Given concerns about the theoretical and practical assumptions on which Megan's Law is based, combined with the high costs involved, it is reasonable to assume that all aspects relating to these laws should be permanently assessed and evaluated (Petrosino and Petrosino 1999). However, despite its popularity, huge
commitment of resources, and the fact that community notification in respect to sex offenders has become increasingly widespread over the last 15 years, there is surprisingly little research into the effectiveness of such measures. While the practical difficulties of conducting research on sexual offending will certainly play a role in this, other reasons appear to include the huge differences between and within states with respect to the design and implementation of these measures (CSOM 2001b).
Megan's Law seems to have been enacted without a proper knowledge base about the effectiveness of both registration and community notification. By 1996 only California and Washington State had produced written reviews (Matson and Lieb 1996b) and only one study, by the Washington State Institute for Public Policy, had examined empirically whether community notification helped in protecting citizens by reducing recidivism (Lieb 1998).
Since then, Pawson, in his exploration of the question of whether Megan’s Law works (Pawson 2002), argues that when looking at outcome evidence there is only one study by Schram and Milloy, published in 1995, that even 4approximated to the so-called gold standard of the controlled comparison'' (Pawson 2002, p 43). However, even in this study, the outcome evidence on re-offending is difficult to interpret. The two groups used were not randomly assigned, which results in an inherent selection bias in the design of the study (Petrosino and Petrosino 1999). Despite this shortcoming Pawson (2002) defends the quality of the study by pointing out that it would be impractical and ethically dubious to assign offenders randomly to experimental and control groups when dealing with sex offences.
In their study, Schram and Milloy found that it seems to be the case that '‘community notification had little effect on recidivism' (Schram and Milloy 1995, p 20) in respect to both juvenile and adult sex offenders, but that it "may have had an impact on the timing of new arrests' (ibid.). Those offenders subjected to community notification
"were arrested for new crimes much more quickly than comparable offenders who were released without notification' (Schram and Milloy 1995, p 19). One could argue that this leads to the conclusion that the strength of Megan's Law lies with detection rather than prevention (Pawson 2002).
However, there is another theoretical possibility. Behavioural difficulties can be assumed to be aggravated by societal reactions to them (McCaghy and Capron 1994). Community notification measures potentially increase an offender’s level of stress and feelings of isolation, shame and rejection (Edwards 2001). As such it can produce negative emotional states in the offender who, even if previously treated and willing to change, might thereby be driven towards a cognitively distorted way of decision making. If maladjustment to the community setting and negative emotional states are potential triggers in reoffending, community notification measures can be perceived as increasing the likelihood thereof (Edwards 2001).
As can be seen from Diagram 6.1 the increase in detection of crimes that results from Megan's Law lies with the amount of crime in general rather than specifically with sexual offences. In the case of sexual crimes, both notification and control group appear to have a comparable rate of recidivism within a similar timeframe. The recidivism rate of around 20% for sex offences is consistent with findings by other studies.
Schram and Millroy (1995) point out that these findings are difficult to interpret without further research into potential changes in law enforcement and the behaviour of the community that might result from notification. Some authors have argued that the findings of this research indicate that community notification is 'producing a different response from the offender, law enforcement and or the community, either in combination or alone' and therefore can be considered as having an effect (Lieb 1998, p 102). This, however, should not be misperceived as being effective in the sense of achieving the intended goals.
Diagram 6.1: Findings of Schram & Millroy
ESTIMATED CUMULATIVE PERCENTAGE ARRESTED
FOR NEW SEX OFFENSES BY MONTHS AT RISK
Cumulative Percentage Arrested for New Sex Offenses 100% I— --- ,... ...
80% ... -... ... 80%...
40%
Months at Risk
♦Notification Group - Comparison Group
ESTIMATED CUMULATIVE PERCENTAGE ARRESTED
FOR NEW OFFENSES OF ANY KIND BY MONTHS AT RISK
100% 80% 60% 40% 20% 0% Months at Risk
♦Notification Group ■ Comparison Group
Cumulative Percentage Arrested for New Offenses
6 12 18 24 30 36 42 48 54
(Schram and Milloy 1995, pp 17-18)
The next question is whether Megan's Law helps potential victims to protect
themselves. An exploratory assessment of Megan's Law’s preventive potential was carried out by Petrosino and Petrosino (1999). Examining an existing set of data on sexual offenders, consisting of the relevant criminal history of these offenders and geographical data relating to their offences, their aim was to identify retrospectively the
‘potential of the law for preventing the most recent crimes (the instant offenses) of a sample of serious sex offenders and for the more focused analysis of stranger-predatory offenses'1 (Petrosino and Petrosino 1999, p
145).
Out of the 136 cases of serious sexual offences they looked at, 36 had committed an offence in the past that would have required them to undergo registration. Out of these 36 cases they found that the majority of those offenders eligible for registration had not committed stranger-predatory offences. This is outlined in Table 6.3 while the potential effectiveness is illustrated in Table 6.4.