The Debate on Juvenile Life-Long Sex Registry

The Debate on Juvenile Life-long Sex Registry

Paul Fosset, Alzadia Gray, Tyeca Hobdy, Christine LaPointe,

Business Communications and Critical Thinking

August 2, 2011

Cynthia Simon

The Debate on Juvenile Life-long Sex Registry

"It was just two months after starting at a new school near his grandmother's house that Johnnie's childhood offense became the gossip of the hallways. It wasn't entirely clear how kids found out. Johnnie heard that the mother of a girl to whom he'd written a love note discovered him on the Delaware Sex Offender Central Registry Web site. The mother may have typed in Johnnie's last name. Or she may have been scanning her ZIP code for local sex offenders. In any case, she found him. And there on the Internet was a photo of Johnnie when he was 11, along with his address, birth date, height and weight at the time of his offense. Below that were two police charges: one was a misdemeanor for the touching over his sister's underwear; the other was a felony for engaging his sister in oral sex, which because it involved mouth-to-genital contact was charged as ‘rape second degree' (Jones, 2007)." This is just one of many examples of the effects of requiring juveniles to register as a sex offender. The boy, who was identified as Johnnie to protect his privacy was called a rapist, was asked if he was a sex offender and was even threatened. On the other hand, parents and the community are responsible for the safety of their children and their neighborhood. If they are not aware of juvenile sex offenders in their neighborhood, their kids and their community are at risk. This paper will review both the pros and cons of requiring juvenile sex offenders to register for life and summarize the team's opinion.

Pro

Legislatures and public officials were adhering to the call of the citizens "that something needs to be done." One legislature made a comment of "People are scared for their kids. They want some help. At least we are looking like we are giving them some." (Salarno. 2010) These are the words of our congressman who have passed the law of juvenile life-long sex registry. In order to understand why a juvenile needs to register as a life-long offender we first need to know why the need for a law to come into place. Three major occurrences have occurred over the past thirty years which has created for a re-structuring of laws. Those three incidents would be the kidnapping and murder of Jacob Wetterling, Megan Kanka, and Adam Walsh.

In 1989 Jacob Wetterling, his brother, and friend were riding their bikes after