Crime Committee Report e.indd - New York State Senate

4. Many states have declined to adopt the federal Adam Walsh Act that would expand community
notification via the state’s Internet registry to include registered offenders who
pose the lowest risk of re-offense; require that anytime affirmative community notification
is undertaken that law enforcement concurrently conduct community education to
ensure that risk is communicated in a way that makes sense; monitor acts of vigilantism
and take action against anyone found to have abused the use of the Internet registry
to harass or harm a registered offender or his family. Community notification has been
found to have no demonstrable impact on sexual recidivism. In fact, some studies suggest
that community notification may aggravate stressors that lead to increased recidivism
32 , and requiring broad community notification via the Internet may discourage
some victims of sexual abuse from reporting incidents to the authorities. Victims may
be reluctant to report offenses out of concern for a perpetrator who is close to them ( a
relative, a step-parent), or out of concern for their own privacy. 33 The Adam Walsh Act
would take New York in a dangerously opposite direction, besides the fact that experts
agree that it would cost more to implement than the state would stand to lose in federal
grant money.
5. Pass the Healthy Teens Act, 34 a bill pending in both the Assembly and the Senate, which
would establish an age-appropriate and medically accurate program of comprehensive
sex education, including instruction on avoiding unwanted verbal, physical and sexual
advances. Each year, New York adds another restriction on those already convicted of
sex offenses as a means to prevent sexual violence against children. However, the overwhelming
majority (around 95%) of sex offenses, including rape and child molestation,
are committed by those who have never before been convicted of an offense. This means
that New York concentrates all of its legislative efforts on preventing only 5% of all sex
crimes against children, and completely ignores the threat posed by first-time offenders.
The Healthy Teens Act would provide young people with age-appropriate comprehensive
sex education that would include instruction about how to avoid becoming a victim—perhaps
the most valuable and effective tool way to reduce the incidence of child
sexual assault.
32 Naomi J. Freeman, The Public Safety Impact of Community Notification Laws, Crime & Delinquency (2009) (“Empirical research has suggested
that sex offenders do not always commit crimes within their areas of residence and, thus, the areas in which notification occurs. Indeed,
studies in Colorado and Minnesota found that sex offenders are unlikely to offend close to their homes and within the area that notification
occurs; rather, sex offenders may travel, on average, 3 to 5 miles to gain access to victims.”).
33 Jeffrey C. Sandler, Does a Watched Pot Boil? A Time-Series Analysis of New York State’s Sex Offender Registration and Notification Law,
Psychology, Contextualizing Sex Offender Management Legislation and Policy: Evaluating the problem of Latent Consequences in Community
Notification Laws, International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology (2001).
34 Assembly Bill 1806A (Assemblyman Gottfried)/Senate Bill 3836 (Senator Duane).
Standing Committee on Crime Victims, Crime and Correction | 2009-2010 Report 29