Former sexual offenders can be a direct threat to communities, especially if people do not know about their status. Thus, citizens should be notified when a former sexual offender moves into their neighborhood. Statistics demonstrate that annually many women and children become victims of sexual abuse. Letting citizens know that sexual offenders live in their community will reduce the risk of attacks and increase the level of safety. Citizens must demand that their local authorities keep them notified about sexual offenders and utilize existing evidence to support their demand. I have conducted extensive research on this topic and studied a variety of measures that can be implemented.
Problem
- Former sexual offenders can be potentially dangerous individuals since, according to the statistics, half of them have a subsequent arrest which leads to a conviction (Alper and Durose 1)
- Annually, in the U.S., 300,000 women become raped and 900,000 children maltreated. This puts at risk a large number of people (Bonnar-Kidd 412).
Solution and Potential Results
- Notifying the people who live in a neighborhood with former sexual offenders must become mandatory, and this can be done by relying on registries (RAINN).
- Notification will make neighborhoods safer, as evidenced by the results of a study conducted in Minnesota, where former sexual offenders subjected to notification were significantly less likely to re-offend (Duwe and Donnay 440).
Actions
- Citizens must demand that their local authorities implement special acts which would require police to notify members of a community about every sex offender who lives near them.
- While supporting such policies, citizens must use evidence of their effectiveness, providing information on how notification helped reduce the rate of recidivism in other regions.
Conclusion
According to statistics, sexual offenders tend to commit new crimes even after being released from prison. If such individuals settle in a particular neighborhood, its citizens must be notified about it. This will reduce the risk of recidivism and ensure community safety. Citizens have to insist on being notified about former offenders by their local authorities and use studies on the effectiveness of notification to demonstrate that such policies work. Citizens must be notified on every occasion when a former sexual offender becomes one of their neighbors. Thus, by implementing the notification program, citizens will be less likely to be subjected to abuse on the part of former criminals.