Criminal Justice Officials’ Views of Sex Offenders, Sex Offender Registration, Community Notification, and Residency Restrictions

Abstract

Despite widespread media attention, research efforts, and political support, there is relatively little known about how individuals who are employed in the criminal justice system perceive the fairness, efficacy, and scope of policies aimed at sex offenders. The present study considers the attitudes and beliefs toward sex offenders and sex offender laws, including registration, community notification, and residency restrictions, held by a diverse sample of criminal justice officials who represent all three major components of the criminal justice system. Findings reveal that variation exists among types of criminal justice officials with respect to their perspectives on sex offenders, and most criminal justice officials endorse the implementation and enforcement of current sex offender laws, despite having doubts about their efficacy.

KEYWORDS::

• sex offender
• sex offender law
• registration
• notification
• residency restriction
• CATSO

Notes

The CATSO scale items are “Sex offenders have difficulty making friends even if they try real hard”; “Most sex offenders do not have close friends”; “Most sex offenders keep to themselves”; “Sex offenders prefer to stay home alone, rather than be around lots of people”; “Most sex offenders are unmarried men”; “Convicted sex offenders should never be released from prison”; “Sex offenders should wear tracking devices, so their location can be pinpointed at any time;” “People who commit sex offenses should lose their civil rights”; “Trying to rehabilitate a sex offender is a waste of time”; “With support and therapy someone who committed a sexual offense can learn to change their behavior” (This item is reverse coded); “A sex offense committed against someone the perpetrator knows is less serious than a sex offense committed against a stranger”; “Only a few sex offenders are dangerous” (This item is reverse coded); “Someone who uses emotional control when committing a sex offense is not as bad as someone who uses physical control when committing a sex offense”; “The prison sentences sex offenders receive are much too long when compared to the sentence lengths for other crimes” (This item is reverse coded); “Male sex offenders should be punished more severely than female sex offenders”; “Sexual fondling (inappropriate, unwarranted touch) is not as bad as rape”; “Sex offenders have high rates of sexual activity”; and “People who commit sex offenses want to have sex more often than the average person.” Answer categories for these statements include “strongly agree = 1, agree = 2, disagree = 3, and strongly disagree = 4.”

Most respondents in the survey were either white or black, and very few indicated that they were also Hispanic. As such, in order to get a meaningful interpretation out of this measure, race was dichotomized into White and other.

This slightly awkward interpretation (i.e., greater than 100 percent is not really mathematically appropriate) is necessary, due to the calculation of the Exp(B) odds ratio.

TABLE 3 Sources and Patterns of Views on Fairness of Community Notification