Megan's law and its impact on community re-entry for sex offenders

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 th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inBehavioral sciences & the law Vol. 25; no. 4; pp. 587 - 602
Main Authors Levenson, Jill S., D'Amora, David A., Hern, Andrea L.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Chichester, UK John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 01.07.2007
Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
Subjects
Adult
Aged
Child
Child Abuse, Sexual - legislation & jurisprudence
Child Abuse, Sexual - prevention & control
Community based preventive programmes
Connecticut
Data Collection
Female
Humans
Impact analysis
Indiana
Information dissemination
Male
Mandatory Reporting
Mental disorders
Middle Aged
Notification
Psychological distress
Registries
Residence Characteristics
Sex offenders
Sexual offences
Social Adjustment
Social impact
Social integration
Supervision registers
Indiana
Connecticut
United States > US
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Summary: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. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Bibliography:ark:/67375/WNG-M2DCSB5V-4
istex:1EC14984DC4E834DD25C907A921A023C0AF1FFCC
ArticleID:BSL770
Indiana Sex Offender Monitoring and Management Program, Indianapolis, IN, U.S.A.
Center for the Treatment of Problem Sexual Behavior, Middletown, CT, U.S.A.
ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
ISSN:0735-3936
1099-0798
DOI:10.1002/bsl.770