Perspectives on Adolescent Sex Offender Registration Policies

Imagine your middle school self, a pubescent young teen. Your trying to meet the love of your life and you think you’ve found the one. You approach the woman of your dreams, make conversation and things are going well. You try to escalate the conversation to try to raise intimacy by touching her. BOOM! You quickly discover you guys where not on the same page and now your forced to register as a sex offender. 

Sex offender registration policies have expanded rapidly, now extending to adolescent offenders across the nation. Policies mandating registration are based, in part, on arguments that registration is needed to prevent dangerous sex offenders from committing additional offenses and that risk of registration deters would-be offenders from offending in the first place. Research suggests that registration does not serve the former specific deterrent function for adolescents, but less is known regarding the latter goal of general deterrence. The disciplines of criminology and developmental psychology both offer important theoretical perspectives, but these frameworks have yet to be applies to this unique context. Criminological theory on perceptions of sanction risk offers clear predictions about the potential for registration to serve as a deterrent for would-be adolescent sex offenders. Yet, the literature has not meaningfully acknowledged that most adolescents are unaware of the parameters of registration (e.g., age restrictions, range of register-able offenses). And even if adolescents are aware of registration risk, they are unlikely to be effectively deterred by it because of a variety of developmental vulnerabilities (e.g., psychosocial immaturity, perceived normativeness of certain nonviolent sexual offenses that can result in registration).

Although the juvenile justice system was founded on the principle of rehabilitation. A wave of violent crime in the 1980s and the 1990s along with media portrayals of young super predators amused the policy focus to shift from rehabilitating adolescent offenders to punishing them. In reaction, federal and state policies expanded the mechanisms available for treating adolescent offenders like adult offenders, including policies that require adolescent sex offenders to submit their personal information to police and public registries use as adult sex offenders do. in recent decades the federal government and many states have enacted legislation that has been increasingly inclusive; that us, more individuals are required to register, more behaviors are defined as register-able offenses, more information is required to be shared, and that information is made more widely available to the public. As a result , increasingly more adolescent sex offenders are being subjected to punitive and restricted registration policies that where originally intended for adults. This is why making adolescents register as sex offenders is a bad idea.

The results came back that Sex offender registries cannot enhance public safety if the public does not use them. Moreover, whereas boyle egalitarian. found that 87% of users reported feeling safer after consulting the registry, other research suggests that sense of security may be unfounded. For instance, even though 99.5% of community members they surveyed lived in a zip code with at least one registered sex offender, only 51% of those who accessed the registry believed an offender lived in their community. It is also important to note that 62% of law enforcement officers surveyed by Tewksbury and Mustaine disagreed with the premise that “sex offender registration and notification is effective in preventing sexual victimization” research has also raised questions regarding the accuracy of the information. That appears on registries: Tewksbury found that 11% of sex offenders in one urban county had no address listed on the state registry, 11% listed an address for a commercial establishment, and 5% listed an address that did not actually exist.

This is why making adolescents register as sex offenders is horrible idea. Instead a way we can reach the youth is by educating them on what could be the outcome of touching someone that does not consent to being touched. As I stated previously, the psychosocial maturity of the youth is not at its peak. Therefore they wont take the fact that registering as a sex offender is a possibility seriously. The only effective way to prevent adolescents from becoming a sex offender is to rehabilitate them and educate them on what is considered an offense. Moreover, the results confirm that sex offender registries will help but not a lot. This is due to the fact that not every sex offender submits accurate information on sex offender registries. this makes a huge difference because people are not able to find an exact pinpoint on these sex offenders. Also not every new homeowner checks sex offender registries to see if there and nearby. Even if they do check, the information is not always entered truthfully. Sex offender registration policies are based on arguments that registration is needed to prevent dangerous sex offenders from committing additional offenses and that risk of registration deters would-be offenders from offending in the first place. Of interest however, Tewksbury and Mustaine found that 76% of law enforcement officers disagreed that registration serves a specific deterrent function, and 60% disagreed that it serves a general deterrent function. Indeed limited search suggests that registration does not serve the former specific deterrent function for adolescents.

According to the introduction, the information that was already known was that any sex offender found guilty has to submit all of their personal info to the police and public registries to let people know they are living near a sex offender. The author described the problem being studied with plenty of statistics. It is stated that the government is making adolescents responsible for their actions and making them submit their personal info to public registries if found guilty. the authors submitted sufficient background info and literature to allow me to understand the problem. The solution on the other hand is not the same as the author. Making adolescents register as sex offenders is not the answer. The answer is to inform them of what is acceptable behavior and what is not. As stated previously, only 7% of adolescents where arrested for new sexual offenses while the other 93% learned the consequences. This goes to show my solution is the only solution.

References

• Chorn, Rosten, and Angina Parekh. 'Adolescent Sexual Offenders: A Self-Psychological Perspective.' American Journal of Psychotherapy, vol. 51, no. 2, 1997, pp. 210-28. ProQuest, https://ezproxy.ccclib.nocccd.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.ccclib.nocccd.edu/docview/213133288?accountid=40745, doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.ccclib.nocccd.edu/10.1176/appi.psychotherapy.1997.51.2.210.
• O'brien, Jennifer,E., David L. Burton, and Wen Li. 'Body Disapproval among Adolescent Male Sexual Offenders: Prevalence and Links to Treatment: C & A C & A.' Child & Adolescent Social Work Journal, vol. 33, no. 1, 2016, pp. 39-46. ProQuest, https://ezproxy.ccclib.nocccd.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.ccclib.nocccd.edu/docview/1757515274?accountid=40745, doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.ccclib.nocccd.edu/10.1007/s10560-015-0400-x.
• Pratt, Helen D., PhD., and Greydanus, Donald E,M.D., DrH.C. 'Public Health Aspects of Youth Sexual Offenders.' International Public Health Journal, vol. 8, no. 4, 2016, pp. 509-515. ProQuest, https://ezproxy.ccclib.nocccd.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.ccclib.nocccd.edu/docview/1864051384?accountid=40745.
• Martin, Earl F., and Kline P. Marsha. 'The Juvenile Sex Offender and the Juvenile Justice System.' The American Criminal Law Review, vol. 35, no. 2, 1998, pp. 279-332. ProQuest, https://ezproxy.ccclib.nocccd.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.ccclib.nocccd.edu/docview/230343444?accountid=40745.
• Najdowski,cynthia j… school of criminal justice, university at Albany, state university of New York, Albany,NY,US,Cleary, Hayley m.d..l. Douglas wilder School of government and public affairs, Virginia common wealth university, Richmond, VA,US,Stevenson,Margret c.. department of psychology, university of Evansville, Evansville,IN,US
• Psychology, public policy, and law vol 22 (1), feb,2016. Pp. 114-125