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Full-Text Articles in Law
Sex Offender Law And The Geography Of Victimization, Amanda Y. Agan, J. J. Prescott
Sex Offender Law And The Geography Of Victimization, Amanda Y. Agan, J. J. Prescott
Articles
Sex offender laws that target recidivism (e.g., community notification and residency restriction regimes) are premised—at least in part—on the idea that sex offender proximity and victimization risk are positively correlated. We examine this relationship by combining past and current address information of registered sex offenders (RSOs) with crime data from Baltimore County, Maryland, to study how crime rates vary across neighborhoods with different concentrations of resident RSOs. Contrary to the assumptions of policymakers and the public, we find that, all else equal, reported sex offense victimization risk is generally (although not uniformly) lower in neighborhoods where more RSOs live. To …
Child Pornography And Community Notification: How An Attempt To Reduce Crime Can Achieve The Opposite, J. J. Prescott
Child Pornography And Community Notification: How An Attempt To Reduce Crime Can Achieve The Opposite, J. J. Prescott
Articles
Community notification laws, designed to reduce the frequency of sex offenses by alerting potential victims to nearby threats and by encouraging citizen monitoring of potential recidivists, may make sense in the context of traditional sex offenses and sex offenders. But child pornography crimes and the individuals who commit them are different, and they differ from archetypal sex crimes and criminals in ways that may unintentionally cause community notification laws to facilitate crime rather than inhibit it. Child porn offenses typically involve money or trade, and their commission hinges on successfully conspiring with others. Markets and information are necessary building blocks …