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Essay / Perspectives on Teen Sex Offender Registration Policies
Imagine yourself in middle school, a young pubescent adolescent. You're trying to meet the love of your life and you think you've found him. You approach the woman of your dreams, make conversation and everything goes well. You try to escalate the conversation to try to increase intimacy by touching her. BOOM! You quickly discover that you are not on the same page and are now forced to register as a sex offender. Say no to plagiarism. Get a Custom Essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get Original Essay Sex offender registration policies have grown rapidly and now extend to adolescent offenders across the country. Policies requiring registration are based, in part, on arguments that registration is necessary to prevent dangerous sex offenders from committing further offenses and that the risk of registration deters potential offenders from committing offenses in the first place. place. Research suggests that registration does not serve the first purpose of specific deterrence against adolescents, but less is known about the second purpose of general deterrence. The disciplines of criminology and developmental psychology both offer important theoretical insights, but these frameworks have yet to be applied to this unique context. Criminological theory on the perception of sanction risk offers clear predictions about the potential of registration as a deterrent for potential adolescent sex offenders. Yet, the literature has not fully recognized that most adolescents are unaware of the parameters of recording (e.g., age restrictions, range of offenses that can be recorded). And even if adolescents are aware of the risk of recording, they are unlikely to be effectively deterred due to various developmental vulnerabilities (e.g., psychosocial immaturity, the perceived normative nature of some nonviolent sexual offenses that may give place of registration). Although the juvenile justice system was founded on the principle of rehabilitation. A wave of violent crime in the 1980s and 1990s, as well as media depictions of young super-predators, amused the policy focus, which shifted from rehabilitating teenage offenders to punishing them. In response, federal and state policies have expanded the mechanisms available to treat adolescent offenders as adult offenders, including policies that require adolescent sex offenders to submit their personal information to police and public records, as do adult sex offenders. in recent decades, the federal government and many states have adopted increasingly inclusive laws; that we, more people need to register, more behaviors are defined as recordable offenses, more information needs to be shared, and that information is made more widely available to the public. As a result, more and more adolescent sex offenders are being subjected to punitive and restricted registration policies that were originally intended for adults. This is why forcing teens to register as sex offenders is a bad idea. The results came back that sex offender registries cannot improve public safety if the public does not use them. Furthermore, while Boyle is egalitarian. found that 87% of users saidfeel safer after viewing the registry, other research suggests that feelings of security may be unfounded. For example, even though 99.5% of community members surveyed lived in a zip code with at least one registered sex offender, only 51% of those who accessed the registry believed an offender lived in their community. It is also important to note that 62% of law enforcement officers surveyed by Tewksbury and Mustaine disagreed with the premise that "sex offender registration and notification is effective in preventing sexual victimization." . The research also raised questions about the accuracy of the information. This shows up in the records: Tewksbury found that 11 percent of sex offenders in urban counties had no address listed on the state registry, 11 percent listed the address of a business establishment, and 5 percent listed an address that didn't really exist. This is why forcing teenagers to register as sex offenders is a horrible idea. Instead, we can reach young people by educating them about the possible consequences of contact with someone who does not consent to being touched. As I indicated previously, the psychosocial maturity of young people is not at its peak. This is why they will not take seriously the fact that registering as a sex offender is a possibility. The only effective way to prevent adolescents from becoming sex offenders is to rehabilitate and educate them about what is considered a crime. Additionally, the results confirm that sex offender registries will not be of much help. This is because not all sex offenders submit accurate information to sex offender registries. this makes a huge difference because people are not able to find accurate identification of these sex offenders. Additionally, not all new landlords check sex offender registries to see if they are present and nearby. Even if they verify, the information is not always entered truthfully. Sex offender registration policies are based on the argument that registration is necessary to prevent dangerous sex offenders from committing further offenses and that the risk of registration deters potential offenders from committing offenses in the first place . Interestingly, however, Tewksbury and Mustaine found that 76% of law enforcement officers disagreed that recording serves a specific deterrent function, and 60% did not. disagreed with the idea that it served a general deterrent function. Indeed, limited research suggests that recording does not serve the former function of specific deterrence for adolescents. Keep in mind: this is just a sample. Get a personalized article from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay According to the introduction, the information that was already known was that any convicted sex offender had to submit all of their personal information to the police and public records to let people know that they lived near an offender sexual. The author described the problem studied with numerous statistics. It says the government holds teenagers accountable for their actions and requires them to submit their personal information to public records if they are found guilty. the authors submitted enough background information and literature to allow me to understand the problem. The solution, however, is not the same as,. 114-125