Features

Dung Hoang

Reason versus Rage (continued)

Myth #3: Online offender registries help communities keep their children safe.

Google the topic of online sex-offender registries and you’ll arrive soon enough at this sort of proclamation: “Online sex- offender registries are an essential resource.”

Minnesota was the first state to launch a registry, in 1991. That move came in the aftermath of the disappearance of an 11-year-old Minnesota boy, Jacob Wetterling, who has never been found. Three years later, the feds upped the ante, requiring states to maintain online registries that are open to the public. That requirement is often called “Megan’s Law,” as it went on the books after the rape and murder of a 7-year-old New Jersey girl, Megan Kanka, whose killer was both a neighbor and a twice-convicted sex offender.

Today, different states handle these registry requirements in different ways. The most aggressive require registration for a broad range of offenses and keep even one-time offenders listed for life. Others limit registration to offenders deemed especially dangerous.

Letourneau worked previously at the Medical University of South Carolina, where she conducted a series of studies seeking to measure the impact of that state’s aggressive approach to registration. Early on, she measured whether the registry law achieved its primary goal of reducing the number of offenders who commit new sex crimes.

The answer was no. Recidivism rates showed no significant change as the state adopted its registration law and then again as the online registry went public.

Letourneau’s follow-up work on this topic is fascinating, demonstrating that the registry has had significant unintended consequences. First, she conducted a pair of studies showing that prosecutors changed their approach to juvenile sex crimes after the registry requirement went into effect.

The first study showed that prosecutors became less likely to move forward with sex-crime charges once the registry was in place—cases were simply dismissed or diverted. The second study concluded that when prosecutors did move forward on cases, they became more likely to permit defendants to plea bargain into the assault category and out of the sex-crime category.

In both cases, Letourneau’s hypothesis is that prosecutors came to regard lifelong registration as a draconian penalty that didn’t fit the crime in a significant number of cases with youthful offenders. One important concern she voices about this finding is that the offenders end up receiving no follow-up or treatment geared specifically to their actual crimes.

Letourneau next looked at the outcomes of cases involving adult offenders that went to jury trials after the registry was launched. These are the cases, she says, that prosecutors tend to regard as slam-dunk wins as they head to trial. But she found that conviction rates in these cases declined after the public online registry was established.

“I’ve had prosecutors and attorneys of all stripes tell me about cases where the jury was deliberating and they asked the judge, ‘Will he have to go on the registry? Or will he just face time?’ It’s a punishment that’s just so harsh—juries were modifying their behavior. So we’re now setting some of these guys free—they’re completely exonerated. It’s unbelievable, but we have a policy that increases the likelihood of letting adult sex offenders go.”

Letourneau plans to build on this work at Johns Hopkins. Studies of the impact of registration in other states have yielded varying results, an outcome likely related to the different approaches taken. She is preparing to compare the results of juvenile registry policies in three states—one that aggressively registers a wide swath of offenders (Texas), one that takes a middle-of-the-road approach by giving discretion to prosecutors and judges (Maryland), and one whose conservative approach reserves the registration requirement for a very few offenders judged to be high risks (Oklahoma).

Letourneau raises one other question surrounding offender registries that deserves more attention going forward: What impact does being on a public registry have on the lives of ex-offenders, especially the ones sincerely trying to steer clear of future trouble?

“It can be very difficult for known sex offenders to maintain stable living conditions and stable jobs while on these registries,” Letourneau says. “And when you don’t have stable living conditions and stable social connections, it makes it more difficult to re-integrate into society.”

Berlin feels that registries are a prime example of what’s wrong with the way society is dealing with child sex abuse. “The goal is right—we need to protect these children,” he says. “But we need to do it in a way that’s going to work, a way that’s based on data, a way that’s cost-effective. We’re not doing that. What we’re doing instead is reacting to the emotion of the moment, and as understandable as that emotion is, it’s just not the right way to go. Effective public policy should be based upon evidence about what works best.”