Court-Martial Trial Practice Blog
On 29 August 2014, the Inspector General, U.S. Department of Defense issue a report, Evaluation of DoD Compliance with the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act.
In connection with the U.S. sex offender registry’s, there is now quite a robust amount of research that seems to label the idea as ineffective. The worst of the worst are likely to commit similar crimes whether or not they are on a registry and under watch. Fairly regular news reports provide anecdotal support for such a conclusion. As for the rest, statistics show that sex offenders have a much lower recidivism rate than non-sex offenders. In addition, there is a question about the basic effectiveness of such laws; as reported in Science Daily, and The Economist, and in a study conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice, National Criminal Justice Reference Service, in a limited study of South Carolina’s laws. The criticisms do not suggest no value to such registry’s, rather a more precise and reasoned approach. You might read a pro-con discussion about sex offender registration policy sponsored by the Federalist Society. Science Daily notes,
“As a share of its population, America registers more than four times as many people as Britain, which is unusually harsh on sex offenders. America’s registers keep swelling, not least because in 17 states, registration is for life.”
Thanks the GMJR for a ping alert.