Sex Offender Registries as a Tool for Public Safety: Views from Registered Offenders

2006 Kentucky:

Abstract:
Sex offender registries are tools for the public and law enforcement to know about and monitor the identities, locations, and behaviors of convicted sex offenders in the community. The ability of these tools to effectively and efficiently contribute to public safety, however, is dependent on their containing accurate and up-to-date information. This research draws on data from a sample of registered sex offenders to assess the frequency and intensity of monitoring perceived by registrants and registrants’ self-reported likelihood of maintaining their listed information as accurate. Results suggest that monitoring is not very close or frequent, and a significant minority of registered sex offenders may not be willing to comply with registration requirements nor to voluntarily update their registry information.

For the remainder of this study: by Richard Tewksbury, University of Louisville

eAdvocate note:

1) The sample (121 RSOs from the Kentucky registry) is the exact same sample used in Tewksbury's "Collateral Consequences of Sex Offender Registration" as verified by Table-1 of both studies;

2) Reviewing this study was interesting but there was one chart which caught my eye, it follows:

What the percentages show, as to public recognition is, the number of times these registrants and families (if they are with them at the time) have been put at risk or in harms way. While the registry intent may be to protect the public from registrants, lawmakers have closed their eyes to protecting registrants from the public. Vigilantism is real and to those who think it does not happen you are just closing a blind eye to the issue. See also those registrants and folks accused of offenses, who have been murdered because of their past; some because of the registry itself. Again, lawmakers have close their eyes to these issues.

Now, as to contact with law enforcement, think about the costs to the public, also putting the registrant and any family members in a negative light in the community because of seeing police at their homes this many times. Children of offenders will never get over this stigma of seeing police this often in their lives; a scary scene to a child.