Lasher and McGrath (2012) define registration as “the process of filing sex offenders’ identifying information with local law enforcement” whereas notification is defined as “how this information is released to the public” (p. 7). Identifying information includes such things as address, a current picture, and sexual offending history, whereas notification includes such things as having community meetings where information is provided to the community via flyers and website addresses where they can ‘look up’ the offender (Lasher & McGrath, 2012). The public perspective of community notification laws, statistics include 94% of Americans favor laws requiring …show more content…
The Wetterling Act is a law that required all states including Washington D.C. to implement a sex offender and crimes against children registry which has been in effect since 1994. Crimes against children include offenses include the following: kidnapping of a minor with the exception if done by a parent, false imprisonment of a minor with the exception by a parent, criminal sexual conduct toward a minor, solicitation of a minor to engage in sexual conduct, use of a minor in a sexual performance for example child porn, and the solicitation of a minor to practice prostitution (United States Publishing Office, 1994). The Campus Sex Crimes Prevention Act (also known as public law 106-386) requires the tracking of convicted registered sex offenders who are enrolled or employed in any institution of higher education provide notice. Secondly, the institution “must provide a statement advising the campus community where law enforcement agency information provided by a State regarding registered sex crime offenders may be obtained” (Office of the General Counsel, 2013, par …show more content…
This law provides the public with certain information on the whereabouts of sex offenders so that members of local communities may protect themselves and their children. This law requires information of the sex offender so that it is available on the internet site where the pubic as access to the information. Pursuant to California penal code 290.46 information that is listed include the year of conviction of his or her most recent offense requiring registration, the year he or she was released from incarceration for that offense, and whether he or she was subsequently incarcerated for any other felony (FindLaw for Legal Professionals, n.d.). Jessica’s Law which is specific to the state of California deals with residency restrictions for example, barring convicted sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or any place where children gather and it enforced the use of GPS surveillance units to track all convicted sex offender parolees, including juveniles, for the rest of their lives, thus greatly limiting the locations of where parolees can live and work (Troshynski, 2012). An important note in Jessica’s law is that this past March the California Supreme Court ruled that it was “unconstitutional after parolees in San Diego argued that the restrictions made it difficult for them to find places to live and receive health care, rehabilitation services and