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Megan's Law is named after seven- year old Megan Kansas, a New Jersey girl who was raped and killed by a known child molester in 1994. The felon moved in across the street from the Kansas, without their knowledge. Megan's parents embarked on a national crusade to change federal and state laws to allow for community notification of released sex offenders (Johnson 11). After this event, few could argue that communities should be notified when a sex offender moves in. However, present sentencing laws need to be stiffened and accuracy problems within Megan s law need to be fixed, for the law to be completely acceptable. Should communities be notified when a convicted sex offender relocates in their neighborhood?
Some say that this law is a direct violation of the constitution. The constitution talks about our unalienable rights, which include, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But sometimes people do things that make us question whether they deserve these rights that us honest people enjoy. Those against Megan s law would say that these rights apply to everyone.
When we make exceptions, we start to pick and choose who has which rights. If this were to happen it would spread to other laws changing many things. However, others feel that this only applies to law-abiding citizens, and all society is obligated to give a criminal is a fair trial and attorney. Criminals take away our freedoms making us feel vulnerable and unsafe. Another argument against Megan s law is an idea that, they have already paid their debt to society. These offenders have served prison time.
Why should they be different than murders, thieves, and other criminals? Many feel that releasing their names to the community prolongs their punishment forever. They are treated less than human because of something that has happened in the past. Some communities have felt so strongly about it that they resorted to vigilantism.
In one extreme case an offender s car was firebombed (Jones 85 - 86). The problem is many of these offenders served very little time and are not really rehabilitated. Today s prisons are so overcrowded, that people of lesser charges are shipped out far before their time is up. Few serve their terms in full, and many are released early due to good behavior.
But if you think about it, why would a child molester or rapist act up in prison? They are looked at as the lowest form of life in there, if they act up they could end up dead. However, the act of a vigilante is totally wrong. Anyone who is in jail obviously wants out as soon as possible.
It is not their fault they are not rehabilitated when they are released, it is the fault of the prison systems. This is a fact that the people need to realize, when they take the law into their own hands. The public needs to take notice of the names, keep children away from these people, and talk to their representatives to try and change the prison system. This is the proper way to get good action. Violence only prolongs the main problem and causes more (Jones 86). Such as causing sympathy for the offender and creating loss of clarity for who the bad guy really is, the offender or the community?
What is probably the strongest argument is that many of the names and much information on these people is false or misleading. Most state require sex offenders to provide an address when they leave prison and notify the state that they move to. However many states do not check if the addresses are correct. In one case a woman got a notification put on her mailbox that a sex offender lived in her house, where in reality the offender had moved without giving the state notification (The Quill 17).
In California, a CD-ROM was released containing 64, 000 names of sex offenders (Sheppard 38). How many on this list are innocent people? Imagine getting an indecent exposure charge from urinating in public or mooning someone, and your name ends up on this list. The lists do not tell the specific crimes that the offenders committed (Sheppard 45).
This definitely needs to be fixed. There needs to be a rating system of the offenders where violent offenders and public nudity charges are different. One system that is in affect in some states rates them in Tiers starting with I, being the least likely to repeat the offense and least offensive, to III with is most likely to be a repeat offender and are violent offenders (The Quill 12). They should not even call indecent exposure and public nudity sex crimes, they should come up with a new category altogether for these offenses. People in favor of Megan s law feel that the safety of America s children should be kept at all cost s, even if it means limiting the offenders rights (Jones 84). If sex offenders are truly rehabilitated, why then do 80 to 90 percent repeat their crimes?
This statistic alone should be enough to warrant the law and it shows offenders are still violent even after a prison term (Sheppard 44. ) One example of repeat offenders is the story of a man who lured a boy on a trail, chased him down on his bike, then raped, mutilated and stabbed him in the back. Somehow the boy survived and the man, Earl Shiner was caught. However, this did not have to happen. Shiner had a 24 -year history of offenses starting in 1966. He was guilty of five offenses, including one murder.
This man lived right down the street from the boy, however the information from his past had not been released (People 49. ) This law would have notified the child s parents and they could have informed their child to stay away from this person, or at least keep a closer eye on the boy. The laws are also popular. In a 1994 Gallup poll, 89 percent of adults said they favored laws requiring police to notify residents about sex offenders released from prison and living in their community. In a May San Diego Union Tribute poll, 59 percent of the readers who responded said the newspaper should run sex offender registration information, while 29 percent said the newspaper should run the information and pictures of the offenders even if the photos were dated (The Quill 10).
This is not a normal crime like robbery or drug dealing, these types of crimes usually are done for easy money, or an illegal way to provide for one s family. However these sex offenses are psychological crimes that are not fully fixable. The only defense seems to be notification. If a man is so dangerous that he needs to be registered with the local police and community, he shouldnt have been released in the first place. If a man is not dangerous, then theres no reason for registration. Laws need to be stiffened.
If you have been convicted of murdering and raping a child you should get life without parole or worse. This would help reduce crime. They also need to tell the offense that has been committed. People convicted of indecent exposure should not be on the list.
These problems need to be fixed and then the law will be totally acceptable. Children should be protected at all costs. Which is more important: the right of a child to grow up unmolested or of a man to live in peace (Sheppard 39)? Obviously the child, who has their whole life ahead of them, is more important.
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