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10 Criminology & Pub. Pol'y 265 (2011)
The Need to Debate the Fate of Sex Offender Community Notification Laws

handle is hein.journals/crpp10 and id is 271 raw text is: POLICY ESSAY IMPACTS OF SEX OFFENDER NOTIFICATION ON COMMUNITY BE H AV 10 R The need to debate the fate of sex offender community notification laws Lisa L. Sample University of Nebraska at Omaha More than 10 years after the passage of sex offender registration and community notification laws, research continues to suggest that few, if any, of their goals have been realized. Many scholars suggest that these laws were intended to affect sex offenders' behaviors and to reduce reoffending; yet to date, scant empirical evidence of this effect has been found (Adkins, Huff, and Stageberg, 2000; Levenson, 2006; Schram and Milloy, 1995; Walker, Madden, Vasquez, VanHouten, and Ervin-McLarty, 2005; Zevitz, 2006). As discussed by Bandy (2011, this issue), others argue that the goal of notification is to engender self-protective behaviors among citizens; yet investigations into the public's behaviors suggest that these laws do little to encourage individuals to adopt preventative measures for themselves or their children (Anderson and Sample, 2008; Anderson, Evans, and Sample, 2009; Beck and Travis, 2004). The lack of empirical evidence to demonstrate reduced recidivism or changes in citizen's behaviors, coupled with the constitutional and human rights questions surrounding these laws, have lead some scholars to conclude that community notification has little value and should be repealed. In this policy essay, I suggest, however, that much debate still needs to take place before deciding on the utility and the fate of community notification laws. The Functions of Law With Gusfield's (1963) dramatistic theory of American politics, he introduced us to the two functions of law. He explained that legislative action is often dramatic in nature, in The author wishes to thank Mary K. Evans and David Sample for their feedback and suggestions. Direct correspondence to Lisa L. Sample, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Nebraska at Omaha, Omaha, NE 68182 (e-mail: 1sample@mail.unomaha.edu). DOI:10. 111 1/j. 1745-9133.2011.00706.x Q 2011 American Society of Criminology 265 Criminology 6r Public Policy . Volume 10 * Issue 2

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