Mapping Registered Sex Offenders in Wood County: Considering the School Buffer Zone and Housing Rent

2005 Ohio:

Introduction
The rising numbers of sex crimes have been the focus of public opinion since the past two decades and public response to sexual crimes has become harsher than ever. In 1994, the rape-murder of 7-year-old Megan Kanka of New Jersey shocked the public and led to the enactment of the Megan’s Law in May 1996, which requires convicted sex offenders to register with police prior to moving to the neighborhood. The state sexual offender registry targets to keep detailed information of sexual offenders, and enables the police to utilize the information to track released sexual offenders. This registry later has been extended to the community notification laws. In 47 of the 50 states requiring sex offender registration (Philips, 1998), local authorities are allowed to notify the community of the convicted sex offender’s information, including home and work address, a photograph and description of physical attributes and the offense involved. By community notification of former offenders, it is expected that parents will be able to inform their children to avoid the dangerous persons in the community, and since everyone knows the offenders in the community, the opportunity for reoffending will be minimized. ..more.. (Large 2.39MB file) by Qiang Xu -and- Yu Zhou, Bowling Green State University