Sex Offender Registry Research Paper

The sex offender registry has been a topic of debates and formal studies since the Minnesota Sex Offender Registration Act was first passed in 1991 (Stevens, n.d.). The use of the sex offender registry has been saving lives of potential victims. Before the registry was enacted, sex offenders who lived in their neighborhood victimized adults and children and no one knew about their prior criminal history. In very public cases, it was brought to light that children were being abducted, sexually assaulted, and finally murdered by sex offenders that should have been registered. Those children could have been kept safe and may still be alive today if the public knew the information about their attackers. Also the surviving victims of sexual abuse
A masked man who stepped out of a driveway with a gun stopped them, he ordered the children to discard their bikes and lie face down on the ground. After the masked man asked the ages of the boys he told Jacob’s brother and friend to run into the woods and not look back or he would shoot them. A search ensued but no arrests were ever made and Jacob was never found. During the investigation law enforcement officials became aware that sex offenders were being sent to live in a halfway house nearby. After Jacob’s disappearance, his parents established the Jacob Wetterling Foundation. They helped establish a sex offender registration in Minnesota and then went on to lobby for a sex offender registration system in all 50 states. Other rape survivors and abuse victims as well as family members also gave testimony (“Parents For Megan's Law and The Crime Victims Center,” n.d.). The Jacob Wetterling Act enacted in 1994, required states to create sex offender registries for those perpetrators who targeted children. Due to this act sex offenders are required to register with the local police department when they move to a new neighborhood (Welchans,
Six year old Adam Walsh was abducted outside a Sears in Hollywood, Florida. His remains were found 100 miles north of Hollywood in a canal off the interstate. Ottis Toole was arrested and confessed to the abduction and murder of Adam, but 3 months later he recanted his confession. The evidence used against Ottis Toole was deemed no longer viable and with the recanted confession Ottis Toole was never convicted. “The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act (AWA) significantly strengthened registration and notification laws across the nation by: increasing the duration of registration for sex offenders, increasing in person verifications, requiring active sex offender notification programs, requiring certain juveniles to register, requiring registration for adults convicted of an instant offense that may not be a sex crime if they have a prior sex crime conviction that predates Megan’s Law, requiring registration for sex offenders entering the country, creating a federal felony for sex offenders failing to register and providing funding to the United States Marshals to track down those offenders. AWA also increased mandatory minimum sentences for sex offenders, increased penalties for Internet crime against children, and strengthened child pornography prevention laws” (“Parents For Megan's Law and The Crime Victims Center,” n.d.). Jacob, Megan, Adam as