Megan's Law Capstone Project

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Megan's law was formed in order to make information accessible to the people concerning registered sex crooks. This law was formed after the murder of Megan Kanka. Various countries decided their own way to access information and how to disperse the information among the public. The information, which is commonly collected, is the crook's name, address, photograph, imprisonment date, and the level of crime. This information can be easily accessible by the public on public websites that can be accessed free of cost. This information can also be available in newspapers, or pamphlets can be distributed which contain this information, or several other ways can be used to disperse the information about sex crooks (Fodor, 2001).

Megan's law is also known as the Sexual offender (Jacob Wetterling), which is 1994 Act, and needs the individuals which are found guilty for sex crimes done with children to inform local law bodies of any alteration in the information, like if the individual's address is changed or if there is any employment of the crook after being released from the prison or psychiatric center. The alteration of information is to be notified by the individual for a specific period given to the crook or he is ordered to permanently notify about the alteration of information. Normally a period of ten years is given to the crook to notify about the alteration of information.

In some of the countries, the crook has to register for every type of sex crime. In most of the countries' authorities, it is an offense if any crook does not register or do not update the alterations in the information (Fodor, 2001).

Megan's law offers two main information services to the people, which are sex crook information and notice to the community. The procedure of passing the notice to the community and the procedure of sex crook registration keeps on changing many times from the time when Megan's law was passed.

Megan's law creation and policy:

A girl named Megan Kanka was sexually injured and harmed, then murdered by Jesse Timmendequas, in July 1994. Timmendequas was found guilty as a sex crook and he lived with two sex crooks in a house in Hamilton Township, a small New Jersey town. Timmendequas was released earlier from the Avenel, New Jersey's prison that was also the center where repetitive sex crooks were treated. Timmendequas imprisonment was for seven years and he came out from the prison after six years due to the reason that he had earned acclaims of good time.

The murder of Megan, which Timmendequas admitted, created huge public anger. More than fifteen hundred petition, the governor signed focusing on the objective that a law will be formed so that this type of tragedy will not take place again (Fodor, 2001).

After two months of the Megan's murder, in October, the New Jersey's government formed the Megan's law. This law was formed due to the public pressure to take action against sex crooks. About nine sex crook statues were prepared quickly and collectively a name Megan's law was given to them.

The policy set for this law was that the released sex crook would have to register him/her; a notification will be circulated in the community about the presence of the sex crook and the civil obligation of the psycho and dangerous sex crook.

Research on Megan's Law in New Jersey:

The impact of Megan's law was examined and studied by a researcher, which is discussed below:

Initially the research was designed to identify the patterns of sex offenses reported by agencies of law enforcement in twenty-one states of New Jersey from the period of 1984 to 2004. The research comprised the time of ten years before and ten years after the formation and implementation of Megan's law. The data was collected based on sexual crimes and other data was collected which comprised of violent, nonsexual crimes and drug crimes in order to analyze the patterns and to compare the patterns of crimes.

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After that, the second stage of the research was based on five hundred and fifty samples of sex offenders imprisoned and then released from New Jersey prison where the sex offenders were treated. The sample comprised of the sex offender before the implementation of Megan's law and the sex offenders after the implementation of Megan's law in order to find out the difference between the two types of sex offenders. After that, the cost was estimated in order to know that how much cost was spend on the registration process. The questionnaires regarding cost assessments were sent through mail to the Megan's law Units in the prosecutor's office for twenty-one countries. New Jersey state budgets were also reviewed for the costs spent on rehabilitation, confinement and tracking of the sex crooks (Carlan, Nored, & Downey, 2011).

Outcome of the research:

The convicted crooks were similar before and after the implementation of Megan's law. In comparison with average offenders, sex crooks are normally older, and are mostly married. They are most probably to be employed, are better educated and they have probably children or step children. The crimes conducted by sex crooks are seventy-nine percent child molestations and twenty percent the rape cases.

Forty eight percent of the sex crimes, the sex crook were the member of family victim. The sex offender lived with the victim's family in forty two percent of cases and the crime takes place in victim's home in seventy-seven percent of the cases.

Pros and Cons of the Issue:

Normally the issue rose because even the minor sex criminal has to follow the Megan's law. The Megan's law is fair for these crooks, which do a major sex crime. But on the other hand for the minor crooks, the probability of repetition of the crime is less therefore this law is unfair. However, it is essential to inform the people and the public about the sex crook to be aware of that sex crook and this part of the law is advantageous for the people. However, if a person had committed a minor sex crook then he has to suffer for this crime the rest of the life as his information is given to the people and the community is notified about that person. No matter that if, the information is given to nearby living people so that they can protect their children and family but the sex crook, which had committed minor crime, had to suffer the guilt for the rest of life. The crook who commits minor crime has to show his presence to the community and if not to the community then at least to the police he has to show his or her presence due to the community notification laws. That person could be stressed or hassled by the people who find out about his information available as a sex crook. Some states define the area where a sex crook can live and where he or she is prohibited, for instance, a sex crook cannot live within two thousand feet of a school. This law is advantageous because if a person is major sex crook then he or she cannot easily commit the sex crime again because the people will identify him and people will protect their children and families from him or her. Another advantage is that the crook due to such information available about him will not commit the crime again due to the fear of being caught again (Carlan, Nored, & Downey, 2011).

Megan's law ethical or not:

Megan's law is ethical because this law makes the people aware of the sex offenders after their release so that the people can protect their children and family from them. The presence of the sex offender is notified to the people of community and in this manner people….....

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