A Brief History of Major Sex Offender Laws

Terry, Karen J.; Ackerman, Alissa R.

doi:10.1891/9780826196729.0003

Cited by 24 publications

(23 citation statements)

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“…SORN laws enhanced sex offender registration laws, which have existed in a handful of states since the 1930s, by requiring state and local law enforcement agencies to register offenders into a database (registration) and notify the community about their whereabouts (notification). Local law enforcement agencies collect data including offenders' criminal history, physical description, and home address (Burns, ; Matson, ; Morrison, ; Terry & Ackerman, ) for the purposes of keeping the community informed of offenders' presence in a neighborhood (Levenson, Brannon, Fortney, & Baker, ; Sample & Kadleck, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Playing Politics with Sex Offender Laws: An Event History Analysis of the Initial Community Notification Laws acrossAmerican States

Easterly¹

2014

Policy Studies Journal

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Despite a decline in crime rates, the 1990s witnessed extensive media coverage of several high‐profile stranger abductions and murders of children. State legislators' swift response to the public's growing fear of sex offenders with the adoption of sex offender registration and notification (SORN) laws raises questions about the role of politics. Punctuated equilibrium theory and the diffusion of innovation jointly provide a context to conduct an event history analysis to assess the extent to which politics enhanced legislative responsiveness to public opinion in SORN policymaking. Contrary to the commonly held belief that attributes legislative interest in SORN to salient crimes against children, the results suggest that factors such as the percentage of a conservative population, district‐level competition, and state innovativeness accelerated the diffusion of innovation of the laws.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Playing Politics with Sex Offender Laws: An Event History Analysis of the Initial Community Notification Laws acrossAmerican States

Easterly¹

2014

Policy Studies Journal

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“…Much sex offender legislation was motivated by public outrage following specific, particularly repulsive crimes, which served as galvanizing events to adopt new legislation (Meloy et al, 2013;Zgoba, 2004). Oftentimes, the laws that result from specific events are named for their victims and are known as memorial laws (Terry & Ackerman, 2009;Zilney & Zilney, 2009). Two of the best known victim memorial laws are the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Predators Act (1994) and Megan's Law (1996), both of which pertain to sex offenders.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…A final, and possibly the most important, criticism of SORNA is that it is not based on empirical evidence (Terry & Ackerman, 2009). The majority of sexual assaults are committed by known acquaintances, not strangers who one would need to find on the registry (Planty, Langton, Krebs, Berzofsky, & Smiley-McDonald, 2013;Snyder, 2000).…”

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confidence: 99%

Perceptions of and support for sex offender policies: Testing Levenson, Brannon, Fortney, and Baker’s findings

Koon-Magnin

2015

Journal of Criminal Justice

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“…This is not supported by the current data, which also suggest the need to respond to the risk presented by the higher proportion of extrafamilial offenders. In an area in which public policy is often fuelled by distorted portrayals in the media, which stereotype all sex offenders as predatory and highly dangerous (Brayford & Deering, ; La Fond, ; Nash, ; Terry & Ackerman, ; Vess, ), data of this type should provide the foundation for determining the most effective responses.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The characteristics of registered sexual offenders in an Australian jurisdiction

Day

Darwinkel

Vess

2016

Journal Invest Psychology

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Current policies to manage convicted sexual offenders living in the community do not differentiate between those at different levels of risk. This is important if risk management strategies are to be better targeted. However, current methods of categorizing risk bands rely on the application of data from other populations, and thus may lack validity when used in jurisdictions other than those in which the validation data were collected. This study provides a descriptive analysis of cases managed by police in one Australian jurisdiction, presenting the offence histories and risk profiles of this population. The analysis shows that the heterogeneity exists in relation to offence type, level of risk, and victim characteristics, suggesting that more sophisticated systems of offender classification are likely to be required if judgements about risk are to inform offender management and the investigation of new sexual crime.

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A Brief History of Major Sex Offender Laws

Cited by 24 publications

References 0 publications

Playing Politics with Sex Offender Laws: An Event History Analysis of the Initial Community Notification Laws acrossAmerican States

Playing Politics with Sex Offender Laws: An Event History Analysis of the Initial Community Notification Laws acrossAmerican States

Perceptions of and support for sex offender policies: Testing Levenson, Brannon, Fortney, and Baker’s findings

The characteristics of registered sexual offenders in an Australian jurisdiction

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