Impact of sex offender registration and notification on juvenile sex offenders

• In Event: Perspectives on Punishment for Juvenile Sex Offenders

Abstract

Title I of the Adam Walsh Act, 2006 or SORNA is unique from previous federal sex offender laws because it requires all juveniles adjudicated delinquent or convicted of a sex crime in adult court to be registered as sex offenders and be subjected to community notification like adults. However, not all states have complied with the federal mandate. Some states have been principally opposed to SORNA because it mandates the inclusion of juveniles. In as much as registration and notification is targeted at specific deterrence of individual sex offenders, states also pass SORN policies to deter potential offenders. Few studies have looked at the general deterrence effects of such laws. Therefore, the aim here is to test across states, the impact of having complied with the federal mandate as opposed to not complying with it, while controlling for certain variables. Data for three states including official records have been collected as well as socio-demographic information that is controlled for and I will test for general deterrence either using Poisson regression or negative binomial regression. Additionally, a time series analysis will be conducted in the summer using data from three time points- before, during and after state compliance with SORNA.

Author

• Stuti Subbaiah Kokkalera, Northeastern University