The Pursuit of Safety:

Responses to Sex Offenders in the U.S.
Tracy Velázquez • Reagan Daly
REPORT SUMMARY • JULY 2009
In 2008, the Vera Institute of Justice produced two survey reports for the U.S. Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Assistance. The first, The Pursuit of Safety: Sex Offender Policy in the U.S., reviewed federal and state laws concerning sex offenders and the impact of these laws. The second, Treatment and Reentry Practices for Sex Offenders: An Overview of States,
analyzed programs for sex offenders in 37 states. Together, the reports provide a look at national trends in responses to sex
offenders. This summary highlights their findings.

Why Look at Sex Offender Policies?
Over the past two decades, in response to several highly publicized violent sexual crimes against children, federal and state
policymakers have passed laws intended to protect the public from sexual predators. These laws, which have attracted substantial bipartisan support, lengthen prison sentences for sex offenders and establish strategies for managing them after
release. Some of the laws also keep those who are deemed particularly dangerous
institutionalized after they have served their sentences. Still others have expanded
Key Findings
the scope of crimes that qualify as sex offenses, greatly increasing the number of
people affected by policies targeting sex offenders.
> Policies vary widely in their
ability to protect the public,
and particularly children, from
sexual victimization. Most focus
on preventing repeat offenses
by strangers, a relatively rare
event compared with sex offenses by people known to the
victim and the victim’s family.
> Some sex offender policies can
have an unintended negative
impact on public safety. By
making it harder for offenders
to find shelter, employment,
and social supports, these policies drive some offenders out
of contact with authorities.
> More research is needed on
how to prevent sex offenses
and maximize public safety
through more effective policies.

The effectiveness of these responses must be measured in terms of reduced rates
of sexual offending. Yet, while there have been recent reductions in these rates,
it is unclear whether these are due to the new laws. In large part, this is because
most of these policies are aimed at curbing predation by strangers, even though
sex offenses are more often committed by family members and others known to
the victim. The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports, for example, that more than 90
percent of sex offenses against juveniles are committed by family members and
acquaintances.
The specific influence of these laws may also be obscured by the overall decrease
in crime rates over the past 20 years. There is even reason to believe, in some cases,
that the new policies may have had negative impacts on public safety.

Who is a sex offender?
The definition of a sex offender is broad and encompasses different types of
offenses. A sex offender is a person who has been convicted of a crime that
requires registration at the federal or state level. Under federal guidelines,
people convicted of sexual abuse, aggravated sexual abuse, and a number of
crimes involving a minor, such as kidnapping, must register with authorities.
Some states have extended the list of crimes to include offenses such as voyeurism, public exposure, and adultery. Because the definition has expanded
to include so many different kinds of crimes, it is difficult to create a coherent
policy for this population.

Center on Sentencing and corrections

The Pursuit of Safety: Responses to Sex Offenders in the U.S.
Are communities safer because of laws
that keep convicted offenders in prison
longer and closely monitor them once
they are released? Implementing sex
offender laws and policies is costly:
Is this money well spent? Policymakers charged with using public funds
to maximize public safety outcomes
need information on what works to
deter would-be sex offenders, reduce
recidivism, and identify and incapacitate the most dangerous people. To
better understand the impact of sex
offender laws, Vera staff reviewed current federal and state legislation and
available research on this topic. This
analysis identified the following six
policy areas that represent the bulk of
recent legislation.

especially if the person is supporting a
family. In 2008, a statewide coalition of
community-based rape crisis programs
in Connecticut opposed three-strikes
legislation for sex offenders (laws that
impose mandatory prison sentences
for people who are convicted three
times) on the grounds that it might
discourage crime reporting. The National Alliance to End Sexual Violence
has taken a similar position. Finally,
although longer sentences keep sex
offenders incapacitated while in custody, research suggests they do not
reduce re-offending once the person
is released. The high cost of long-term
incarceration must be weighed against
the relatively minor impact of those
long sentences on re-offending.

1. Sentencing: By establishing
long prison terms for people convicted of sex crimes, society sends a message that people who commit these
crimes will face serious consequences.
Vera’s analysis of current sex offender
laws shows that sex offenders are
being incarcerated longer and for a
wider range of crimes, often without
the option of parole or early release.
There has been a drop in violent crime
nationwide over the past 20 years—including a drop in the incidence of
rape—but the influence these laws
have had is unclear because many
of the tougher sentencing laws were
passed after crime rates had fallen or
begun to level off.

2. Registration Requirements:
Requiring convicted sex offenders
to register with authorities helps law
enforcement keep track of people
who pose a risk to public safety. All
50 states now maintain computerized
sex offender registries that connect
to a federal registry of information
on offenders. New federal guidelines
broaden the range of offenses for
which an offender must register to include, for example, any crime that is
considered sexually motivated. They
also require offenders to report changes in employment or residence within
three days. However, rates of compliance with registration are falling, and
many states lack the resources to track
down those who fail to comply. Although registries have been shown to
have a modest impact on re-offending
among those who know their victims,
they appear ineffective in deterring
crimes by strangers.

In addition, some victim advocacy
groups have questioned whether longer mandatory minimum sentences
(which, in some cases, require judges
to send people to prison for decades)
may reduce crime reporting and increase plea bargaining. Someone
victimized by a relative or ex-spouse,
for example, may not want to see that
person put behind bars for many years,

3. Community Notification:
The drive for community notification
laws began in New Jersey in 1994, after seven-year-old Megan Kanka was

raped and murdered by a neighbor
with a record of sexual crimes. Her
parents, who had no knowledge of
their neighbor’s past, demanded that
residents be given information about
sex offenders who live near them. New
Jersey passed its sex-offender notification law, known as “Megan’s Law,”
the same year; a federal version of the
law passed in 1996. Community notification—using e-mail alerts, web site
listings, community meetings, flyers,
and in some states, door-to-door visits by offenders—makes some people
feel more informed and secure. Many
people say that when notified that an
offender is moving into their neighborhood, they take action to keep their
families safe. However, evidence is
mixed on whether notification is effective in reducing sex offenses because
a majority of sex offenders are known
to their victims.
Community notification policies have
drawbacks, too. Administering these
systems can be a burden for law enforcement and parole officers. In addition, notification has a destabilizing effect on offenders, reducing the
likelihood of their attaining housing
or a job. This drives offenders underground, pushing them further from the
services they need and putting public
safety at risk. Finally, in some cases notification has resulted in violence and
acts of vigilantism against offenders.
4. Residency Restrictions: At
both the state and municipal levels,
the number and scope of policies
that limit where registered sex offenders can live has grown tremendously.
These policies are designed to keep
sex offenders from living close to places where children congregate, such as
schools and playgrounds. However, restrictions can specify such large areas
that it can be hard for offenders to find

The Pursuit of Safety: Responses to Sex Offenders in the U.S.
housing at all (see map). Also, studies
show that residency restrictions do
not prevent re-offending. Rather, they
reduce public safety by destabilizing
and stigmatizing offenders, often driving them out of contact with support
systems and law enforcement.
5. Electronic Monitoring: A
growing number of states are using
technology to track sex offenders. Offenders tracked by electronic monitoring (EM), for example, are outfitted
with a radio transmitter worn on the
ankle. Passive EM keeps records of offenders’ whereabouts to examine later. Active EM provides signals in real
time via geographic positioning system (GPS) technology. Although expensive, EM holds some promise for
reducing reliance on incarceration and
improving supervision. A few studies
have shown decreased recidivism, but
others showed no significant decrease
in rearrests. This may be due to problems in implementing new technology.
In addition, some reports indicate that
offenders—especially those who have
been law abiding—resist wearing the
device, which can be conspicuous. In
some urban areas, buildings and subways interfere with the real-time GPS
system, making tracking unreliable.
6. Civil Commitment: Faced with
releasing people considered too dangerous to be safely managed in the
community, some policymakers have
enacted civil commitment laws. These
laws authorize states to detain people
convicted of violent sexual offenses
beyond the end of their sentences,
provided they have a mental condition that makes re-offending likely.
The risk assessment process used to
identify these people, however, is not
always administered or interpreted
by qualified medical personnel. Few
civilly committed offenders have ever

been returned to the community. Civil
commitment is expensive because it is
only constitutional if treatment is provided. Because of concerns about due
process, civil comittment has generated opposition from groups such as
the American Psychiatric Association
and has faced legal challenges. For
these reasons, expansion of civil commitment into new states may be slowing. Granting judges more flexibility
in sentencing for the most dangerous
offenders, as well as advances in treatment and monitoring, may improve
society’s ability to manage high-risk
offenders in other ways.

Residency Restrictions in
San Francisco, California

Moving toward a safer
future

This map of San Francisco shows where sex
offenders may not live (shaded in gray).

In passing sex offender laws, policymakers are doing their best to protect
society—particularly its most vulnerable members, children. Yet many of
these laws have been enacted without
the benefit of evidence about which
approaches work best. Some of the
sex offender laws on the books today
were passed in the 1980s and 1990s.
With the benefit of 10 or more years’
hindsight, there is an opportunity now
to evaluate objectively how well they
have achieved their goals.
Many sex offender laws also carry significant costs for local and state government in the form of added prison
beds and staff time for parole, probation, and law enforcement officers.
Any analysis, in addition to assessing
their effectiveness in deterring crime,
should consider whether these laws
are an efficient use of public funds.
Additionally, researchers should consider whether long periods of incarceration and close monitoring of
offenders come at the expense of
alternatives that might yield better

Source: California Senate Demographics Department

outcomes. Should, for example, more
resources focus on preventing sex offenses, intervening when abuse is ongoing, or providing public education?
Finally, some laws aimed at reducing
sex offenses do not target the most
common sex offenses—those perpetrated by people known to the victim.
Laws designed to keep people safe
from sex offenders may also have unintended negative consequences—
residency restrictions that lead to released offenders becoming homeless
and losing touch with authorities, for
example. These potential downsides
need to be considered as well.
In designing consequences for sex offenders, policymakers need to strike
a balance between protecting public safety and dealing with the rising
costs of keeping more people incarcerated for long periods of time. To
get the best public safety outcomes,
they must devote resources to stopping the most serious offenders from
harming people and also work to rehabilitate those who present less risk.

Treatment and Reentry Practices
for Sex Offenders
In a companion study, Treatment and Reentry Practices for Sex Offenders,
researchers found that the trend toward longer periods of incarceration for
sex offenders, in combination with expanding definitions of sex offenses, has
driven up criminal justice costs, leading some states to reconsider their approach. With an eye toward cost savings, many states have begun treatment
programs for sex offenders both in prison and in the community. The hope
is that these programs will reduce re-offending and improve public safety.
However, there are few resources available to policymakers who are trying to
expand these efforts. Vera staff analyzed current programs for sex offenders
in 37 participating states, based on interviews with officials and treatment
providers and a review of existing research. We focused on treatment; reentry programs, which serve formerly incarcerated people as they rejoin their
communities; and community supervision (parole and probation).

Treatment Programs

Research Limitations
It is hard for researchers to determine the impact that sex offender
programs have because unknown
numbers of sex offenses go unreported, and arrest rates for these
crimes are low. Researchers also
face challenges in finding comparison groups, which they need
to verify a program’s effectiveness.
For example, in some programs,
participants volunteer for treatment
programs and others refuse. When
researchers compare these groups,
it is difficult to determine whether
results are due to the program or
participants’ motivation to receive
treatment

Treatment of sex offenders is generally grounded in evidence-based practices, especially cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), which relies on changing
thought processes to help people understand and accept responsibility for
their offenses. Despite the difficulty in assessing the impact of sex offender treatment programs (see box, top right),
research has consistently found that CBT is an effective approach to reducing
For More
sexual re-offending and re-offending in general. Eighty-one percent of the states
we surveyed reported that CBT is available in institutional settings. The proporInformation…
tion of imprisoned sex offenders in treatment at any given time ranges widely
across states, from nearly none to one-third. Access to jail- and prison-based
For more information about sex
programs is often limited by the number of treatment beds available, however.
offender policies, contact PegFor people who are under community supervision, CBT is available in 85 percent
gy McGarry at (212) 376-3131
of the states we surveyed. However, in most of those, participation in community
or pmcgarry@vera.org. For intreatment may depend on ability to pay, which limits access to these programs.
formation about research on
sex offender treatment, contact
Reagan Daly at (212) 376-5206
or rdaly@vera.org.
For more information about Vera’s Center on Sentencing and
Corrections, contact Peggy McGarry at (212) 376-3131 or pmcgarry@vera.org.
These reports are available on
Vera’s web site at www.vera.org.

Reentry and Community Supervision
Research on reentry and supervision practices has uncovered two salient findings: (1) social support is key to making a successful transition back to society,
and (2) supervision is most effective when combined with specialized treatment.
Although sex offenders are eligible for general reentry programming in most of
the states surveyed, only Vermont has an initiative that specifically targets them.
However, in two-thirds of the states we surveyed, correctional institutions and
community supervision agencies share information about case histories and
treatment plans. Research suggests that such interagency communication can
help reduce recidivism.

This report was prepared by the Vera Institute of Justice under grant 2006-WP-BX-K329 awarded by the U.S. Department of
Justices’ Bureau of Justice Assistance. The Vera Institute of Justice is an independent nonprofit organization that combines
expertise in research, demonstration projects, and technical assistance to help leaders in government and civil society improve the systems people rely on for justice and safety.
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