Once convicted of a sex crime, sex offenders must register under the United States Department of Justice National Sex Offender Registry in which they must disclose their address and are required to update their address anytime they move which doesn’t always happen (Allen, Latessa, & Ponder, 2016). Some positive outcomes of the registration requirement prove to be beneficial to communities by having better “eyes on” and a deterrence of future sex crimes occurring in that particular area. Moreover, it is beneficial for law enforcement to have a lead bank to refer to in the event a sex crime does occur within that community. The negative drawback is members of that community taking matters into their own hands by harassing registered offenders. Additionally, some of those who are registered are as a sex offender, may not be a sex offender at all (i.e. a high school boy who slept with his high school girlfriend and was convicted of statuary rape because the legal age gap).
I think having sex offenders register serves to be the greater good than not. I don’t think it’s unfair to the offender, and people have a right to know when they or their children could be in danger.
