Governor George Pataki hands Laura Ahearn, CSW, Executive Director of Parents for Megan’s Law, the first pen used to sign an amendment. The legislation closes loopholes in the previously unenforceable law.
Governor George Pataki hands Laura Ahern, executive director of Parents for Megan’s Law, the first pen used to sign an amendment. The legislation closes loopholes in the previously unenforceable law.
The New York Times
Trying to Sort Out the Legalities of Megan’s Law [May 16] presented a skewed perception of sexoffender recidivism rates and was unbalanced because it failed to include statistics and otheropinions supporting community notification of the whereabouts of high-risk sex offenders.
Although sex offender treatment will not eliminate sex crimes, research supports the notion thattreatment can decrease sex offenses. However, generalizations about recidivism rates should not bemade because program selection criteria drastically affect resulting rates. For
example, recidivism rates for low-risk sex offenders should not be associated with communitynotification, which
The Reno, Nevada Police Department is the second law enforcement agency in the country to use Megan’s Mapper, a software program that uses geographic mapping to notify residents when a sex offender moves into the neighborhood. The program can generate thousands of notification letters in minutes, track where sex offenders live and create databases of sex crime convicts who are not required to register. It is estimated that the new system can do in 30 minutes what would have taken a week to do before. Police say that the mapping
Laura Ahearn, a certified social worker and mother of two daughters discovered more than two years after New York enacted the Sex Offender Registration Act of 1996 (Megan’s Law), that the Suffolk County Police Department had stopped enforcing it. In May 1998, Denny Chin, a Federal judge, ruled that Megan’s Law could not be applied retroactively and the Suffolk County police mistakenly applied the injunction, meant for sex offenders who were on probation, on parole or incarcerated prior to the day the law took effect, to all convicted sex offenders.
Real Estate Agents are trying to figure out if they are obligated to tell prospective home buyers that a convicted sex offender lives in the neighborhood. If they do reveal this, agents are worried that the home will never be sold and/or that real estate prices will drop. On the other hand, they are concerned about liability if they fail to disclose such information. Laws in California, Alaska and Virginia require real estate agents to advise home buyers, in writing, about local law enforcement agencies, databases, etc. that will reveal