Sex Offender Registration Research Articles

Association Between Registered Sex Offender Status and Risk of Housing Instability and Homelessness among Veterans*The contents of this article do not necessarily represent the views of the Department of Veterans Affairs or the US government.

Research is limited about whether and to what extent registered sex offenders (RSOs) face an increased risk of housing instability. The intersection of RSO and housing instability is particularly salient for veterans as there are disproportionately higher rates of veterans among both RSOs and homeless populations. This study assessed the relationship between RSO status and risk of housing instability and homelessness among military veterans. We matched a list of 373,774 RSOs obtained from publicly available sex offender registries in 19 states with a cohort of 5.9 million veterans who responded to a brief screening for housing instability administered throughout the Veterans Health Administration between 2012 and 2016. Logistic regression estimated adjusted odds of any housing instability and homelessness among veterans identified as RSOs. Veterans identified as RSOs had 1.81 (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.46-2.25) and 2.97 (95% CI 1.67-5.17) times greater odds of reporting any housing instability and homelessness, respectively, than non-RSOs. Findings represent some of the strongest evidence to date for the high risk of housing instability and homelessness among RSOs, suggesting a clear gap in policy and programmatic responses to their unique housing needs. Evidence-based alternative approaches to residence restriction laws may reduce recidivism and protect public safety.

What does the public think about sex offender registers? Findings from a national Australian study

This article presents data from questions about sex offender registration orders in a large national survey on Australian public opinion about adult sex offenders. It outlines the legislative frameworks that govern these registers in Australia and discusses the use of public registers, the research on the effectiveness of sex offender registers, and Australian attitudes to such registers. Our surveys of three cohorts of members of the Australian public reveal strong public support for sex offender registers, especially for cases involving child victims. However, there was also support for judicial discretion in the imposition of orders and reduced support for automatic registration where a non-custodial sentence is imposed. The Australian Government has recently announced the establishment of a national public sex offender register, but our findings show limited support for this approach. The implications for policy and practice are considered.

Resolution Regarding Sex Offender Registration Requirements For Youth Younger Than Age 18

Juvenile and Family Court JournalVolume 71, Issue 3 p. 97-99 Policy Statements Resolutions Resolution Regarding Sex Offender Registration Requirements For Youth Younger Than Age 18 First published: 28 September 2020 https://doi.org/10.1111/jfcj.12180Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume71, Issue3September 2020Pages 97-99 RelatedInformation

Life on “the List” is a Life Lived in Fear: Post-Conviction Traumatic Stress in Men Convicted of Sexual Offenses

In recent years, there has been a rapid expansion of increasingly restrictive laws managing the post release behavior and movement of individuals convicted of sexual offenses. In the US, this legislation has led to many barriers for people returning to their community as "registered sex offenders." We consider the often ignored but undeniable traumagenic impact of life on "the list" and conceptualize this experience as Post-Conviction Traumatic Stress. We present a qualitative content analysis of secondary data collected from interviews with over 70 men. Emergent themes were first organized according to the human needs identified in Maslow's hierarchy, and then by the established symptoms of PTSD, and finally in terms of resilient coping versus traumatic coping when basic human needs were unmet. We discuss the unexplored impact of traumatic instability on risk for recidivism and present recommendations for trauma-informed policies and practices with individuals required to register as "sex offenders."

States’ SORNA Implementation Journeys

Public policies requiring individuals convicted of sex offenses to register with law enforcement authorities, and in some cases granting public access to certain registry information, have been adopted by dozens of nations and provincial governments across the globe. Within the United States, sex offender registration and notification (SORN) policies are primarily established at the state level, but have come under increasing federal purview since the 1990s. Arising from a perceived need for improved interjurisdictional consistency and coordination, the 2006 Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA) significantly broadened the scope and range of federal requirements for SORN systems operating within the states. Yet fourteen years following the law’s passage, a significant majority of states have yet to meet SORNA implementation thresholds, amidst an array of legal, political, fiscal, and practical challenges. Prior research has offered aggregate-level insights concerning the barriers to SORNA implementation, but has not captured the “back stories” of state policy experiences. Addressing this knowledge gap, the current study offers an in-depth examination of state experiences in aligning their policies with federal mandates. Drawing on data gathered from a diverse sample of ten states, the analysis reveals significant variation in the breadth and extent of required system changes and in the legal, political, and organizational dynamics surrounding state responses to federal oversight. Ultimately, the study offers insights and perspectives that can inform the continued refinement of federal and state policies, and improve the public safety effectiveness of the nation’s SORN systems.

Raised By a Predator: Sex Offender Parents and an Effort To Keep Them Out of the Child's Home

Registered sex offenders are obligated to comply with rules put forth by their state's registry. While there are stringent guidelines regarding the offender's interaction with the public, a sex offender's ability to obtain custody of their child is less rigid. Statutes differ on the level of scrutiny referencing their right to parent, which leaves an opening for offenders to abuse their child. This Note proposes the adoption of a model statute in which registered Tier III sex offender parents who were convicted for a crime involving a minor are precluded from gaining physical or legal custody of their child.

Development and Psychometric Properties of the Concerns about Juvenile Sex Offender Registration and Notification Questionnaire (C-JSORNQ)

Juvenile sex offender registration and notification (JSORN) is widespread, yet research does not support its positive effects on the larger community. On the contrary, JSORN may be associated with unintended iatrogenic effects on registered adolescents. To better evaluate such effects, there is a need for valid measurement specific to JSORN. The Concerns about Juvenile Sex Offender Registration and Notification Questionnaire (C-JSORNQ) was developed to measure an adolescent’s concerns associated with requirements to register as a sex offender. The current study is the first to test the psychometric properties of the C-JSORNQ. Analyses were informed by data collected from 2009 to 2015 from 269 detained male adolescents adjudicated for illegal sexual behavior. Results indicated three C-JSORNQ factors: Concerns about Family Reactions, Concerns about Peer Reactions, and Concerns about Other Adult Reactions. Factors demonstrated appropriate divergent and convergent validity. Furthermore, the C-JSORNQ displayed adequate internal validity and test-retest reliability. JSORN has harmful effects; measurement of the concerns about JSORN requirements reflect an important advance in better understanding and measuring long-term impacts of JSORN. Within a policy setting, stakeholders invested in best practices benefit from research on the actual effects of policies. The availability of a validated measure should promote more research on the effects of JSORN, results of which could be used to inform policy.

Characteristics of Older Adult First-Time Sex Offenders: Insights From the Missouri Registry

To explore the characteristics of older adult first-time sex offenders (who offended for the first time at the age of 65 years or above). The authors retrieved and analyzed data from the publicly available Missouri sex offender registry database up to December 2018 and the Missouri public case management system website. Registered older (≥65 years) sex offenders in the state of Missouri, United States. Sociodemographic characteristics of the offender, offense type(s), offense, and conviction dates; age and sex of the victim(s); and case disposition information (whether the trial was waived or not and what were the sentences imposed). One hundred and ninety-four older adult sex offenders all males were identified, of which 172 were first-time offenders. The majority were white; the median age of offense was 68.6 years old. One hundred and thirty-nine (80.8%) first-time offenders were convicted strictly of non-pornography offenses, with prepubescent girls the predominant victim pool. The most prevalent charge in this subgroup was Child Molestation, First Degree (36.5%). Twenty-eight (16.3%) offenders were convicted strictly of pornography offenses, the most prevalent one being Possession of Child Pornography (96.6%). The recidivism rate among first-time offenders was close to 1%. A substantial proportion of older registered sex offenders are first-time sex offenders and most of them have underage victims. Although the offense and recidivism rates seem to be low, future longitudinal studies should focus on the predictors of sexual offending in the older population, in order to design targeted preventive measures, risk assessment, and treatment options.

Registration and the Closure of Stranger-Perpetrated Sex Crimes Reported to Police.

A key goal of sex offender registration is to assist law enforcement in sexual assault investigations; to identify potential suspects when the perpetrator's identity is unknown. To date, however, no research has assessed the utility of sex offender registries in closing cases of sexual assault when the incident involved stranger perpetrators. Addressing this gap, the study drew on the National Incident-Based Reporting System (1992-2001) to test the effect of registry implementation on closure of stranger-involved sex crimes across six states. Comparing closure speeds from before and after registration began in each state, multivariate survival models showed incidents of stranger-perpetrated sexual assault were cleared 23% to 28% faster post-registration implementation. Incidents with juvenile victims and incidents with additional crimes beyond the sexual assault also closed significantly faster (regardless of whether a registry existed).

Sex offender registries: exploring the attitudes and knowledge of political decision-makers

Sex offender registries (SORs) were established due to policies and practices intended to protect the public from individuals who commit sexually violent acts, and yet the empirical literature does not show that public SORs reduce or prevent sexual crimes. Given that politicians prominently influence SOR policies, the current study explores the views of SORs by 26 political decision-makers from Canada and the United States. Participants completed a survey on their opinions regarding SORs and their knowledge of SOR eligibility. Attitudes and political perspectives were assessed to examine their association with SOR opinions. Almost two thirds of those surveyed believed SORs should be publicly available, and one third believed SORs helped to protect the public. These beliefs were associated with those with conservative-leaning political views. These findings help us to explore the perspectives of political decision-makers and gain insight into attitudinal factors that may play a role in influencing opinions regarding SORs.

Problems and Improvement Measures of the Sex Offender Registration and Disclosure System

Problems and Improvement Measures of the Sex Offender Registration and Disclosure System

Exploring the Bottom-Up Reform of Sex Offender Registration in China: Carceral Feminism and Populist Authoritarianism

In 2017, the Minhang District of Shanghai introduced sex offender registration. This reform attracted positive reactions on social media. Local governments in Jiangsu, Guangdong and Chongqing quickly followed the precedent. In 2019, the central government announced that it will establish national sex offender registries by 2022, although it limited the scope of registration to paedophiles. This study explores how this bottom-up reform unfolded and what implications it has in theory and practice. Based on qualitative and quantitative analysis of 2261 posts on Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter, this study reveals two major players in the current reform: the Chinese feminists who are pursuing a punitive agenda online (a phenomenon known as ‘carceral feminism’), and the local governments that are eager to win the public’s trust, although such trust is mainly reserved for the central authority in the Chinese political culture (a culture known as ‘populist authoritarianism’). Drawing on the findings, this study pushes the discussion about Chinese penal policy beyond the dichotomy of ‘penal professionalism’ and ‘penal populism’. It argues that while the influence of professionalism is evident in central-level policy making, local penal policies can be easily led by populist punitiveness. The latter deserves more academic attention. This study also takes a non-partisan approach to the feminist movements on Chinese social media. It reveals the class conflicts and regional inequality underlying the gender schism. The polarisation effect in online discussion is also highlighted, which alerts policy makers to the reliability of ‘public opinion’ online. (246 words).

Surveillance and Entanglement: How mandatory sex offender registration impacts criminalised survivors of human trafficking

This short article describes how some victims of human trafficking in the sex industry in the United States are prosecuted alongside traffickers and put on sex offender registries. The result is both a criminal record and an indefinite digital mark that limits their ability to find a job, settle in a new community, and see their children. The article concludes with a call for a careful, critical look at the system of sex offender registries and, more broadly, policing and prosecution strategies, including in cases of human trafficking, in the United States.

Sex offender registry system: a challenging task for Thai’s police policy and practice

ABSTRACT This exploratory research studies the provision of sex offender registry systems and identifies whether a suitable model can be applied to the Thai context. To examine these perspectives, a qualitative methodology has been applied via focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with figures involved in the administration of Thai criminal justice. Most of the research participants believed that the introduction of a Thai sex offender registry system would be appropriate, but that this must be produced in response to the cultural and societal specificity of Thailand and an appropriate criterion must be established to classify offenders here. Ultimately, this research demonstrates that a sex offender registry would be suitable for Thailand, but only if this system learns from the advantages/disadvantages of other national systems and if the final legislative approach responds strongly to the needs of Thai society and to the capabilities of the agencies involved in its operations.

Neighborhood Characteristics of Registered Sex Offender Residential Locations: Evidence From the State of Ohio

AbstractObjective: The identification of neighborhoods where registered sex offenders (RSOs) reside may facilitate evidence-based service delivery and increase neighborhood capacity building. This ...

Simulated judicial decision-making for African and European American adolescents with illegal sexual behavior: The impact of medical data and victim race/ethnicity.

The perceived importance of victim and defendant race/ethnicity and medical evidence in child sexual abuse cases has been recognized separately in the literature. However, few studies have considered these factors simultaneously. Within a sample of 880 college students, an interaction effect was tested between the presence of medical evidence and the race/ethnicity of a juvenile defendant and victim using child sexual abuse case vignettes. The main effects of medical evidence and the race of the defendant were observed. Medical evidence and race of victim influenced victim believability such that medical evidence was more impactful for cases with African American victims. Further, there were interactions between the race of the defendant and the race of the victim in adult versus juvenile court decisions, sex offender registration and notification requirements, and length of sex offender registration and notification. Interracial sexual offending was associated with substantially higher punishment than intraracial sexual offending. Accordingly, several important implications for court-level decision-making processes are explored.

Must the show go on? The (in)ability of counterevidence to change attitudes toward crime control theater policies.

Crime control theater refers to intuitively appealing laws that appear to address crime while lacking any evidence that they actually do so (e.g., sex offender registration and residence restriction laws, which do not reduce recidivism). Despite their ineffectiveness, public support for such laws tends to be high. We predicted that making people aware of these laws' failure to reduce crime would lower support for them. Participants (recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk; Study 1: N = 298, mean age = 35.60, 47.7% self-identified as women and 75.8% as White; Study 2: N = 147, mean age = 35.03, 40.1% self-identified as women and 85.0% as White; Study 3: N = 552, mean age = 35.86, 42.9% self-identified as women and 76.4% as White) read about sex offender registration and residence restriction policies and rated their support for these laws, confidence in their opinions about them, and perceptions of their efficacy before and after reading counterevidence highlighting these laws' failure to reduce sex crimes. Although exposure to counterevidence somewhat lowered support (average within-subjects d = -0.69), general attitudes remained positive even at the postcounterevidence phase (average d = 0.46 against the scale midpoint). This pattern held when manipulating the criminal population being targeted (sex offenders vs. white-collar offenders; Study 1), when tailoring counterevidence to people's self-stated justifications for supporting these laws (Studies 2-3), and despite favorable ratings of the counterevidence's strength and credibility. Support for crime control theater policies persists despite explicit knowledge that they do not reduce crime, highlighting the need for alternative methods of dissuading people from their support for these ineffective laws. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

형사제재수단으로서 신상정보 등록제도에 관한 비판적 고찰 - 위헌성 여부를 중심으로 -

형사제재수단으로서 신상정보 등록제도에 관한 비판적 고찰 - 위헌성 여부를 중심으로 -

Awareness of Sex Offender Registration Policies and Self-Reported Sexual Offending in a Community Sample of Adolescents

Sex offender registration laws are widely implemented, increasingly restrictive, and intended to serve both specific and general deterrent functions. Most states have some form of policy mechanism to place adolescents on sex offender registries, yet it remains unclear whether adolescents possess the requisite policy awareness to be deterred from sexual offending. This study examined awareness of sex offender registration as a potential sanction and its cross-sectional association with engagement in several registrable sexual behaviors (sexting, indecent exposure, sexual solicitation, and forcible touching) in a community sample of 144 adolescents. Results revealed that many adolescents were unaware that these behaviors could result in sex offender registration. Moreover, over one-third of adolescents who incorrectly believed that youth cannot be registered were highly confident in their answers. Notably, nearly half the sample had engaged in at least one of the four registrable behaviors we assessed, and policy-aware youth were just as likely as others to have engaged in those registrable sexual behaviors. Our findings cast doubt on arguments that juvenile sex offender registration serves as a general deterrent, adding to a growing body of literature suggesting that the policy is ineffective and in need of reform.

The Duality of Stigmatization: An Examination of Differences in Collateral Consequences for Black and White Sex Offenders

Isolating particular groups of individuals is nothing novel within American society, and two prevalent examples of this are the historical and current treatment of Blacks and sex offenders. To date, few studies have examined how race is related to sex offenders’ experiences, never mind how race compounds the effects of social stigmatization for registered sex offenders (RSOs). Using a statewide sample of RSOs (n = 306), the primary goal of this study is to examine how race is related to sex offenders’ experiences and perceived stigma are impacted by sex offender policies. Findings showed significant differences in the experiences and perceptions of Black and White sex offenders. Specifically, Blacks reported fewer experiences of collateral consequences, and overall a lower degree of perceived stigma. Implications are discussed.