Abstract
Uncertainty about sex offender treatment, the emergence of a risk-oriented correctional philosophy, and the rise of populist justice movements in reaction to violent sexual crimes and homicides involving children were the key ingredients favoring the emergence of new sex offender laws in the 1990s. This chapter focuses on the implementation of these laws, specifically, sex offender registries and public notification. The American, Canadian, and Australian experiences are examined and compared, with an emphasis on American public sex offender registry and notification laws, as these largely formed the basis for their implementation in other jurisdictions. The chapter presents the findings from more than 20 years of policy evaluation examining the impact of these legal dispositions. Research has shown that these dispositions are based on false and misguided assumptions about the characteristics of offenders and their risk of sexual reoffending. Additionally, policy evaluation research has highlighted that these dispositions are not effective crime prevention policies and their presence might create additional social problems not envisaged by those who promoted and implemented such laws. Finally, whereas the above policies are primarily reactive approaches to addressing the problem of sexual offending, this chapter also examines the impact of a more proactive, treatment-oriented approach.
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Notes
- 1.
This man, who was in his late 20s when he committed the homicide, was intellectually impaired with a very difficult upbringing. At a very young age, he was put in a foster home. It was alleged by someone close to the situation that his birth was the product of incestuous sexual abuse. At his court hearing, he was met with an angry mob of people who were waiting for him outside the courthouse. This might have played a factor in his decision, about a week later while awaiting his trial, to call a journalist to discuss his case. Despite pleading not guilty in court, during the phone call he referred to himself as a monster who had done a terrible thing. The state of mind he was in when making what seemed to be a confession and his motives remained unclear.
- 2.
In this regard, there are four “models” for informing the public about the arrival of a sex offender in the community (Cohen & Jeglic, 2007; Finn, 1997; La Fond, 2005): (a) an agency identified in the legislation or by the State (e.g., law enforcement, parole and probation, prosecutor) determines the level of risk an offender poses and then implements a notification plan that reflects the level of risk. Frequently, the plan provides for three “tiers” depending on offender risk: the first tier may involve notification only to selected local organizations (e.g., schools), the second tier adds community residents, and the third includes the media; (b) state statutes that stipulate which types of offenders are to be subject to notification and what notification methods to use; a designated agency carries out the notification but plays no role in determining which offenders will be subject to notification or how notification will be implemented; (c) offenders themselves are required to do the actual notification, although they may be supervised closely by a criminal justice agency (e.g., to verify that the offender has appropriately notified the community within which they reside); (d) community groups and individuals must take the initiative to request information about whether a sex offender is living in their community and to ask for information about the person (e.g., Alaska, California, Colorado, New York).
- 3.
In reference to Christopher Stephenson, an 11-year-old boy whose perpetrator was, at the time of the offense, on parole. Contrary to the case presented at the beginning of the chapter, the offender in this case was a known (convicted) offender with a criminal history involving multiple convictions, including convictions for sex crimes.
- 4.
For example, in a passive notification area (where residents are responsible for self-information), it has been reported that less than one-third of residents who lived near a registered sex offender were even aware of their presence in the neighborhood (Craun, 2010; Kernsmith et al., 2009). When active public notification is used, not surprisingly, public awareness tends to be higher (Beck & Travis, 2006).
- 5.
Drake and Aos (2009) selected two evaluation studies that looked at the general deterrent effect, or in other words, the effect of public registries on recorded rates of sexual offending in the community. The two studies examining general deterrence lead these authors to conclude that there was some evidence supporting the view that public registries were associated with lower sex crime rates. They were also cautious about these results given the small number of studies on which these conclusions were based.
- 6.
Levenson and Tewksbury (2009) observed that, among the family members of registrants, 86% felt stressed, 77% said they were isolated, 50% lost friends, 66% were ashamed, and 49% were concerned about their safety. In addition, they suggested that SORN laws may also adversely impact children of registered offenders. Following public notification, these children are likely to experience anger (80%), symptoms of depression (77%), anxiety (73%) and fear (63%), or even to entertain suicidal thoughts (13%). Socially, these children are likely to feel excluded from their peer group (65%), to be ridiculed (59%) or harassed (47%) by other children, or even to be physically assaulted (22%).
- 7.
The complexity of the psychosocial impact of SOR should not be underestimated. On the one hand, results from some studies with offenders highlight several negative psychosocial consequences of registration, but other results suggest that certain registered individuals perceive some benefit in registration and public notification. Lasher and McGrath’s study showed that 62% of offenders thought that the people informed of their situation believed in their rehabilitation potential and 74% were motivated not to sexually reoffend in order to demonstrate to those around them that they were not a “bad person.” Is it possible to conclude based on these results that the presence of public SOR may in fact promote abstention from offending? On the one hand, 74% of registered offenders surveyed indicated that they were motivated not to reoffend (Lasher & McGrath, 2012). On the other hand, only 27% of these individuals believed that SORN laws played a role in their motivation to reoffend. Thus, their motivation to not sexually reoffend did not stem from SORN laws. In fact, one possibility is that the motivation to not sexually reoffend is attributable, at least in part, to the nature and quality of the social support and assistance around them upon release in spite of their legal status and the consequences of SORN laws. Whether this motivation is any sort of guarantee on the individual’s behavior in the medium or long term is another important question.
- 8.
Others have raised concerns about the inappropriate use of these individuals’ personal information available on the Internet, which may encourage deviant or criminal activity. For example, some have speculated that individuals could use the public registry to contact sex offenders and facilitate the development of pedophile networks as well as the distribution of child pornography (e.g., Zevitz & Farkas, 2000). These claims, however, have not been validated from empirical data and remain, at this stage, hypotheses.
- 9.
In Canada, for example, although only anecdotally discussed in the media , there have been concerns about Canadians traveling to countries such as Thailand for the purposes of “sex tourism” in which such individuals take advantage of lax laws or marginalized individuals, including children, to perpetrate sexual offenses with less risk of detection. In other words, what might appear as a deterrent effect could well be a displacement effect.
- 10.
Which means “dark field” or “dark figure.”
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Lussier, P., McCuish, E.C., Cale, J. (2021). A Scarlet Letter in the Digital Age: Sex Offender Registration and Public Notification. In: Understanding Sexual Offending. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53301-4_9
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