The Public Safety Potential of Megan's Law in Massachusetts: An Assessment from a Sample of Criminal Sexual Psychopaths

Abstract

This article presents an exploratory assessment of the potential of Megan's Law to prevent subsequent sex offenses in Massachusetts. Using secondary data on 136 criminal sexual psychopaths, the authors found that 27 percent of the sample had a prior conviction that met the requirements of the Massachusetts Registry Law before their most recent sex crime. Of these 36 offenders who would have been eligible for the registry, 12 committed a stranger-predatory sex offense; the remaining 24 offended against family, friends, and coworkers. Assuming a registration and notification system of complete integrity, proactive police warnings could have potentially reached subsequent victims in 6 of the 12 stranger-predatory cases.