Confession of Moral Bankruptcy Essay -- Sex Offenders Crime Essays

Confession of Moral Bankruptcy State and local governments are both challenged by the problems of sexual predators. This issue has been addressed at the federal level for many years, but now state and local governments are being given the responsibility to change policy. What this paper will examine are three major issues. This paper will examine what state and local governments are doing in context to the civil commitment issue. Secondly, once sexual predators are given the opportunity to return to society there is always the fear that they will commit crimes again. Therefore, all fifty states have some form of a sexual predator registry. Third, states and communities are beginning to prevent sexual predators from moving into areas where they are not identified by community notification laws, more commonly known as Megan’s Law. In order to address these problems, state and local governments are passing new legislation to help deal with these issues. In the last ten years, state and local governments have begun to legislate policy changes on the issue of sexual predators and most are still deciding how to make it work within their own locality. Once sexual predators have served their time in prison, there remains the daunting question of will they relapse back to their former state, or even a more fearful question of have they even been cured of this illness? According to John Leo of the US News and World Report, â€Å"The state has an obligation to defend the public from dangerous criminals. Is it really helpless to act if a violent inmate with a long record says he plans to mutilate and kill children when released? To say authorities can’t do anything but wait for a child to be murdered is a confession of moral bankruptcy.... ...iminary Report.† International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparitive Criminology. Galveston: Sage Publications, 2003. Office of the Attroney General, 2003, â€Å"Kilgore Files Richard Ausley Civil Commitment Petition - Convicted Pedophile Faces Criminal Trial Prior to Civil Commitment Hearing -† Retrieved on 4-25-04. http://www.oag.state.va.us/media%20center/Current%20AG%20News%20 Releases/080503_ PrimeTime, 2001, â€Å"Predators Among Us: PrimeTime Investigates Release of Dangerous Sexual Offenders† Retrived on 4-25-04. http://abcnews.go.com/sections/primetime/2020/PRIMETIME_010621_classof91_featur e.html Roberts, Julian V., et al. Penal Populism and Public Opinion. New York: Oxford Press, 2003. Teir, Robert and Kevin Coy. Approaches to Sexual Predators: Community Notification and Civil Commitment. New England Journal on Criminal and Civil Confinement 1997.