Department of Social Work, University of Washington, Tacoma, Campus Box 358425, 1900 Commerce Street, Tacoma, WA 98402-3100, United States.
Int J Law Psychiatry. 2011 May-Jun;34(3):149-59. doi: 10.1016/j.ijlp.2011.04.001. Epub 2011 May 6.
Despite growing focus on registration and notification systems as central elements of national sex offender management practice, there has been remarkably little systematic analysis of the content of these registries and the diversity of individuals contained within them. Specifically, little research attention has been paid to examining the heterogeneity of the population of registered sex offenders - a circumstance that may obscure important distinctions within the population and, in turn, may undermine the ostensible purpose of SORN to prevent sexual victimization. Addressing this significant gap in our current knowledge, this article sets forth a national profile of the registered sex offender (RSO) population, drawn from an analysis of data on 445,127 RSOs obtained from the public registries of 49 states, Washington, DC, Puerto Rico and Guam. In contrast with the homogenized perception about registered sex offenders that permeates much public discourse, the analysis illuminates the wide diversity of registrants across a range of demographic, offense-related, registry status, and risk-oriented variables. Policy and practice implications concerning risk, prevention, and the public safety utility of sex offender registries are discussed.
尽管注册和通知系统作为国家性犯罪者管理实践的核心要素越来越受到关注，但对这些登记册的内容和其中包含的个人多样性进行系统分析的情况却少之又少。具体来说，很少有研究关注到对登记性犯罪者人群的异质性进行检查——这种情况可能掩盖了人群中的重要区别，进而可能破坏性犯罪者登记册(SORN)防止性侵害的表面目的。为了弥补我们当前知识中的这一重大空白，本文从对来自 49 个州、华盛顿特区、波多黎各和关岛的公共登记处的 445,127 名性犯罪者登记数据的分析中，提出了一个全国性的登记性犯罪者（RSO）人群概况。与在许多公共话语中普遍存在的对登记性犯罪者的同质化看法形成鲜明对比的是，分析揭示了在一系列人口统计学、犯罪相关、登记册状况和风险导向变量方面，登记人的广泛多样性。讨论了与风险、预防以及性犯罪者登记册对公共安全的实用性有关的政策和实践影响。
