Megan's Law
"Megan's Law requires officials to release the names and addresses of sex offenders when they move into a
community." (Sheppard) Megan's Law is named after
one of the most tragic rapes in recent America, being
the rape of Megan Kanka by her neighbor, Jesse
Timmendequas, who already had two prior sex
convictions.
On the night of July 29th, 1994, Megan asked
Timmendequas if she could see his new puppy. He told
the girl that if she wanted to see the dog, Megan
would have to come inside his house. Timmendequas
lived across the street from the Kanka family in
suburban Hamilton Township. Prosecutor Kathryn
Flicker explained to jurors in court that
"Unsuspecting, trusting, 7-year old Megan walked into
the defendant's house, unseen by any of the people
who might have intervened. She would never walk out."
Timmendequas was charged with murder, kidnapping,
and sexual assault. Since Megan's slaying, many laws
in her name have been spread around the country to
notify neighbors when sex convicts move in to warn
them of the possible danger.
The creation of Megan's Law was sparked by an earlier
legislative motion known as the 1994 Wetterling Act,
which requires states to maintain an updated registry
of the whereabouts of all sexual offenders. The
first state to pass a Megan's Law was New Jersey in
1996, which furthered the Wetterling Act by making
the registries public by mandating their release to the community. Other states followed without hesitation. Ohio: "All information contained in sex offender registries in Ohio constitutes a public record and is available to the public according to a formal opinion issued by state Attorney General Betty D. Montgomery. The opinion came in response to confusion on the part of counties which maintain the records over what information contained in the repositories should be released to the public. (Ohio Attorney General, Op. No. 97-03 8 (15 August 1997)) Missouri: The state Attorney General issued an opinion in early September 1997 stating that the names, addresses, and crimes of known sex offenders should be released by local law enforcement. (Missouri Attorney General Op. NO. 145-97 (5 September 1997).
According to CASA, the Center Against Sexual Abuse,
thiry-eight percent of girls and sixteen percent of
boys are sexually abused before the age of 18. In
1994, 345,40 sexual abuse incidents were reported to
Child Protective Services in the United States.
Ninety to ninety-five percent of sexual abuse cases
go unreported to the police. In most cases, the
child knew the sex offender. With girls, twenty-nine
percent were relatives and sixty percent were
acquaintances. With boys, sixteen percent were
relatives and forty-four percent were acquaintances.
Let us now turn to the sociological aspect of
this issue. American culture, structure, history,
values, and norms each played an important role in
bringing about Megan's Law. We shall examine each
in turn.
Culture is a large constituent of America
that influenced the creation of Megan's law.
American culture forbids the acts of rape and murder.
It also presents sex between a child and an adult
as dysfunctional and criminal. The values and norms
of American society, as the building blocks of
culture, reflect similar influences.
Structure is another aspect that influenced
Megan's law. Our society does not allow for any
adult to have legal sexual relations with a minor
due to the fact that the United States is are a
monogamous family-socialized country.
A long history of sexual predators who were
released and again attacked gives Megan's law a
strong background. Earl Shriner stabbed, strangled,
and raped a seven-year-old boy. He was released and
then abducted and assaulted two sixteen-year-old
girls. After his 1987 release, he stabbed a
sixteen-year-old boy, yet only served 66 days!
Then he served just 67 days for tying a ten-year-old
boy to a fence and then beating him. This is only
one of many cases. Vance Cunningham is another prime
example. He was jailed three times for rape and then
was released again! He then went on rounds to local
talk shows.
Mansfield B. Frazier gives us another example:
"None of the reporting rules currently in place would
have helped seventeen-year-old Central Catholic High
School student Katherine Boykins of East Cleveland,
who was killed by twenty-five-year old Michael Carmon,
a sexual offender who had been released from an
Ohio prison in February. Carmon, since he'd only
been convicted once of crime of sexual battery (and
had served his full sentence of eighteen months),
wasn't required to register at all."
From the sociological point of view we can
see that American culture, structure, history, values
and norms have caused Megan's Law to come about.
But they serve deeper functions than that. Let us
now look at how they influence the implementation
and reinforcement of Megan's Law in its current
state.
The law is implemented the way that it is
because of the aforementioned factors. Because
society is so intolerant, it pushes the sentence of
sex criminals to the max, thus ruining their privacy
and lives under Megan's Law.
Reinforcement of Megan's Law is easily
accomplished by the fact that the norms and values of
American culture are pretty stable and do not change
easily. Many people have adopted the norms and
values that I have stated above, and since so many
people believe in the same thing, they reinforce
the values and reimpose them on each other, thus
perpetuating the beliefs in the values.
From the sociological perspective, is it
easy to see that many critical aspects of American
society not only produced Megan's Law, but also
directed the manner in which it is carried out and
played a role in keeping it alive. However, there
is more involved than this view alone can explore.
We must look further yet to fully examine Megan's
Law.
The implications of Megan's Law have brought
about some problems in the criminal justice and
ethicist schools of thought. The media is being
confronted with a problem that has never before been
encountered: should the media print or air the names
from the Top Ten lists that police departments are
now required to release? It is because the ethical
dilemma is so evident and prominent that the issue of
Megan's Law is important for us to critically
examine.
The dilemma is truly evident when we realize
that the future reintroduction to society and
rehabilitation is destroyed by Megan's Law because
people will gather at his address to protest. This
has already happened in many cases, and in a few
instances, the convict's house has even been burned
down by angry mobs. This has given many criminals
reason to give authorities the wrong addresses of
their residence. As you can infer, this causes many
problems and only worsens the situation. Not only
does it impair the lives of sex criminals, but it also
impairs the lives of their families.
From our examination of Megan's Law, we have
determined that Megan's Law does its job of ensuring
"innocent children in the community", as described by
Linda Melink, managing editor of California's
Paradise Post. However, it creates a dangerous
situation for the families of sex criminals and
also destroys any hope for the convict's functional
reentrance into society. Thus while Megan's Law is
essential, it must be further examined and modified
so that it does not create as much ruin as benefit.
Unfortunately, in order to modify the law in favor
of the sex criminal's family or rehabilitation, the
protection of innocent children may be compromised.
The problem lies in deciding exactly how far we are
willing to go. Should we adapt a "zero tolerance"
stance on the issue or should we try to benefit
society evenly? This problem may haunt us forever.
We have explored how American culture, structure,
history, values and norms have produced Megan's Law.
They have influenced the implementation and
reinforcement of it as well. However, we have
discovered that while Megan's Law does protect from
many future incidents, the ethical problem created by
the media's involvement in the issue cannot be
avoided and necessitates modification of the Law.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Anonymous. "Megan's Law releases lead to controversies, clarifications by courts and officials." News Media and the Law. Washington. Winter, 1998.
Associated Press. "Court Rules to detain 7 offenders." 23 April 1996. http://www.spub.ksu.edu/issues/v100/sp/n137/ap-SexPredators-11.3.html
Associated Press. "Mother Takes Stand in 'Megan's Law' Trial." 1998.
Bunn, Austin. "Digitizing Megan's Law". The Village Voice. New York. 21 April 1998.
Center Against Sexual Abuse: Education, Prevention, and Treatment. Sexual Assault Statistics. Arizona: Phoenix. http://www.syspac.com/~casa/stats.htm
President Clinton, William J. "Statement on the Supreme Court decision not to review New Jersey's 'Megan's Law'." Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents. Washington. 2 March 1998.
CNN Digital Newsbytes. "House passes bill against online pedophiles" 12 June 1998. http://www.cnnfn.com/digitaljam/newsbytes/13242.html
Representative Doolittle, John T. "Bill to Crack Down on Internet Pedophiles Passes Unanimously." http://www.house.gov/doolittle/pr80612.htm
Flanagan, Ray. "Defendant Jailed under Megan's Law." The Times Tribune. 7 August 1997. http://www.scrantontimes.com/stories/080798/news/42319.htm
Florida House Bill hb1147. 1 October 1995.
Leo, John. "Keeping Predators Behind Bars." U.S. News and World Report. 22 February 1993.
Commissioner Moore, James T. "Sexual Predators Can't Hide Thanks to Public Safety Information Act." Advancing Community Policing Through Technology. Florida: Tallahassee. July/August 1998. http://www.communitypolicing.org/exchange/e21_98/e21moore.htm
"Sexual Psychopaths." http://members.tripod.com/~dazc/sexopat.htm
Sheppard, Judith. "Double Punishment?" American Journalism Review. Adelphia. November 1997.
Wernick, Ephraim. "Sex offenders different from other criminals." The Brown Daily Herald. 12 February 1998.
Frazier, Mansfield B. "What Constitutes 'Cruel and Unusual'?" http://ww.ben.net/html/meagan.htm
Wharton, Joseph. "Court upholds Megan's Law" ABA Journal. Chicago. October 1995.
Links
Return
Email: bmetzko@imaginemail.com
