Effectiveness of Registration and Notification of Sex Offenders

Sex Offender Registration Laws

The issue of sex offender registration and notification (SORN) has been an age long practice across many states and upon release from jail, some states require that sex offenders register with their local authorities for ease of monitoring over a period of time. However, this has raised substantial debate over the effectiveness of this method in deterring recidivism. Studies have been conducted among sex offenders released from prison into states that required registration and those that did not require registration and conflicting conclusions have been drawn ct. It is the interest of this paper to show how effective this approach has been and the failures that it has encountered in preventing the sex offenders who are released from abducting victims.

The SORN enables the local authorities to know the exact location of residence of the sex offender and the composition of the neighboring society. This will enable the punishment of recidivism of the offender and in turn lead to lowered rates of recidivism by the individual. There are sex offenders who are not pathological in nature, but get into the offense through the anonymity and availability of the chance or absence of deterrent. This means once the individual knows that his name is on the register, he will strive to avoid committing the offense.

The SORN also helps to enhance community policing and reduction in the abduction of children by the sex offenders. Since the community will be notified of the offender living among them, the adults will be looking out for the young children especially those who may be associating with the sex offender. The sex offender will hence be cautious and fear abducting any child since they will have it in mind that since they have been marked by the community as sex offenders, they will be the first suspects in the disappearance of any child. This community policing works most effectively among the first-time sex offenders who would not like to have their name get into the register as sex offenders (Prescott J.J. & Rockoff J., 2010).

In the protection of the innocent children from sex offenders, the privacy of the offender can hence be overlooked to ensure that the children are safe. The offenders whose identity must be known to the society they offended did not care for the safety and psychological stability of the children in the first place, hence their right to privacy is minimal sacrifice in comparison to the forever dented lives and psychology of the children whose lives have just began.