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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 ignites intense disagreement over the preservation of privacy rights.
The present research evaluates the role played by technology in the ongoing dispute between public safety and privacy rights.
While its advocates perceive Megan's Law as a critical law...
/a> enforcement tool that can protect communities, families and their children from the dangers of sexual predators, its critics argue that the law violates constitutional privacy rights and prevents previously convicted sex offenders from achieving rehabilitation or effectively reentering society.
Discussion
Megan's Law is precipitated on the requirement that all convicted sex offenders be placed on local, state and national registries which are consequently available to the general public.
All states are required to take some active steps in insuring effective notification and information dispersal are a constant presence, especially in communities in which registered sex offenders make their homes.
Inconsistencies in defining modern privacy rights have promoted great uncertainty among legal scholars over the limits of legal power both as they have been expanded by the terms of Megan's Law and as they have been improved with the continued enhancement of our information technology capabilities.
One of the disadvantages of Megan's Law that is cited by its detractors, in addition to its Constitutional implications, is the question of its role in stifling…
In spite of all Constitutional protestation seeking to revise Megan's Law as it concerns privacy rights, there is both broad public support for its continued existence as well as for the improvement of its enforcement.
With respect to: the demands for monitoring, tracking and keeping-in-compliance all registered sex offenders; the legal requirement to ensure that effective notification is made available to communities; and the practical imperatives to create a national network of information aimed at strengthening the protective capabilities of Megan's Law, the technological advances that have occurred since the 1996 inception of the policy have helped to improve its potential for effectiveness.
Privacy concerns are overshadowed by the need to utilize advancing information and computing technologies for improved enforcement.
Sex offenders: How should the legal system deal with them? Dealing with the problem of sex offenders is one of the most serious and emotional issues any criminal justice professional can confront. Even otherwise rational people often become irrational when the subject of sexual abuse arises. This fear that sex offenders could be anywhere and everywhere is terrifying for parents and the public at large. The idea that a sex offender
Sex offender (sex-related transgressor, sex abuser or even sex-related abuser) is an individual that has actually dedicated a sex criminal offense or in some circumstances also plain public peeing (MSNBC, 2007). Just what comprises a sex criminal activity varies by society and lawful territory. A number of territories assemble their regulations in to areas, such as traffic, attack and sex-related. Most of pronounced guilty sex transgressors have convictions for criminal
The Solution The Saybrook Forum reports that studies indicate that rehabilitation of sex offenders is possible. It is reported that sex offenders can be rehabilitated through therapy and that therapy can be an effective method to rehabilitating sex offenders. The method utilized is quite simple and is reported to be humanistic involving addressing the humanity of the offender. Rehabilitation makes a requirement of "taking the sex offender seriously as a person."
Sex Offender Programs The treatment of sex offenders is a controversial subject because of the potential pain and suffering that can be inflicted on others if the offender commits a repeat offense. Briken and Kafka (2007) state, "Sexual offences, especially those against children, invoke a public outcry for methods ranging from effective psychotherapeutic treatment modalities to stricter community support (including global position monitoring) and even to lifetime incarceration." Society demands that
" Civil commitment statutes entail that a convicted sexual offender who has finished his or her sentence should be treated within a secure medical setting. This is not connected to a time frame, and such persons could be committed indefinitely, until it is determined that they are no longer a danger to society. When released from such a facility, the person is still required to register as a sexual offender. Other
Sex Offender Civil Commitment Civil Rights or Societal Rights Civil commitment is a legal process typically introduced into society for the mentally ill, or those individuals whom the Court or other professionals believe are a danger to themselves or others. Society realizes that, at times, an individual may pose a danger to themselves or to society and be unable to make rational decisions. In fact, in most jurisdictions in the modern world,