of child sexual abuse are substantiated each year. In
addition, according to the 2005 National Crime
Victimization survey, there were nearly 192,000 vic-
tims of rape, attempted rape, or sexual assault. In an
effort to prevent sex crimes, community notification
laws (also known as Megan’s Laws) allow informa-
tion about convicted sex offenders to be disseminated
to the public. Distribution of this information occurs
through various means, including Internet registries,
community meetings, media announcements, and dis-
tribution of flyers. The goal of community notification
is to prevent sexual assault by warning potential vic-
tims that a convicted sex offender lives in the vicinity.
Thus far, research has been limited in demonstrating
the effectiveness of community notification in pre-
venting sex crimes, in general, or sex offense recidi-
vism more specifically. There is research to suggest
that the collateral consequences of notification inter-
fere with community reintegration for many sex
offenders.History and Development
of Notification Laws
The Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and
Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act was passed
by the U.S. Congress in 1994. This federal statute man-
dated that all 50 states pass laws requiring sex offend-
ers to report their addresses to local law enforcement
agencies. The police are required to maintain a registry
of convicted sex offenders’ current whereabouts. The
law was named for an 11-year-old Minnesota boy who
was abducted and remains missing to this day. The pur-
pose of sex offender registration is to assist law
enforcement agencies to track where sex offenders are
located and to aid in the investigation of sex crimes by
identifying a potential pool of suspects.
In 1996, the Wetterling Act was amended by adding a
provision allowing states to distribute sex offender reg-
istry information to the public. This amendment is often
referred to as Megan’s Law, and was named for a 7-year-
old New Jersey child who was murdered by a previously
convicted sex offender. The purpose of community noti-
fication is to provide information about sex offenders liv-
ing in the community so that parents and other concerned
citizens can take steps to protect themselves.
About half of the states classify sex offenders
according to risk levels and use more aggressive notifi-
cation to warn of sex offenders who are assessed to
pose the greatest threat to public safety. Other states use
broad community notification, publishing informationabout all sex offenders without an assessment of risk.
Community notification methods vary in each state, but
media releases, door-to-door warnings, flyers, commu-
nity meetings, and Internet access are the most com-
mon strategies.
The Wetterling Act was again modified under the
PROTECT amendment in 2003 to require states to
post information about convicted sex offenders on
public Internet registries. The Adam Walsh Act,
passed in July 2006, increased the amount of infor-
mation that can be disclosed on public registries, cre-
ated more stringent registration requirements for
offenders, and provided further guidelines for the
development and activation of a national sex offender
registry by which information from various states can
by integrated into one database.
Sex offender registration and community notifica-
tion initially began as distinct social policies with dif-
ferent goals. Registration was intended to be a tool to
assist law enforcement agents to track sexual crimi-
nals and apprehend potential suspects. The purpose of
notification was to increase public awareness and pro-
vide communities with information to help them
avoid contact with sex offenders and thus prevent vic-
timization. Over the past decade, however, Internet-
based registries have led registration and notification
to become nearly interchangeable.
The constitutionality of community notification
statutes has been challenged. In 2003, the U.S.
Supreme Court ruled that a Connecticut statute was
constitutional, allowing sex offenders to be placed on
an Internet registry without first holding a hearing to
determine their danger to the community. In an Alaska
case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that registration
and notification of sex offenders whose crimes were
committed prior to the passage of the laws did not
constitute ex post facto punishment.Effectiveness of
Community Notification
Community notification is a very popular social policy.
However, little research has investigated the success of
registration and community notification in reducing sex
crime rates or preventing recidivism. One of the first
studies of community notification was conducted by
the Washington State Institute for Public Policy in- No significant differences were found in the re-
arrest rates of high-risk sex offenders who were subject
to community notification and those who were not. In
Iowa, no significant differences were found in the
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