NCJ Number
195854
Journal
Federal Probation Volume: 66 Issue: 1 Dated: June 2002 Pages: 21-26
Date Published
June 2002
Length
6 pages
Annotation
This article draws on the data of 537 registered sex offenders on the Kentucky Sex Offender Registry to assess the potential for sex offender registries to provide useful information about sex offenders.
Abstract
Currently, all 50 States maintain sex offender registries and have some type of statutory provision for notifying community members when a sex offender lives in the neighborhood. The rationale for such registries and notification laws are to deter recidivism, enhance police effectiveness in preventing or solving sex offenses, and promoting community awareness and self-protection. The study reported in this article assessed the accuracy of the information contained on the publicly accessible, Internet-based sex offender registry in Kentucky. All data for the analysis were collected from the Kentucky State Police Sex Offender Registry website (http://kspor.state.ky.org/). All data were collected for July 4, 2001. After selecting all registered offenders for the sample counties, each individual offender's listing was reviewed and variable data recorded. The study found that a significant percentage of registered and listed sex offenders did not have sufficient information provided to allow the public to determine the offender's residence or proximity. Only three out of four sex offenders' neighbors would have any chance of knowing about an offender's location. There was also a lack of photographs for the majority of registrants for whom no address was listed. The absence of location information and photographs makes the public's awareness of sex offenders in their midst all but impossible. The findings of this one study, however, do not constitute an indictment of the usefulness of all such registries. Additional research is needed to determine whether the skeptics are correct in their negative assessments of such systems. 4 tables and 25 references