a public defender

IIRC, the two studies cited were performed around 2004, but I’d have to look it up to be certain. There was another study out of Arkansas–deeply flawed–that often gets cited in favor of restrictions. But the Arkansas study found no connection between offenses committed and registrants’ homes. They basically concluded that since registrants lived within a certain radius of schools and such, it must be because children were present. The study made no effort to control for available housing and the like.

The most recent examination of Megan’s Law was done by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, out of the UK. The pdf is here:
Click here [.pdf] (Edited by admin for better appearance.)

It addresses the utter lack of US research on the matter of effectiveness, and cites research suggesting the current laws actually deter reporting.

There are a few pieces of research out there, most from before 2005, on the effectiveness of community notification. I’ll see what I can pull from my files later today.

The non-wrapping of URLs in the comments is bugging me. I’ll have to find a fix for it. In the meantime, I’m going to edit that, if you don’t mind, so it doesn’t run off into the sidebar like that.

As to your comment, I think the lack of readily available studies on this crucial matter is very telling. There is no scientific basis (as of yet) for this push in favor of residency restrictions. For all we know, they may be utterly useless or counter-productive. I think some defense organization needs to commission a study on this immediately, before it is too late.

Thanks for the edit. I haven’t a clue how to make the links shorter!

I have more links. Would you rather I email them to you?

If you’d like, sure! Alternatively, I think you can use HTML in the comments.

So the tag would be:

< a href="http://www.google.com" >Google< /a > (without the spaces before and after the < and >

and that would produce:

Google

I’ll email ‘em. Considering my level of competence with html matters, it’s probably the safer choice. But…I must be missing it, but can’t find your email on the blog!

You know what, you’re absolutely right! I don’t have my e-mail address anywhere! No wonder I haven’t received any spam e-mails lately.

threegenerations at gmail dot com

Another interesting piece of information:

Megan’s Law Research

Quote: “This is an ongoing initiative scheduled to last 18 months (3 phases). This project will culminate into the first study of its kind in the USA to assess the empirical efficacy of New Jersey’s Megan’s Law.”

According to the blurb, they’ll be examining arrest records before and after the law’s enactment. Good to see someone is going to look at the numbers but, as the UK study pointed out, it’s almost impossible to isolate the effects of Megan’s Law on recidivism.

(I hope I did the link correctly…)