Possible Soulutions to Sex Crimes

Today Sex Crimes are a big dilemma. One big problem in America's sex crime registry are the flaws and holes that are entrenched in the law. Holding offenders after they have completed their prison sentences for so called “treatments” is costly and unjust.  Many times these offenders are waiting for cures that don't exist.  In other cases, sex offenders are required to mail in a yearly postcard updating their information on the registry. This creates problems because authorities are unable to keep accurate track of these offenders. 

There is also too many offenders for officials to keep track of. An example of how parole agents are not actively monitoring offenders is the case of Philip Garrido.  In Garrido's case, his requirements under the sex offender registry were met.  According to the New York Times, Garrido was on the registry because a rape conviction that happened in 1976.  In the span of 18 years, Garrido met all of his obligations as a registered sex offender.  During this time he was still convicted of kidnapping Jaycee Dugard.  This happened in 1991 as she walked to a bus stop in South Lake Tahoe, California.  Dugard was held captive for 18 years in Garrido's back yard and had 2 children with Garrido.  

A good solution for the registry issue is to have more officers actively and accurately checking up on offenders.  For example, creating a more thorough check listing when screen and profiling offenders. To make it easier for officers, they should create a tier level profiling. This consists of ranking offenders by likelihood of repeating the same offense. This way officer could easily check up on offenders that are higher risk.  Also as the number of offender is growing, more officers are needed to sustain the growing number of individual on the registry. 

Interview with Phillip Garrido's first victim

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/phillip_garrido/index.html?scp=1-spot&sq=Philip%20Garrido&st=cse

Sex Offenders and Social Networking Sites

As technology is evolving, the internet has become a source for sex offenders to find their next victim. As a result, new laws are being implemented throughout the United States toward social networking sites to help reduce online sex crimes. 

In Baton Rouge, Louisiana a new law was implemented that would not allow any sex offenders from accessing any social networking sites. These include popular social networking sites Myspace and Facebook. This law was created to ban sex offenders who target children using these sites.

Many are questioning whether this new law is constitutional, because it may violates the First Amendment. While others question if the law is to broad, because it would apply to any site that visitors could leave comments.  This could be news sites which have nothing to do with personal communications.  It says “social networking websites” are off limits, and defines those as “an Internet website containing profile pages of the members of the website that include the names or nicknames of such members,” or photographs, or any other personal information. Offenders must “refrain from accessing or using” such Web sites.  Some sites that fall into that category are sites such as Google, Amazon, Yahoo and Cnet. 

Media's View on Sex Crimes

One of the most uniquely horrific crimes is sex crimes in today’s society.  Many officials are reluctant to talk about sex crimes let alone reform them.  These crimes are the cause of public outrage.  These fears are fueled by shows such as “America’s Most Wanted” and “How to Catch a Predator.”  People in our society watch these shows and believe that all sex offenders will repeat the same crime.   However, in actuality crimes of abduction, rape, and murder against children are rare.

According to The New York Times, since the 1980s the number child abduction has declined. With the influence of the media, most people believe all predators are strangers.  This is not necessarily true, studies have shown that most predators are close to the victims. Such as family members, close relatives, and friends of the family.

Many believe that monitoring sex offenders after their release from prison is necessary because they are a high risk to society, however this is not necessarily true. According to the National Alert Registry, only eight percent of those charged with a sex crime will commit the same crime.  This number is lower than burglars, robbers, thieves, drug offenders and other convicts. There was also a study done, by the New Jersey registration, which stated that sex offense rates were already falling before Megan’s law was implemented. 

These information leads me to question whether child sex crime is an issue, or is it just another exaggerated fact portrayed by the media?

Flaws in Sex Offender Registry

                All over the nation, sex offenders are required by law to register themselves so that government authorities can keep track of the residence and activities of sex offenders. By implementing sex offender’s registration, its intent is to keep the community safe by making information in the registry available to the general public. According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, an estimated 100,000 sex offenders are not living where they are registered¹. There are many flaws to our sex offender’s registry.

There is no uniform approach to how sex offenders should register from state to state. Although federal government has initiation several general requirements for registering sex offenders, many states don’t follow the requirements. Most states complain that it disrupts and clashes with their own policies for managing sex offenders.

Sex offender registry doesn’t take into account the likelihood of sex offenders to commit the same crime.  Instead it combines all offenders together into one registry allowing worst offenders to blend in with less threatening ones. This creates an issue because these high risk offenders and being punished the same as the low level offenders.

The public can’t be protected if the registry is not up-to-date.  In Washington, offenders are required to register their information with a sheriff of the county in which they live. The sheriff then passes the information along to local or public police who must verify the address. Unfortunately, the list of sex offenders keeps expanding why the numbers of officials who monitor sex offenders have grown at a much slower rate. In California, authorities cannot account for 44 percent of the state registered sex offenders².

¹http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/09/us/09offender.html?pagewanted=2&ref=sexcrimes

²http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Sex-offender-registry-failing-1104802.php

Blog Post 1

Are punishments for sex offenders effective?

According to the National Alert Registry, there are 400,000 registered sex offenders in the United States and growing.  This number alone is only the number of people register in America.  Sex crimes not only affect victims, but also the people around them.  Victims are more likely to suffer from depression, have post traumatic stress disorder, abuse alcohol and drugs and even contemplate suicide. 

In the United States millions of dollars are bring spend on sex offenders. Sex offenders are treated unlike any other criminals, especially in the area of punishment and rehabilitation. For example, drug dealers are released back into the community after completion of their sentence. They can return back to their neighborhoods and continue to sell drugs. However for sex offenders, release from prison is not the end of their punishment.

Sex offenders create a fear in communities and these fears have lead to different policies being placed on these individuals. A convicted sex offender faces incarceration, required to register on a sex offender registry, prohibited in areas where children congregate, and in some parts of the world stoning.

There are many different forms of sex crimes; from aggravated assault to human trafficking.  The question is what are we doing to punish people that practice these sex crimes and if what we are doing is actually being affective?  There are different situations of these crimes that need to be treated uniquely in their own way.