Many groups have recently been clamoring for Taiwan to adopt its own version of Megan’s Law, which is an informal name for US federal and state laws that seek to punish those convicted of sex crimes. The main provisions of these laws include mandatory registration of sex offenders, restrictions on their place of residence and publication of their personal details on the Internet. While the details of any such draft law that could be proposed in Taiwan are not yet known, it is perhaps a good time to point out some problems that have arisen from the existing legislation in the US.
Ever since the Sexual Offender (Jacob Wetterling) Act — the US federal “Megan’s Law” — was passed in 1994, US civic groups, law enforcement officials and social welfare departments have been reconsidering the effects of this legislation. In September 2007, New York-based global rights group Human Rights Watch published a report on US laws related to the punishment and rehabilitation of sex offenders. People interviewed in the course of research for the report included law enforcement agencies in various US states, researchers, psychological counseling services, victims and their families, prosecutors, police, and offenders and their families.
Megan’s Law and similar laws are mostly based on two big misconceptions. The first is that most sexual offenses are committed by strangers, and the second is that there is a high rate of recidivism for this kind of offense.
In fact, according to figures published by the US Bureau of Justice Statistics, more than 80 percent of sexual crimes in which the victim is aged below 18 are committed by someone known to the victim. Taiwan’s Ministry of the Interior has published similar figures, and also tells us that 59 percent of perpetrators are people trusted by everyone in the victim’s family.
Although the notion that sex offenders frequently reoffend is often repeated in the media, such sources rarely mention any evidence for such an assertion. The Human Rights Watch report quotes research published in 2004 by Public Safety Canada, a Canadian federal ministry, as being the most comprehensive study of sex offender recidivism to date.
The Canadian study analyzed the behavior of more than 29,000 convicted sex offenders for a period of up to 15 years following their release from jail. It was found that 14 percent of were arrested or convicted for a new sex crime within four to six years of their release, with the recidivism rate rising to 24 percent over 15 years. Follow-up studies on released sex offenders conducted by correctional departments in New York State in 2002 and Ohio in 2001 produced similar figures.
These statistics are not intended to defend sex offenders, but to show that making their personal data visible to everyone on the Internet is no remedy for the problem of sexual offences against minors, in which most perpetrators are family members or acquaintances of the victims.
On the contrary, it can have dire consequences. Under Megan’s Law, offenders’ personal details may be made available online with no limit as to who may view them or how long they will be listed. In the Internet age, this is no different from the medieval practice of tattooing a criminal to mark him or her for life. It does nothing to help rehabilitate sex offenders or reintegrate them into society and it can give rise to social problems such as violence against offenders by members of the public.
For example, between 2005 and 2006 there were six instances in the US of strangers killing former offenders after finding their details on the Internet. Even innocent members of offenders’ families may suffer by association and never find anywhere where they can live in peace.
After interviewing many people involved in the issue, Human Rights Watch drew the conclusion expressed in the title of its report — No Easy Answers — that there is no simple solution to the problem of sex crime. The best thing to do would be to keep working on preventive measures, law enforcement, education, effective rehabilitation and intervention by trained professionals.
Sex offenses are a problem the world over, but only the US has responded by enacting legislation such as Megan’s Law that affects so many people and for so long. Considering that many people in the US are already having second thoughts about this law, shouldn’t we in Taiwan look more deeply into its implications? The task of making a law that will really help solve the problem, rather than causing even more social ills, is going to be a test of our lawmakers’ wisdom.
Yeh Ting-chun is director of campaigns and advocacy with the Taiwan Association for Human Rights.
TRANSLATED BY JULIAN CLEGG
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