Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> Sentencing Law and Policy

Criminal Law

: Sentencing Law and Policy

"Sex Offender Registries: Fear Without Function?"

By Douglas A. Berman

The title of this post is the title of this research paper I just noticed on SSRN authored by Amanda Agan of the University of Chicago Department of Economics. The paper seems especially timely in light of the on-going discussion of how Phillip Garrido's placement on a sex offender registry did not seem to impact his ability to get away with a notorious sex offense.  Here is the abstract from the this paper: I use three separate datasets and designs to determine whether sex offender registries are effective. First, state-level panel data is used to determine whether sex offender registries or public access to them decreases the rate of rape and other sexual abuse. Second, a dataset which contains information on the subsequent arrests of sex offenders released from prison in 1994 in 15 states is used to determine if registries reduce the recidivism rate of offenders required to register compared with those who do not...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on September 09, 2009 (boomark / email).