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4 Va. J. Crim. L. 241 (2016)
Moral Panic and the Politics of Fear: The Dubious Logic Underlying Sex Offender Registration Statutes and Proposals for Restoring Measures of Judicial Discretion to Sex Offender Management

handle is hein.journals/virjcr4 and id is 245 raw text is: VIRGINIA JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL LAW VOL. 4 2016 No. 2 MORAL PANIC AND THE POLITICS OF FEAR: THE DUBIOUS LOGIC UNDERLYING SEX OFFENDER REGISTRATION STATUTES AND PROPOSALS FOR RESTORING MEASURES OF JUDICIAL DISCRETION TO SEX OFFENDER MANAGEMENT Mary Katherine Huffinan* ABSTRACT Existing sex offender management legislation generally represents an emotional response to a few well-publicized incidents involving child-victims. Federal and state legislative initiatives mandating sex offender registration for all defendants convicted of a sexually-oriented offense lack an empirical foundation and should be modified to embrace the scholarly research produced in the past twenty-five years. The abundant research focused on sex offenders, while persuasive, fails to consider the role of the judiciary in sex offender management. Sex offenders can be more effectively supervised by restoring a measure of judicial discretion to offender management. Judicial involvement in sex offender management should include discretion to determine registration duties for low-risk first-time sex offenders, authority to consider individualized risk assessment in the imposition of registration duties and in managing offenders, expanded jurisdiction to authorize deregistration for low-levelfirst-time sex offenders, and the implementation of specialized sex offender courts modeled after other successful problem-solving courts. Judge, Montgomery County, Ohio Common Pleas Court; Adjunct Professor, University of Dayton School of Law; B.A., Wright State University, M.A., University of Nevada- Reno, J.D., University of Dayton. I owe a debt of gratitude to Dianne Weiskittle and Stephanie O'Banion for their suggestions and encouragement.

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