Megan's Law: A public health imperative

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the history of laws related to Registered Sexual Offenders (RSO's), including the Jacob Wetterling Act, Megan's Law, and the most recent Adam Walsh Act. These laws were developed to prevent sexually-based crimes based on the assumption that there is a high recidivism rate among RSO's. Studies and reports consistently find, however, have the lowest recidivism (2-13%) rate of all felons. In addition, new research is reporting that Megan's Law has not been effective at reducing sexually-based crimes. Others report that the laws restricting and monitoring RSO's are actually increasing the risk they will repeat their crimes. RSO's face many collateral consequences, such as community segregation, lack of employment, housing, separation from families and loved one's, lack of access to social services, and vigilante attacks. All of these collateral consequences make it difficult for an RSO to remain offense-free and thus decrease public safety. It is thus a public health imperative to critically explore how well these laws are working to prevent sexually based crimes.