and notification laws. In McKune v. Lile, 536 U.S. 24, 33 (2002) the Supreme Court upheld, in a 5-4 plurality opinion, a Kansas law that imposed harsher sentences on offenders who refused participating in a prison treatment program. In justifying conclusion, Justice Kennedy wrote that sex offenders pose “frightening and high risk of recidivism”, which, “of untreated offenders has been estimated to be as high as 80%.”

In following year, in Smith v. Doe, 538 U.S. 84 (2003), the Supreme Court upheld Alaska's registration statute, reasoning that sex offender registration is civil measure reasonably designed to protect public safety, not a punishment, which can be applied ex post facto. Now Justice Kennedy relied on this earlier language of McKune v. Lile and wrote:

"Alaska could conclude that a conviction for a sex offense provides evidence of substantial risk of recidivism. The legislature’s findings are consistent with rave concerns over the high rate of recidivism among convicted sex offenders and their dangerousness as a class. The risk of recidivism posed by sex offenders is 'frightening and high.' McKune v. Lile, 536 U. S. 24, 34 (2002)..."

— Justice Anthony Kennedy, Smith v. Doe, 538 U.S. 84 (2003)

According to a study by law Professor Ira Mark Ellman and Consultant Tara Ellman, statistics cited by Justice Kennedy are "false 'facts'". The study found that in McKune v. Lile, the solicitor general provided only one citation to support its claim “that the recidivism rate of untreated offenders has been estimated to be as high as 80%.” The source for the claim was the "U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Corrections, A Practitioner’s Guide to Treating the Incarcerated Male Sex Offender released in 1988." The Practitioners Guide itself cites one source which originates from "a mass market magazine aimed at a lay audience", and was bare assertion with no supporting citations by a treatment program counselor, who is not a scholar and has no expertise in sex offender recidivism. Furthermore the article was about counseling program the counselor run in Oregon prison, not about sex crime recidivism. Study concluded that the claim of high re-offense rates among all sex offenders, and the effectiveness of counseling programs in reducing it, was merely "unsupported assertion of someone without research expertise who made his living selling such counseling programs to prisons", and that use of the unsourced statistics in McKune v. Lile was "at best irresponsible".

U.S. Supreme Court rulings

In two cases docketed for argument on 13 November 2003, the sex offender registries of two states, Alaska and Connecticut, would face legal challenge. This was the first instance that the Supreme Court had to examine the implementation of sex offender registries in throughout the U.S. The ruling would let the states know how far they could go in informing citizens of perpetrators of sex crimes. In Connecticut Dept. of Public Safety v. Doe (2002) the Supreme Court of the United States affirmed this public disclosure of sex offender information.

Ex post facto challenge

In Smith v. Doe, 538 U.S. 84 (2003), the Supreme Court upheld Alaska's sex-offender registration statute. Reasoning that sex offender registration deals with civil laws, not punishment, the Court ruled 6–3 that it is not an unconstitutional ex post facto law. Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer dissented.

in Charles v. Alaska, Supreme Court No. S-12944, Court of Appeals No. A-09623, Superior Court No. 1KE-05-00765 C O P I N I O N can be found in its entirety here: No. 6897 - April 25, 2014

29 April 2014, The Alaska Supreme Court overturned the conviction of a 62-year-old Ketchikan man who had been found guilty in 2006 of failure to register as a sex offender.

In its 25 April opinion, the court writes that the original offense for which Byron Charles was convicted occurred in the 1980s, before the State of Alaska passed the Alaska Sex Offender Registration Act. That 1994 law required convicted sex offenders to register with the state, even if the offense took place before 1994.

In 2008, the Alaska Supreme Court ruled in Doe v. State that the sex offender registration act cannot be applied retroactively. Charles had previously appealed his conviction on the failure to register charge, but had not argued against the retroactive clause in state law. After the court’s 2008 decision, though, Charles added that argument to his appeal.

Lower courts ruled that Charles had essentially waived his right to use that argument by not bringing it up earlier. But in its 25 April decision, the Supreme Court decided otherwise.

The court writes that "permitting Charles to be convicted of violating a criminal statute that cannot constitutionally be applied to him would result in manifest injustice."

With that in mind, the Alaska Supreme Court reversed Charles’ 2006 conviction of failure to register as a sex offender.

Due process challenge

In Connecticut Dept. of Public Safety v. Doe, 538 U.S. 1 (2003), the Court ruled that Connecticut's sex-offender registration statute did not violate the procedural due process of those to whom it applied, although the Court "expresses no opinion as to whether the State's law violates substantive due process principles."

Update: Reynolds V. United States Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit No. 10–6549. Argued 3 October 2011 – Decided 23 January 2012 "The Act does not require pre-Act offenders to register before the Attorney General validly specifies that the Act’s registration provisions apply to them."

State Court rulings

Alaska

After losing the constitutional challenge in the US Supreme Court in 2002 one of the two Doe's in the case committed suicide. The other Doe began a new challenge in the state courts. Per the ALASKA DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY website: On 25 July 2008, Doe number two prevailed and the Alaska Supreme Court ruled that the Alaska Sex Offender Registration Act’s registration violated the ex post facto clause of the state's constitution and ruled that the requirement does not apply to persons who committed their crimes before the act became effective on 10 August 1994.

California

The California Supreme Court ruled on 2 March 2015 that a state law barring sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or park is unconstitutional. The ruling immediately affects only San Diego County, where the case originated. The court found that in San Diego County, the 2,000-feet rule meant that less than 3 percent of multi-unit housing was available to offenders. Additionally, federal law banned anyone in a state database of sex offenders from receiving federal housing subsidies after June 2001.

Florida

In the ruling of Heggs v. State, 718 So.2d 263(1998), and in 2000, The Supreme Court denied Florida's request for rehearing on the constitutionality of the 1995 sentencing guidelines due to the unconstitutionality being a violation of the "Single Subject Rule," leaving the decision by the 2nd DCA to set precedence. It has opened a Pandora's box for Florida Legislature as many laws that were enacted violating Article III, section 6, Single subject rule are open to constitutional arguments. In the decision of Heggs, many laws which were enacted now face a constitutional argument as it is clear there is an unconstitutional, illegal and unlawful enactment of §943.0435, which was enacted in Florida Chapter Law 97-299: Senate Bill 958. The Bill was related to the release of Public Records Information.

Florida legislature outlined Sex Offender Registration in the creation of §943.0435, further in the Bill the single subject rule was violated when 1998 §921.0017 Credit Upon Resentence of an Offender Serving a Split Sentence, which has nothing in regards to the release of public records information as Legislature attempted to mask a cross reference correction. In the correction there was statutory language added in effort to bring it in compliance with the Florida Constitution and 3 subsections appeared in §921.0017, that were in regards to appropriation of funds.

In the 1998 supplement where the new amendments and created laws would have been published. §921.0017 as well as §921.243 were no where to be found. In great research the cross reference error in §921.0017 was the focus, and the added statutory language appears in an illegally and unlawfully enacted statute §921.243 that cites 97 – 299; Senate Bill 958; Florida chapter law 97-299 never creates §921.243, nor ever cites it for amendment and the 3 subsections dealing with appropriation of funds are being searched for within the 1998 supplement, as they are of great interest due to Albrights summary which he made it clear that Senate Bill 958 would not need any new funding or cause for any new taxes. The confusing things is there was no scheduled House meeting according to the Florida House of Representatives Website, yet the Analysis summary is dated 17 March 1997 with 7 yeas and 0 nays from Committee on Crime and Punishment & Representatives Albright, Ball & others. Florida could stand to be the only State unable to justify any constitutional reasoning as this has yet to be decided nor the reasoning for the appropriations found.

Hawaii

In State v. Bani, 36 P.3d 1255 (Haw. 2001), the Hawaii State Supreme Court held that Hawaii's sex offender registration statute violated the due process clause of the Constitution of Hawaii, ruling that it deprived potential registrants "of a protected liberty interest without due process of law". The Court reasoned that the sex offender law authorized "public notification of (the potential registrant's) status as a convicted sex offender without notice, an opportunity to be heard, or any preliminary determination of whether and to what extent (he) actually represents a danger to society".

Maryland

In 2013 The Maryland Court of Appeals, the highest court of Maryland, declared that the state could not require the registration of people who committed their crimes before October 1995, when the database was established. State officials removed the one name in question in the case but maintained that federal law required them to keep older cases in the database. In July 2014 Maryland Appeals Court ruled that federal law doesn’t override the state’s Constitution and that requiring people to go back and register amounted to punishing them twice, a violation of the state’s Constitution.

Michigan

U.S. District Court Judge Robert Cleland issued a ruling March 31, 2015 striking down four portions of Michigan's Sex Offender Registry Act, calling them unconstitutional. A ruling stated the "geographic exclusion zones" in the Sex Offender Registry Act, such as student safety areas that stretch for 1,000 feet around schools, are unconstitutional. Judge Cleland also stated law enforcement doesn't have strong enough guidelines to know how to measure the 1,000-foot exclusion zone around schools. Neither sex offenders or law enforcement have the tools or data to determine the zones.

Missouri

Many successful challenges to sex offender registration laws in the United States have been in Missouri because of a unique provision in the Missouri Constitution (Article I, Section 13) prohibiting laws "retrospective in operation".

In Doe v. Phillips, 194 S.W.3d 837 (Mo. banc 2006), the Supreme Court of Missouri held that the Missouri Constitution did not allow the state to place anyone on the registry who had been convicted or pleaded guilty to a registrable offense before the sex offender registration law went into effect on 1 January 1995. and remanded the case for further consideration in light of that holding. On remand, the Jackson County Circuit Court entered an injunction ordering that the applicable individuals be removed from the published sex offender list. Defendant Colonel James Keathley appealed that order to the Missouri Court of Appeals in Kansas City, which affirmed the injunction on 1 April 2008. Keathley filed an appeal with the Supreme Court of Missouri.

In response to these rulings, in 2007, several Missouri state Senators proposed an amendment to the Missouri Constitution that would exempt sex offender registration laws from the ban on retrospective civil laws. The proposed amendment passed the State Senate unanimously but was not passed by the Missouri House of Representatives before the end of the 2007 legislative session. The same constitutional amendment was proposed in and passed by the Missouri Senate again in 2008, but also was not passed by the House of Representatives by the end of that year's legislative session. As a result, the decisions of the Missouri courts prohibiting the retrospective application of sex offender laws remained intact.

The Missouri Supreme Court ruled on Keathley's appeal (Doe v. Phillips now styled Doe v. Keathley) on 16 June 2009. The Court held that the Missouri Constitution's provision prohibiting laws retrospective in operation no longer exempts individuals from registration if they are subject to the independent Federal obligation created under the Sexual Offenders Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), 42 U.S.C. § 16913. As a result, many offenders who were previously exempt under the Court's 2006 holding in Doe v. Phillips were once again required to register.

On 12 January 2010, Cole County Circuit Judge Richard Callahan ruled that individuals who plead guilty to a sex offense are not required to register under Federal Law and thus are not required to register in Missouri if the date of their plea was prior to the passage of the Missouri registration law.

Missouri also has a number of laws that restrict the activities of persons required to register as sex offenders, several of which have also been challenged as being retrospective in their operation. On 19 February 2008, the Supreme Court of Missouri held that a law prohibiting registered sex offenders from residing within one thousand feet of a school was retrospective in operation as applied to registered sex offenders who had resided at a location within such a distance prior to the enactment of the law. Another exception to the school-residence proximity requirement was handed down by the Court on 12 January 2010 in F.R. v. St. Charles County Sheriff's Department. In this case, F.R. was convicted prior to the enactment of the law and the Court held that, as such, he was not required to abide by the restriction. Consolidated with F.R. was State of Missouri v. Raynor, in which the Court found that Charles A. Raynor was not required to comply with R.S.Mo. § 589.426, a law restricting the activities of registered sex offenders on Halloween. It should be noted that, in both F.R. and Raynor, the ruling applies only to the named party.

New York

Local governments in New York cannot restrict where registered sex offenders can live, according to a ruling by the state's highest court published 31 May 2015. Under New York law, only level 3 offenders and those on probation or parole are prohibited from being within 1,000 feet of school grounds or a day care center.

North Carolina

In North Carolina, § 14-27.5A or sexual battery is a misdemeanor and a requirement for registry for a period of 30 years. North Carolina has labeled the law as sexually violent offense despite it being a misdemeanor.

§ 14-202.5 Bans use of commercial social networking Web sites by sex offenders. Potentially this means that a registered offender could be charged by authorities for use of Google or other public internet sites. On August 20, 2013 the North Carolina Court of Appeals struck down the law saying law "is not narrowly tailored, is vague, and fails to target the 'evil' it is intended to rectify," the three-judge appellate panel said in its 21-page opinion. On August 30, 2013 the NC Supreme Court grants NC Attorney General Roy Cooper’s request for a stay of Court of Appeals ruling. That stay was granted but no other outcome from that stay has moved forward.

G.S. 14-208.18(a)(2), which makes it a Class H felony for certain registered sex offenders to “knowingly be . . . ithin 300 feet of any location intended primarily for the use, care, or supervision of minors when the place is located on premises that not intended primarily for the use, care, or supervision of minors, including, but not limited to, that are located in malls, shopping centers, or other property open to the general public.” This law as written could be interpreted that sex offenders could be arrested at a McDonald’s, shopping malls, stores that sell video games and churches. The law was challenged and overturned in 2009 by a Chatham County Superior Court judge, but never removed or rewritten and still enforced on levels of interpretation by local sheriffs. On February 17, 2015, Graham County Sheriff Danny Millsaps told registered sex offenders they can't go to church, citing a state law meant to keep them from day-care centers and schools. He invited them to attend church service at the county jail. In Buncombe County, sex offenders are permitted in church as long as pastors know and are in agreement, Sheriff Van Duncan says.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on March 30, 2015 that a North Carolina sex offender should have a chance to challenge an order that he/she wear a GPS monitoring bracelet around the clock and for the rest of his life. The defendant Torrey Dale Grady argued that the state's lifetime GPS monitoring system is unreasonable because it allows state officials to enter his home - with or without his permission - to maintain a GPS monitoring base station. Grady also complains that he must charge the bracelet every day by plugging it into a wall outlet for four to six hours at a time. In 2012, the court ruled that placing the tracking units on cars to follow their movement is a search. That case did not decide whether attaching the devices without a search warrant violated the Constitution.

Ohio

In July 2011 the Supreme Court of Ohio ruled the Ohio version of Adam Walsh Act to be punitive, rather than a civil regulatory measure. This decision barred retroactive application of Ohio's Adam Walsh Act to those whose crimes predated the law's enactment. The Ohio Supreme Court has also found automatic lifetime registration for juveniles to be unconstitutional.

Pennsylvania

In December 2014 the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that Pennsylvania’s sex offender registry for juvenile offenders was unconstitutional. In a 5-1 decision, the court concluded that the state, by making an “irrefutable presumption” about adults’ behavior based on crimes they committed as teens, violated their constitutional right to due process.

Application to offenses other than felony sexual offenses

Sex offender registration has been applied to crimes other than rape, child molestation, and child pornography offenses and is sometimes applied to certain non-sexual offenses.

In Connecticut, those with state convictions for certain misdemeanors have to register, including: Public Indecency, in violation of C.G.S. § 53a-186, provided the court finds the victim was under 18; and Sexual Assault, 4th Degree, in violation of C.G.S. § 53a-73a.

In New York and various other states, crimes that society does not necessarily view as sexual in nature are also considered to be registerable sex offenses, such as kidnapping, "sexual misconduct", unlawful imprisonment, and in some cases "sexually motivated offenses" (such as assault, burglary, etc.) that are not categorized as sexual offenses unless the court determines that the offense was committed pursuant to the offender's own sexual gratification. In New York specifically, kidnapping and unlawful imprisonment are registerable offenses only if the victim is under 17 and the offender is not a parent of the victim.

A few states have also created separate online registries for crimes other than sex offenses. Montana, for example, has a publicly accessible violent offender registry that includes crimes such as aggravated assault, robbery, assaulting a peace officer, both deliberate and non-deliberate homicide and a third conviction for domestic violence. Kansas has publicly accessible registries of people convicted of both serious drug offenses and people convicted of crimes involving a weapon. Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Montana all have publicly accessible registries for those convicted of murder. Florida requires all felons, regardless of the crime, to register with law enforcement for 5 years after release, although the Florida felon registry is not available to the general public. If a felon in Florida is convicted of enough non-sexual felonies in a certain period of time, however, they are required to register for the rest of their life on a "Habitual Offender" registry that is available to the general public. Ohio even has a publicly accessible registry for people convicted 5 or more times of drunken driving.

In 2014, a murder registry was proposed in Rhode Island and an animal abuser registry was proposed in Pennsylvania. A bill to create a publicly accessible registry for domestic violence offenders passed the Texas House of Representatives in 2013, but was not voted on in the Texas Senate.

Additional restrictions beyond public notice

Sex offenders on parole or probation are generally subject to the same restrictions as other parolees and probationers. In some states, they may also be barred from voting after a sentence has been completed and, at federal level, (like all ex-felons) barred from owning firearms.

Some states have Civil Commitment laws, which allow very-high-risk sex offenders to be placed in psychiatric hospitals or forced to live under very heavy supervision after the end of their normal sentences. See also: Child Sex Offender penalties.

The State of Missouri now restricts the activities of registered sex offenders on Halloween, requiring them to avoid Halloween-related contact with children and remain at their registered home address from 5 p.m. to 10:30 p.m., unless they are required to work that evening. Regardless of whether they are at work, offenders must extinguish all outside residential lighting and post a sign stating, "No candy or treats at this residence - sex offender at this residence".

Facebook and Twitter prohibit any convicted sex offender from accessing and/or contributing to their websites.

Registration and homelessness

People who are registered in offender databases are usually required to notify the government when they change their place of residence. This notification requirement is problematic in cases where the registered offender is homeless.

The state of Washington is among those that have special provisions in their registration code covering homeless offenders, but not all states have such provisions. A November 2006 Maryland Court of Appeals ruling exempts homeless persons from that state's registration requirements, which has prompted a drive to compose new laws covering this contingency.

As of 2013 Suffolk County, New York, which had imposed onerous restrictions on sex offenders exceeding those required by New York State law, was faced with a situation where 40 sex offenders were living in two cramped trailers located in isolated locations. This situation had been created by the county in 2007 as a solution to the problem of housing sex offenders.

Reform advocacy

Sex offender related legislation has generated opposition from grass-root organizations who argue that laws extend to too many offenses and have exceeded their original intent. They further argue that laws unfairly punish registrant and put them and their families on a public "hit-list" even decades after the offender has served their court imposed sentence, while noting that studies do not generally find registries effective. More than 50 organizations - at least one in each state - are attempting to scale down sex offender legislation. National level groups like Women Against Registry (W.A.R.) and RSOL, along with their state affiliates seek to educate and lobby the public and law makers for reforming sex offender registries. In addition these organizations and their state level affiliates are challenging the constitutionality of the laws trough courts. In April 2015 W.A.R. announced that they are preparing two federal class action lawsuits, one on behalf of registrants and second on behalf of registrants families. RSOL successfully challenged sex offender restrictions throughout the state of California, where blanket residency restrictions were eventually ruled unconstitutional by the state supreme court in early 2015.

See also

• Circles of Support and Accountability
• Sarah's Law

References

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External links

• US Dept. of Justice sex offender registry
• Sex offender registry by state on PublicRecordsWire.com (subscription required)
• Reform Sex Offender, Laws Inc. RSOL
• Reports & Papers on Sex Offenses
• Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers
• Registry inaccuracies
  • Sex Offender Accused of Falsely Registering Family's Address
  • Sometimes 'sorry' doesn't cut it Police raid apartment long after sex offender has moved out
  • Sex Offender Community Notification in Scotland (Briefing Paper)

• Sex offender registration
• Sex laws
• Sex offender registries in the United States
• Sex crimes in the United States