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Megan's Law
On July 29, 1994, paroled sex offender Jesse K. Timmendequas lured his seven-year-old neighbor, Megan Kanka, into his house with the promise of showing her a puppy; one inside, Timmendequas raped and murdered the little girl. One month after the murder, the New Jersey State Assembly passed a law requiring sex offenders to register with a new, statewide database and to inform their neighbors when moving into a neighborhood. This became the basis of the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act (the Wetterling Act) that was passed as part of the omnibus Federal Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. Despite some problems implementing this law, it is a sensible piece of legislation that would undoubtedly be passed today.
The bill that came to be known as Megan's Law was officially titled House Resolution 2137 and was sponsored by Republican representative Dick Zimmer (NJ-12). The bill was introduced on July 27, 1995 and was unanimously approved by the House the following May. On May 9, 1996, the Senate approved the bill and, eight days later,...
This bill differs from the New Jersey bill on which it is based in a number of important ways. For instance, unlike the New Jersey bill, the federal bill does not mandate "active notification," meaning that law enforcement and/or the paroled sex offender are not legally required to notify local residents when a paroled sex offender relocates to the area. In addition, the federal version of Megan's Law leaves many of the decisions regarding penalties for violating the law up to the states. In other words, while Megan's Law is a federal law, much of the law's substance is left to the individual states, a reflection of traditional American federalism.
In large part, laws like Megan's Law were elements of a "get tough" approach on crime born out of the public perception that crime rates were going up (Hohenberg, 16). Though in reality the rate of crime declined during the 1990s, a number of sensationalized crimes gave Americans the opposite impression, and both state legislatures and Congress responded by passing, or attempting to pass, a series…
Bibliography
"BBC NEWS | UK | The Story of Megan's Law." BBC News - Home. British Broadcasting Company, 10 Apr. 2007. Web. 30 Nov. 2010. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/5091800.stm>.
"N.J. Court: Towns Can't Ban Sex Offenders - U.S. News - Crime & Courts - Msnbc.com." MSNBC.com. MSNBC, 15 July 2008. Web. 30 Nov. 2010. <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25692513/>.
Engeler, Amy. "The Problem with Megan's Law." Good Housekeeping. Dec. 2005. Web. 30 Nov. 2010. <http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/family/safety/problem-megans-law-dec05>.
Hohenberg, John. Reelecting Bill Clinton: Why America Chose a "New" Democrat. Syracuse: Syracuse UP, 1998. Print.
(Megan's Law Website: History of the Law and Federal Facts) On the other hand, rights activists and organizations point out that the sexual offender is treated unfairly in a legal sense. As one study on the subject notes, the sexual offender registry is a "… double punishment of sex criminals and is applicable to too many offenses. For example, depending on the area, "sex offenders" can also include those guilty of
When the public is notified of a sexual offender moving into a neighborhood, they are often ostracized, which may exacerbate their problems and increase their risk of reoffense. "Rejection by the community may lead people to despair of ever living a normal life, and such hopelessness can undermine attempts to conform to community standards, driving people inwards, where they may dwell on increasingly inappropriate fantasies" (Lotke, 1997). This clearly
Megan's Law: The Impasse Between Improving Enforcement Technology and Eroding Privacy Rights for Convicted Sex Offenders Megan's Law was passed in 1996 and immediately ignited a flurry of disagreement, both over its likely effectiveness and over its Constitutional Compliance. Requiring each state to compile Sex Offender Registries and to provide Community Notification when convicted sex offenders move into a community, Megan's Law is designed to improve child welfare and safety, but also
Megan's Law (Pro) In 1994, Megan's Law was passed in order to protect innocent women and children from violent sex offenders. Critics of the law have argued that the law infringes on the constitutional rights of sex offenders after they have been released from prison; however, it is my position that the law is constitutional and an excellent deterrent to stop repeat offenses by convicted sexual offenders. This report is an attempt
Angela Morris Sex Offenders in the UK, U.S. & Canada Legislators and criminal justice institutions in the UK, the U.S. And Germany have taken steps in recent years to come to terms -- using harsher and more public methods of punishment -- with those individuals that commit crimes of a sexual nature against children. Because of the outrage and terror that families and citizens express to public officials when a child is
Step 3: Discuss the Precipitating Event After relationship is recognized, the emphasis goes to the family insights of the condition, the sequence of proceedings leading up to the predicament, and the issue that started out the sequence of events (Graham-Bermann, S.A., 2002). Consultations inspect when and how the disaster happened, the causal conditions, and how the family endeavored to covenant with it. Step 4: Assess Strengths and Needs The Family valuation of strengths