Sex Crimes Laws as Moral Panic. The goal of these policies is public safety, but is that attainable?

Moral panic occurs when people react to a societal problem with intense fear or outrage toward something they perceive as a threat to their values or safety. Moral panics can happen whether a perceived threat is real or exaggerated. Media accounts fuel and amplify our emotions, and our feelings then turn certain people into villains or monsters.

Nowhere is this phenomenon more prevalent than in the study of sex crimes and the people who commit them.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, there were several horrendous, nightmarish cases across the United States where young children were abducted, sexually violated, and murdered by strangers. The impetus for these laws began in Washington State with the cases of Wesley Alan Dodd and Earl Shriner. Dodd sexually abused, tortured, and murdered three young boys, admitting that he would do it again if the state released him. Shriner kidnapped and tortured a 7-year-old boy shortly after he was released from a decade behind bars. In response, Washington State enacted the Community Protection Act of 1990.

These two cases, along with the kidnapping of Jacob Wetterling from a small, rural town in Minnesota, prompted public outcry.

State and federal lawmakers lined up to enact tough-on-crime legislation, which reassured the public that they were finally doing something about the problem of sexual violence. Unfortunately, reassurance doesn’t always equate with effectiveness.

In 1994, the federal government enacted the Jacob Wetterling Act, which mandated that all states establish registration policies. In that same year, 7-year-old Megan Kanka was lured into the home of Jesse Timmendequas, a man who had a history of sexual offenses, to see his puppy. He raped and murdered her.

Her parents believed that if they had known that someone with a history of sexual violence was living across the street from them, they could have done more to protect their daughter. In 1996, federal lawmakers amended the Jacob Wetterling Act to include notification policies.

Known colloquially as “Megan’s Law,” registration and notification policies are active in all 50 states. By 2003, all 50 states had public internet registries, and in 2006, the federal Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act was signed into law. Among other things, it created the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), established national standards, enacted a national registry, and increased penalties for sex crimes against children.

The goal of these policies was public safety, and I had a strong interest in understanding whether the goal of public safety was attainable.

If you think about the cases that prompted Megan’s Law and other draconian sex crimes policies, they were all young children abducted by strangers who sexually abused them, often tortured them, and killed them. The primary idea behind Megan’s Law was to keep communities informed about dangerous individuals and those who were at risk of reoffending.

But these policies are not effective.

Ultimately, I learned that current sex crimes policies, like Megan’s Law, residency restrictions, and other such policies, do not work. The research in the field has repeatedly shown that these laws don’t make us any safer. At best, they are ineffective. At worst, they create more harm than good. This is also true of prison sentences. In short, the carceral policies we rely on do little to make us safer, and they do nothing to meet the needs of survivors. They were never designed to. Importantly, reactionary criminal legal policies also fail to help those who cause harm to make lasting changes in their lives.

Carceral policies are problematic for several reasons:

1. Sex crimes policies were designed with a specific kind of offense in mind — those who commit repeat, violent crimes against children they do not know. This type of offense is very rare. In practice, all people convicted of a sexual offense are caught in the net, leading to all people with a sex offense conviction being treated as if they are the worst of the worst.

2. Those who experience typical, everyday kinds of sexual harm don’t see themselves reflected in the policies designed to protect them. As an example, sex offense registries make members of the community fear strangers. Yet, the vast majority of sexual offenses are committed by someone we know. When a person is harmed by a loved one, a friend, or another trusted individual, they are less likely to disclose the abuse. Sometimes survivors view harm by someone they know as less severe than if a stranger perpetrated it.

3. Only about 20% of those who experience sexual harm will report their experience to law enforcement. Of those who report, even fewer will result in a formal charge or conviction. In fact, for every 1,000 rapes committed, only six people will serve prison time.

4. Criminal legal policies are reactionary. They only come into effect after someone has been identified by law enforcement, charged, convicted, and sentenced for a criminal act. These laws have no preventive qualities.

5. Criminal legal policies, and sex crimes policies in particular, treat the problem of sexual violence as an individual issue instead of a societal problem. If we continue to focus solely on individuals who are convicted of sexual offenses, we will never end the public health epidemic of sexual violence.

6. Post-conviction sex crimes policies label and isolate people, making it difficult to find jobs and housing. Social isolation can weaken one’s bonds with one’s family, community, and broader society. This can lead to additional criminality.

7. Punishment and accountability are not the same thing. Punishment is passive. Anyone can sit back and let their time pass, whether that be their prison sentence or the number of years they must register. Accountability requires active engagement in dealing with the root causes of one’s behavior.

I spent the first half of my career studying carceral responses to sexual offending. Given what I have learned, I am dedicating the next part of my career to creating pathways to healing and justice that transcend the bounds of the carceral system. Restorative justice is not for every person or every offense. However, it does provide opportunities for real accountability, and it can be used as a preventive tool. Carceral, reactionary policies do not reduce offending. They do not help survivors to heal. They simply provide a false sense of security. Unless and until we decide that one-size-fits-all carceral policies are not the answer, we will never find the solution.