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…