The Many Colors of Injustice: International Megan’s Law and the Carceral Creep between Sex Trafficking and Sex Offender Laws and Policies

• In Event: Critical Approaches to Sex Crime and Sex Offending in Law, Policy, and Reform Movements

Abstract

Sex crime marks an arena of the criminal justice system that remains untouched by the current wave of criminal justice reforms and efforts to curb mass incarceration. The groundswell of social movement activity to combat sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation has led to a host of new laws and policy reforms that “govern through crime.” These laws build upon the infrastructure of “memorial legislation” named for youthful victims of sexual abuse and violence to investigate, punish, and monitor sex offenders. The confluence of increasingly punitive sex offense laws and efforts to rescue and protect victims of commercial sexual exploitation reveals the carceral creep of the anti trafficking movement. This paper examines the role of social movements in the recent passage of the “International Megan’s Law,” which ostensibly seeks to “prevent child exploitation and other sexual crimes through advanced notification of traveling sex offenders” and a “conspicuous” mark on the passports of anyone with a previous conviction for a sex offense involving a minor. Drawing on legislative history and analysis of campaigns regarding child sex tourism and commercial sexual exploitation, this paper analyzes how antitrafficking advocates and their allies have mobilized raced, classed, and gendered narratives of sexual aggression and victimization to galvanize support for reforms that reinforce and internationalize the US’s punitive criminal justice approach to both sex offending and prostitution.

Author

• Edith Kinney, San Jose State University