Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> Sex Offender Issues

Criminal Law

: Sex Offender Issues

NY - Residency laws are questioned

View the article here 03/07/2009 I applaud your Feb. 18 editorial, "Colonie's misguided law." Sex-offender laws are often based on hysteria and myth, rather than on fact. It is impossible to have effective laws when reality is ignored. Attention needs to be paid to a study by the University at Albany School of Criminal Justice. It calls into question not only the spreading sex-offender residency laws but registration and notification laws. The abstract of this report states: "Results provide no support for the effectiveness of registration and community notification laws in reducing sexual offending by: (A) rapists, (B) child molesters, (C) sexual recidivists, or (D) first-time sex offenders. Analyses also showed that over 95 percent of all sexual offense arrests were committed by first-time sex offenders, casting doubt on the ability of laws that target repeat offenders to meaningfully reduce sexual offending...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sex Offender Issues on March 07, 2009 (boomark / email).