Victims’ Attitudes Toward Sex Offenders and Sex Offender Legislation

• Author: Elizabeth L. Jeglic,Anniken Laake,Christina Johnson,Leah E. Kaylor,Michelle Rosselli,Sarah Schaaf,Susanne Spoo
• Published date: 01 August 2018
• Date: 01 August 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0306624X17740537
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0306624X17740537

International Journal of

Offender Therapy and

Comparative Criminology

2018, Vol. 62(11) 3385 –3407

© The Author(s) 2017

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DOI: 10.1177/0306624X17740537

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Article

Victims’ Attitudes Toward

Sex Offenders and Sex

Offender Legislation

Susanne Spoo1, Leah E. Kaylor2, Sarah Schaaf

3,

Michelle Rosselli4, Anniken Laake5, Christina Johnson6,

and Elizabeth L. Jeglic5

Abstract

It is commonly assumed that victims of sexual abuse feel more negatively toward sex

offenders and advocate for harsher punishments than individuals who have not been

victimized. This belief was examined by comparing attitudes toward sex offenders

and their treatment, support of registration, notification, and residence restriction

policies, as well as general knowledge about sex offenders between a sample of 129

individuals who reported sexual victimization and a sample of 841 individuals who

did not report sexual victimization. Overall, we found that victims of sexual abuse

reported more positive attitudes toward sex offenders and were more supportive

of mandated treatment compared with nonvictims. However, while victims showed

decreased support for the community notification laws, there were no differences

in support of residence restrictions laws compared with those who reported no

victimization. Finally, knowledge about sex offenders predicted attitudes regardless of

victim status. These findings are discussed as they pertain to sex offender treatment

and legislation.

Keywords

victims, attitudes, sexual offense, legislation

1Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands

2Saint Louis University, St. Louis. Missouri, USA

3Fairleigh Dickinson University, Teaneck, NJ, USA

4William Paterson University, Wayne, NJ, USA

5John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York, NY, USA

6RSA Inc., Denver, CO, USA

Corresponding Author:

Elizabeth L. Jeglic, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, 524 West 59th Street, New York,

NY 10019, USA.

Email: ejeglic@jjay.cuny.edu

740537IJOXXX10.1177/0306624X17740537International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative CriminologySpoo et al.

research-article2017

3386 International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 62(11)

Sexual assault is a serious concern. It is estimated that nearly one out of every five

women has experienced rape (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2012) and

that one in six boys and one in four girls are sexually abused before the age of 18

(National Sexual Violence Resource Center, 2015). However, only one in 20 of these

cases of sexual abuse is actually reported to or identified by authorities (Hornor, 2010)

and thus these statistics underscore the prevalence of sexual violence in our society

and consequently beg the question—What can be done to stop this from happening?

Our current legislative efforts directed toward sexual violence reduction were

established within the last 20 years, usually following the tragic sexual assault, kid-

napping, and/or murder of children (Calkins, Jeglic, Beattey, Zeidman, & Perillo,

2014). In many of these cases, the murdered children’s parents became advocates for

criminal justice reform and consequently many of the legislative initiatives directed

toward sex offenders have been named for these children. The first national U.S. law

was enacted in 1994, following the kidnapping and murder of an 11-year-old boy in

Minnesota (Jacob Wetterling Act, 1994), and required certain sex offenders convicted

of sexually violent crimes to register on a state-based sex offender registry (Petrunik,

2002; Sample & Bray, 2006). The Wetterling Act required all 50 states to create and

maintain a registry that tracked offenders. Furthermore, the states were required to

confirm sex offenders’ place of residence every year between 10 years to life, depend-

ing upon the gravity of the crime. States that did not establish a registry would forfeit

10% of federal funding for state and local law enforcement (Petrunik, 2002; Sample &

Bray, 2006). In 1996, following the rape and murder of 7-year-old Megan Kanka in

New Jersey by a twice-convicted sex offender, the sex offender registry came to

national attention and Megan’s Law was enacted nationally as a subsection of the

Jacob Wetterling Act. This Act mandated that all 50 states must develop and maintain

publicly available state-based sex offender registries (Calkins et al., 2014).

The most recent sex offender registration legislation—The Adam Walsh Child

Protection and Safety Act (Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act

[SORNA])—was passed in 2006 and named for 6-year-old Adam Walsh who was

abducted and murdered (Freeman & Sandler, 2010; Schiavone & Jeglic, 2009). The

enactment of SORNA created a new baseline standard for the implementation of sex

offender registration and notification nationally. This federal law requires all states to

maintain and publish information concerning sex offenders’ whereabouts on the

National Sex Offender Registry and requires that sex offenders be classified into one

of three tiers based on their offense conviction (McPherson, 2007). SORNA also

expanded registration requirements to include certain juvenile sex offenders (Freeman

& Sandler, 2010).

Next to SORNA and the Jacob Wetterling Act, additional laws targeting sex

offenders have been passed in recent years. One example of such legislation is resi-

dence restriction statutes that have been implemented in 30 states and many jurisdic-

tions (Colombino, Mercado, & Jeglic, 2009). This geographical approach to reducing

recidivism among sex offenders prohibits registered sex offenders from residing and

loitering within close proximity to places where children congregate. These statuto-

rily defined places include schools, parks, bus stops, playgrounds, churches, and day