A recent study (which I cite in my new article) published in Psychology, Public Policy, and Law claims that New York's Sex Offender Registration act had no effect. According to the study, over 95% of all sex offenses (as determined by arrests) are committed by first time sex offenders. From the abstract:
Despite the fact that the federal and many state governments have
enacted registration and community notification laws as a means to
better protect communities from sexual offending, limited empirical
research has been conducted to examine the impact of such legislation
on public safety. Therefore, utilizing time-series analyses, this study
examined differences in sexual offense arrest rates before and after
the enactment of New York State's Sex Offender Registration Act.
Results provide no support for the effectiveness of registration and
community notification laws in reducing sexual offending by: (a)
rapists, (b) child molesters, (c) sexual recidivists, or (d) first-time
sex offenders. Analyses also showed that over 95% of all sexual offense
arrests were committed by first-time sex offenders, casting doubt on
the ability of laws that target repeat offenders to meaningfully reduce
sexual offending.
A Department of Justice funded study came to a similar conclusion about New Jersey's Megan's Law. That study is entitled Megan's Law: Assessing the Practical and Monetary Efficacy and may be viewed here. The Associated Press has more. From the Summary:
The research that follows concerns the various impacts of community notification and registration laws (Megan's Law) in New Jersey. Although this report includes a variety of interesting findings and many ideas that will be explored upon post grant period, this research was embarked upon, in general, to investigate: 1) the effect of Megan's Law on the overall rate of sexual offending over time; 2) its specific deterrence effect on re-offending, including the level of general and sexual offense recidivism, the nature of sexual re-offenses, and time to first re-arrest for sexual and non-sexual re-offenses (i.e., community tenure); and 3) the costs of implementation and annual expenditures of Megan's Law. These three primary foci were investigated using three different methodologies and samples. Phase One was a 21-year (10 years prior and 10 years after implementation, and the year of implementation) trend study of sex offenses in each of New Jersey's counties and of the state as a whole. In Phase Two, data on 550 sexual offenders released during the years 1990 to 2000 were collected, and outcomes of interest were analyzed. Finally, Phase Three collected implementation and ongoing costs of administering Megan's Law.
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