What is smart sex offender policy?

In July 1994, 7-year-old Megan Kanka was raped and killed by a recidivist sex offender living across the street from her in Hamilton Township, NJ. The perpetrator, Jesse Timmendequas, had a history of sexually abusing children and lived with two other sex offenders; yet his neighbors were unaware of their criminal history. Because of Jesse's anonymity, he lured Megan into his house to see his puppy. Megan's parents said that if they had only known that sex offenders were living across the street from them, Megan would be alive today. They then advocated for notification of sex offenders whereabouts to become mandatory in all states, and many politicians were eager to support her and any legislation that could potentially protect children from sexual predators. As a result, the federal government and all states enacted their own versions of registration and community notification laws (RCNLs), which are known colloquially as "Megan's Law." During the last decade and a half, RCNLs have overcome legal challenges to be developed and expanded; now, RCNLs regulate the rights and movements of sex offenders living in the community. Like Megan's Law, most of these policies are memorial laws based on the emotionally charged cases of a child being raped and/or killed by a stranger (Terry and Furlong, 2008). The goal of RCNLs are to raise awareness of sex offenders in the community so that individuals can protect themselves from victimization, and such awareness should in turn reduce the likelihood that the registered offenders will recidivate (Beck and Travis, 2006). But the laws were not based on a sound theoretical framework of crime prevention and control, and there are some fundamental flaws in the basis of this legislation. More than a dozen years after their implementation, empirical studies now show moderate, if any, effects of this legislation on either the recidivism levels of the offenders (Zgoba, Witt, Dalessandro, and Veysey, 2008) or the protective behaviors that they are meant to generate (Anderson and Sample, 2008; Bandy, 2011, this issue). The question then becomes what purpose the laws serve. Although the Bandy article does not advocate for the abolition of the laws, it recommends a substantial level of caution for the current trend of expanding the laws and their reach. Adapted from the source document.