One of the most often searched types of criminal history information is sexual offender records. People want to know not only which individuals have committed sexual offenses of any kind, but also where they live, and what the nature of their offense was. Thanks to federal regulations such as the Wetterling Act and Meghan’s Law, the public is now able to locate this information to safeguard themselves from potential community criminals. In this category, we will take a closer look at Megan Law, its history, its connection to the Wetterling Act, and the impact it has made in our society as regards public notification of sex offenders.
One of the common types of criminal activities in our society is that of sexual offenses. These offenses can be classified as misdemeanors, felonies, and gross or minor categories of each; but all have weighted consequences. This said, how they are approached in criminal law is the same as all crimes-that federal regulations loosely categorize them, and the individual states determine how severely or mildly to approach the criminals and their respective punishments. While seemingly enough to prosecute and penalize a crime to achieve all objectives of criminal justice, the offense of a sexual nature have caused further harm, and have thus called for more legislation to be enacted.
Common to sexual offenders in statistical reports of criminal activity has been found overwhelmingly that most sexual criminals will-once having committed an offense-commit the same offense again, even after a lengthy prison term, rehabilitation efforts, and fines. While this seemed theory at one point, federal legislators took demonstrative notice when the first of two horrific criminal incidents occurred, which its commission and results would later lead to the creation of an act, and the amendment which is the focus of this category.
The Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act became law in 1997, after an eleven-year-old boy of the same name was kidnapped in 1989, and still remains missing. The main purposes of this act was to make the “identification of sexual predators” more accessible to the public through state government notification actions. While this is a federal law that all states abide by this act, it is up to the states themselves, how they choose to notify the public.
While the Jacob Wetterling Act was a positive and demonstrative start to the informing of the public of sexual offenders, as you can see, it was also very general in its use. This is the direct cause for the creation of the amendment to the act in 1994, called Megan Law. This law was a result of a 7-year-old girl’s rape and murder by a sexual offender who lived in her neighborhood. The specifics of Megans Law call for the registration of all convicted sex offenders by federal and state governments as well as the notification of all “private and public information on convicted sex offenders” to the public by federal and state governments.
There are a variety of purposes that this amendment-along with the Wetterling Act-hope to employ, and they are to help the law investigate known sex offenders, be able to legally hold known offenders for investigations, stop sex offenders from committing more offenses, and most importantly-make parents and members of community aware of necessary information on sex offenders in order to safeguard their children from harm.
While the objectives of both this law and the Wetterling Act are ideal in their combating sexual offenses in this country, the liberty with which each state is given in how they notify their public has caused some concern. This is because some states are less demonstrative in how they offer this sexual offender information-offering at local law enforcement bureaus upon request, as opposed to public searchable databases of local sex offenders. Moreover, some sexual offenders’ records in certain states are available while other types of sexual record offenses are not deemed worthy of public notice in others. Overall, 41 of 50 states have their sexual offender databases available online-though some may be restricted according to variables as dictated above. This said, the three sites below offer many helpful links to state sex offender databases for your convenient research:
http://www.sexoffender.com
http://www.parentsformeganslaw.com/html/links.lasso
http://www.publicrecordsources.com