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Megan's Law is the name for a federal law in the United States requiring law enforcement authorities to make information available to the public regarding registered sex offenders. Laws were created in response to the murder of Megan Kanka. Federal Megan's Law was enacted as a subsection of the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act of 1994, which merely required sex offenders to register with local law enforcement. Since only a few states required registration prior to Megan's death, the state-level legislation to bring states in compliance—with both the registration requirement of Jacob Wetterling Act and community notification required by federal Megan's Law—were crafted simultaneously and are often referred to as "Megan's Laws" of individual states. Thus, the federal Megan's Law refers to community notification, whereas state-level "Megan's Law" may refer to both sex offender registration and community notification.
On July 29, 1994, in Hamilton Township, New Jersey, seven-year-old girl Megan Nicole Kanka was raped and murdered by her neighbor, Jesse Timmendequas, after he lured her into his house; Timmendequas had previously been convicted of child molestation. The murder attracted national attention and subsequently led to the introduction of "Megan's Law", which requires law enforcement to disclose details relating to the location of registered sex offenders.
Sexual grooming is the action or behavior used to establish an emotional connection with a vulnerable person – generally a minor under the age of consent – and sometimes the victim's family, to lower their inhibitions with the objective of sexual abuse. It can occur in various settings, including online, in person, and through other means of communication. Children who are groomed may experience mental health issues, including "anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress, and suicidal thoughts."
Ryan Alan Hade was an American sexual assault victim from Tacoma, Washington. On May 20, 1989, he was raped, emasculated, stabbed and left for dead in a vacant lot. Earl Kenneth Shriner was convicted of the attack and sentenced to 131 years in prison. Shriner had a long history of sexual assault charges spanning 25 years. The case has been cited as one of the catalysts for new US laws allowing indefinite confinement of sex offenders. Hade, who survived the attack by Shriner, died in a vehicular accident. The vacant lot where Hade was attacked was later turned into a park and was renamed Ryan's Park after his death.
Some jurisdictions may commit certain types of dangerous sex offenders to state-run detention facilities following the completion of their sentence if that person has a "mental abnormality" or personality disorder that makes the person likely to engage in sexual offenses if not confined in a secure facility. In the United States, twenty states, the federal government, and the District of Columbia have a version of these commitment laws, which are referred to as "Sexually Violent Predator" (SVP) or "Sexually Dangerous Persons" laws.
A sex offender is a person who has committed a sex crime. What constitutes a sex crime differs by culture and legal jurisdiction. The majority of convicted sex offenders have convictions for crimes of a sexual nature; however, some sex offenders have simply violated a law contained in a sexual category. Some of the serious crimes which result in a mandatory sex-offender classification are sexual assault, statutory rape, bestiality, child sexual abuse, incest, and rape.
Jetseta Marrie Gage was an American child whose kidnapping, rape and murder prompted major changes in sentencing laws for those who commit child sex crimes in Iowa. Roger Bentley, a convicted sex offender and friend of Gage's family, was arrested in connection with 10-year-old Jetseta's death. He was convicted of first-degree murder and first-degree kidnapping on January 31, 2006. On February 24, he was sentenced to two consecutive mandatory sentences of life in prison without parole.
Jessica's Law is the informal name given to a 2005 Florida law, as well as laws in several other states, designed to protect potential victims and reduce a sexual offender's ability to re-offend which includes a mandatory minimum sentence of 25 years in prison and lifetime electronic monitoring when the victim is less than 12 years old. A version of Jessica's Law, known as the Jessica Lunsford Act, was introduced at the federal level in 2005 but was never enacted into law by Congress.
The Special Commitment Center (SCC) in the US state of Washington is a post-prison-sentence treatment institution for people designated as sexually violent predators, located on McNeil Island.
The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act is a federal statute that was signed into law by U.S. President George W. Bush on July 27, 2006. The Walsh Act organizes sex offenders into three tiers according to the crime committed, and mandates that Tier 3 offenders update their whereabouts every three months with lifetime registration requirements. Tier 2 offenders must update their whereabouts every six months with 25 years of registration, and Tier 1 offenders must update their whereabouts every year with 15 years of registration. Failure to register and update information is a felony under the law. States are required to publicly disclose information of Tier 2 and Tier 3 offenders, at minimum. It also contains civil commitment provisions for sexually dangerous people.
Anti-pedophile activism encompasses social actions against pedophiles. It also includes acts of anti-pedophile citizen vigilantism conducted by vigilante groups, some of which have operated alongside government agencies in countries such as the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.
William Chandler Shrubsall, also known as Ian Thor Greene and now Simon Templar, is an American inmate currently serving a life sentence, having been declared a dangerous offender for a string of violent assaults against women.
Laws against child sexual abuse vary by country based on the local definition of who a child is and what constitutes child sexual abuse. Most countries in the world employ some form of age of consent, with sexual contact with an underage person being criminally penalized. As the age of consent to sexual behaviour varies from country to country, so too do definitions of child sexual abuse. An adult's sexual intercourse with a minor below the legal age of consent may sometimes be referred to as statutory rape, based on the principle that any apparent consent by a minor could not be considered legal consent.
In the United States, each state and territory sets the age of consent either by statute or the common law applies, and there are several federal statutes related to protecting minors from sexual predators. Depending on the jurisdiction, the legal age of consent is between 16 and 18. In some places, civil and criminal laws within the same state conflict with each other.
A sex offender registry is a system in various countries designed to allow government authorities to keep track of the activities of sex offenders, including those who have completed their criminal sentences.
A sexual predator is a person seen as obtaining or trying to obtain sexual contact with another person in a metaphorically "predatory" or abusive manner. Analogous to how a predator hunts down its prey, so the sexual predator is thought to "hunt" for their sex partners. People who commit sex crimes, such as rape or child sexual abuse, are commonly referred to as sexual predators, particularly in tabloid media or as a power phrase by politicians.
Dennis Raymond Ferguson was an Australian sex offender convicted of child sexual abuse. In 1988, he kidnapped and sexually abused three children, and was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment. Ferguson was forced by public hostility and news media attention to relocate his residence on numerous occasions, from various locations in New South Wales and Queensland.
Child sexual abuse is a matter of concern in Australia, and is the subject of investigation and prosecution under the law, and of academic study into its prevalence, causes and social implications.
The National Association for Rational Sexual Offense Laws (NARSOL) is an organization headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina with operations based in Albuquerque, New Mexico and with affiliated organizations, advocates, and contacts in the vast majority of states. NARSOL and its affiliates are part of a movement to reform sexual offense laws in the United States. NARSOL has generated media attention by arranging national conferences in multiple cities including Boston, Albuquerque, Los Angeles Dallas, Atlanta, Cleveland, Houston, and Raleigh, and by being involved in numerous lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of sex offender registration and notification laws.
Rape laws vary across the United States jurisdictions. However, rape is federally defined for statistical purposes as:
Penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.
References
- Michael Petrunik: “Models of dangerousness: Across jurisdictional review of dangerousness legislation and practice” Archived 2011-07-08 at the Wayback Machine , Services gouvermentaux Canada, 1994, ISBN 0-662-99346-2.
- Franziska Lamott, Friedemann Pfäfflin: “Sind Straftäter Tiere?” in: Irmgard Rode et al. (eds.): Paradigmenwechsel im Strafverfahren: Neurobiologie auf dem Vormarsch, Berlin, 2008, ISBN 978-3-8258-0590-6, p. 99-126
- The Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (ATSA) http://www.atsa.com/ppOffenderFacts.html Archived 2011-04-28 at the Wayback Machine