Law Essay Example: Sexual Assault Punishment

Consequences of a community announcement

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The introduction of the community notification by Megan is responsible for the continuous growth of sexual assault among children as well as adults (Duwe, & Donnay, 2008, p. 416). Statistically, the child sexual assault had been on the decrease since the emergence of different laws and policies including the registration aspect of the rape offenders (Levenson, et al., 2007a, p 139). However, this changed immediately on introduction of the community notification by Megan Laws (Schiavone, & Jeglic, 2009, p. 693). The seven percent realized prior to the launch of this policy was brought into balance, and a further eleven percent increase in the child sexual assault offense was accomplished by the year 2007 (Schiavone, & Jeglic, 2009, p. 681).

One of the significant degenerative consequences of the community notification is the instant that was evidenced by 2007 in Washington upon the realization that two individuals under the registry database of sexual assault offense were in the neighborhood (Prescott, & Rockoff, 2008, n. p). Some children were unable to sleep alone with a mindset that these individuals would break in, and this even resulted in the use of some nicknames like monsters (Schiavone, & Jeglic, 2009, p. 688). A person decided to call on the proprietor of those particular places where these two characters inhabited to evict them so that the other part of the community would not live in fear (Levenson, et al., 2007a, p 133). The major consequence that erupts is, therefore, unavoidable concerns that make individuals not to feel safe within their surrounding, and this creates high suspicion (Duwe, & Donnay, 2008, p. 423).

Residency

The next aspect or policy concerning punishment and recidivism rate of child sexual assault offenders in the United States of America is residency restriction. It aims at denying the criminals ability to mingle with other people as far as residency is concerned (Levenson, & Hern, 2007, p. 62). This lies on the fact that people have an intense hysteria about them, and this fear means they cannot live in the same area, dine at the table, or even hardly admit to using the same road (Zgoba, Levenson, & McKee, 2008).

Residency restriction laws, therefore, emerged barring the child sexual assault offenders to reside near social amenities like schools, hospitals, or even organizations to ensure the occupants of such places were very safe from the aspect of sexual harassment. Residency restriction laws emerged in late 2005 and by end 2006 (Levenson, et al., 2007a, p 133), several organizations, as well as institution plus the house owners, had implemented them, while some more were also on the verge of enacting them. Miami is one of the major cities or area within the United States of America where the aspect of residency restriction is highly eminent (Levenson, 2006, p. 33).

To the imagination of individuals, this law serves a great deal as it makes them feel secure from the child sexual assault offenders. Parents with the kids in institutions also have an intuition of safety because their children can walk to and from the school without any fear, since the people who can rape or molest them are not within the vicinity (Levenson, & Hern, 2007, p. 60). Practically, this has a minor impact on the provision of punishment and recidivism rate of sexual assault offenders (Zgoba, Levenson, & McKee, 2008,).

This only interferes with the rights of the child sexual abuse offenders as some are forced to move out of their original places where they have lived for the past numerous years (Levenson, 2006, p. 33). With time, individuals start realizing that this has not reduced or eradicated the issue of child sexual assault in the area. What the United States of America society forgets is that the decision of residence restriction comes up after several assumptions that are not true in most cases (Zgoba, Levenson, & McKee, 2008).

One of these assumptions is that people who have been convicted of sexual crimes can commit a similar crime upon release from conviction and consider them vulnerable, which only occur in a few cases but not always (Levenson, 2006, p. 33). It is, therefore, clear that residency restriction gives the surround or inhabitants of a particular area falls feeling of security with a mentality that child sexual assault offenders are not now part of their lives (Levenson, et al., 2007a, p 162). The reason why several scholars term this feeling as false is that nobody knows even if the remaining individuals are not prone to such offenses (Levenson, & Hern, 2007, p. 71).