"Rejection by the community may lead people to despair of ever living a normal life, and such hopelessness can undermine attempts to conform to community standards, driving people inwards, where they may dwell on increasingly inappropriate fantasies" (Lotke, 1997). This clearly has the opposite effect of Megan's Laws intended goals. Instead of protecting citizens, the laws may cause a higher recidivism rate.
Because of the fear of being ostracized, or even harmed, by a community, sexual offenders may purposely move to communities that are less organized. Their initial hope may be to simply avoid the ostracization from Megan's Laws. However, once they've gone unnoticed in a community, these offenders may be more tempted to commit another offense, because they feel like they've gone unnoticed (Lotke, 1997). This too negates some of the effectiveness of Megan's Laws.
Lotke (1997) also notes that the effectiveness of Megan's Laws can be decreased due to the false sense of security the sexual offender registries may give community members. Notification processes may alleviate fears in community members, making them feel that the state is rooting out the offenders in their area. When a person searches an offender database and finds that their neighborhood doesn't have any registered offenders, it may further this false sense of security. These community members may fail to appreciate the potential threat from sexual offenders from other geographic areas that may come to their neighborhood in search of victims. Again, this negatively affects the protection for which Megan's Laws were created.
Conclusion:
The threat of sexual offenders is a significant concern. In 1994, a seven-year-old girl, Megan Kanka was lured to her death with the promise of playing with a puppy. A two-time sexual offender had moved right across the street from her family, unbeknownst to her parents. The death of their daughter caused the Kanka's to form an organization to promote laws that would become today's numerous sexual offender registries. The federal version of Megan's Law requires states...
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