Community notification, known as "Megan's Law," provides the public with information about known sex offenders in an effort to assist parents and potential victims to protect themselves from dangerous predators. The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of community notification on the lives of registered sex offenders. Two hundred and thirty-nine sex offenders in Connecticut and Indiana were surveyed. The negative consequences that occurred with the greatest frequency included job loss, threats and harassment, property damage, and suffering of household members. A minority of sex offenders reported housing disruption or physical violence following community notification. The majority experienced psychosocial distress such as depression, shame, and hopelessness. Recommendations are made for community notification policies that rely on empirically derived risk assessment classification systems in order to better inform the public about sex offenders' danger while minimizing the obstacles that interfere with successful community reintegration.

Many states and hundreds of local municipalities have passed zoning laws prohibiting sex offenders from living within close proximity to schools, parks, playgrounds, day care centers, and other places where children congregate. The purpose of this study was to investigate the positive and negative, intended and unintended consequences of residence restrictions on sex offenders. Results indicate that residence restrictions create housing instability for many offenders and limited accessibility to employment opportunities, social services, and social support. Young adult offenders were especially impacted because residence restrictions limited affordable housing options and often prevented them from living with family members. Implications for policy development and implementation are discussed.

A study was conducted to determine (a) whether the lower pregnancy risk that sexually active college women attribute to themselves relative to "average"others results from underestimating their own risk or overestimating others' risk and (b) the relationship of this perceived difference to contraceptive use. Sexually active women, on the average, accurately rated their own and their best friend's risk and overestimated others' risk, although users of poor contraception did tend to overestimate the effectiveness of the methods they used. Coitally inexperienced women also overestimated others' pregnancy risk. Contrary to previous findings, perceived relative invulnerability to pregnancy was positively correlated with effectiveness of contraception, and poor contraceptors estimated their pregnancy risk to be higher than that of effective contraceptors. Implications of the findings for the theory of "unique invulnerability" to victimization are discussed.