|
Sex offender registries in the United States exist at both the federal and state levels. They assemble information about persons convicted of sexual offenses for law enforcement and public notification purposes. All 50 states and the District of Columbia maintain sex offender registries that are open to the public via Web sites, although information on some offenders is visible to law enforcement only. According to NCMEC, as of 2015 there were 843,260 registered sex offenders in United States.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Map of Registered Sex Offenders in the United States )〕 The majority of states, and the federal government, apply systems based on conviction offenses only, where the requirement to register as a sex offender is a consequence of conviction of or guilty plea to a "sex offense" that triggers a mandatory registration requirement. The trial judge typically can not exercise judicial discretion, and is barred from considering mitigating factors with respect to registration. The definition of a registerable sex offense can vary significantly from one jurisdiction to another. Sex offenders must periodically report in person to their local law enforcement agency and furnish their address, and list of other information such as place of employment and email addresses. The offenders are photographed and fingerprinted by law enforcement, and in some cases DNA information is also collected. Registrants are often subject to restrictions that bar them from working or living within a defined distance of schools, parks, and the like; these restrictions can vary from county to county and from one municipality to another. Depending on jurisdiction, offenses requiring registration range in their severity from public urination or adolescent sexual experimentation with peers, to violent rape and murder of children. In a few states non-sexual offenses such as unlawful imprisonment requires sex offender registration. According to Human Rights Watch, children as young as 9 have been placed on the registry;〔(''Raised on the Registry: The Irreparable Harm of Placing Children on Sex Offender Registries in the US'' ) (2012) Human Rights Watch ISBN 978-1-62313-0084〕 juvenile offenders account for 25 percent of registrants. States apply differing sets of criteria to determine which registration information is available to the public. In a few states, a judge determines the risk level of the offender, or scientific risk assessment tools are used; information on low-risk offenders may be available to law enforcement only. In other states, all sex offenders are treated equally, and all registration information is available to the public on a state Internet site. In some states, the length of the registration period is determined by the offense or assessed risk level; in others all registration is for life.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Megan’s Law by State )〕 Some states allow removal from the registry under certain specific, limited circumstances.〔 The Supreme Court of the United States has upheld sex offender registration laws each of the two times such laws have been examined by them. Several challenges to some parts of state level sex offender laws have been honored after hearing at the state level. ==History== In 1947, California became the first state in the United States to have a sex offender registration program.〔(California Megan's Law – California Department of Justice – Office of the Attorney General )〕 In 1990, Washington State began community notification of its most dangerous sex offenders, making it the first state to ever make any sex offender information publicly available. Prior to 1994, only a few states required convicted sex offenders to register their addresses with local law enforcement. The 1990s saw the emergence of several cases of brutal violent sexual offenses against children. Heinous crimes like those of Westley Allan Dodd, Earl Kenneth Shriner and Jesse Timmendequas were highly publicized. As a result, public policies began to focus on protecting public from stranger danger. Since early 1990s, several state and federal laws, often named after victims, have been enacted as a response to public outrage generated by highly publicized, but statistically very rare, violent predatory sex crimes against children by strangers.〔 The registries were implemented not only due to instances of extremely violent sex crimes, but based on studies regarding recidivism of such crimes which, based on a 2003 report, was four times greater than recidivism for those convicted and sentenced for non-sexual related offenses. Lack of prison cells have been cited as one of the reasons sex offender registries were implemented, since the average sentencing for such crimes was 8 years and convicted offenders served less than half that period in prison.〔 In the same 2003 report, of 9,700 prisoners released from prison, 4,300 had had been convicted of child molestation and most were convicted for molesting a child under the age of 13.〔 Within the three year followup on the 1994 report, nearly 40 percent of those released had been returned to prison for either another sex crime, an unrelated offense or parole violation.〔 Recidivism has been shown to be more severe with the youngest offenders and less so with those over the age of 35. In one study of "561 pedophiles who targeted young boys outside the home committed the greatest number of crimes with an average of 281.7 acts with an average of 150.2 partners". Only about a third of violent rapes are reported and sex crimes are widely believed to be the most under reported of all criminal offenses, with a reporting rate of barely a third of such offenses. Under polygraph, many apprehended sex offenders indicated that most of their offenses were not reported. In an effort to protect the citizenry, local, state and federal law makers responded to these issues through a variety of legislative enactments. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Sex offender registries in the United States」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|