Monday, January 12, 2009
Megan's Law
Megan’s Law is a subsection of the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children And Sexually Violent Registration Act of 1994. Megan’s Law mandates that anyone convicted of a crime that violates the Jacob Wetterling Act must have information such as name, address, nature of crime, and incarceration date presented to the public within the vicinity of the convict’s residence, as well as in a public online database. (U.S. Code Collection, Cornell University Law Online). Paralleling this revocation of private rights, other criminals may face legal consequences such as temporary imprisonment and/or frequent contact with an assigned parole officer after a jail sentence has been served. However, persons convicted of a crime that violates the Jacob Wetterling Act face legal and social consequences far more severe than those of another criminal that served a prison sentence of the same length. Because so many legal and social structures exist to prohibit a person from becoming a sex offender, the conditions of Megan’s Law are justified as an ethical consequence to any and all violations of the Jacob Wetterling Act.
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Ben, I'm not sure I completely understand the argument here. You are saying that because so many things exist in our society (the public) to prevent people from becoming sex offenders, that those people who do must automatically surrender more of their privacy than those who commit other, non-sex-offender crimes? Couldn't you argue that there exist many things to prevent people from becoming murderers or bank robbers (beyond laws and social mores, I'm talking about lessons taught to us from a very young age, plus technology making both crimes more difficult to pull off without being caught)? If that's true, why does becoming a sex offender make one need to give up more privacy than one who decides to rob banks even though similar amounts of social structures would call both outcomes "bad" or "deviant"? Is there more to sex offenses that requires such a privacy violation beyond this? What would it be? What are some of the practical repercussions of the violations of privacy that Megan's Law creates? Do these do any good? Do they prevent future harm to other children? Can we prove that? Why isn't there a murderers database (or a bank robbers one) so I can see when one of them moves into my neighborhood? If I didn't have children, wouldn't the bank robbers database help me to keep my possessions and belongings safe? I'm not sure if this argument will hold up for an entire paper. It also leaves a lot of space for where the philosophy might fit in. You may have been better of with a more clear vision of the public/private problem of Megan's Law and sex offenders and a slightly different argument.
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