In another indication of how the sex offender registration and notification laws did not have juveniles in mind, juveniles who live in divorced households may have particularly cumbersome registrations requirement. If the child is subject to a standard visitation schedule, the child may or may not have to register at two different addresses. Given the number of divorced households, plus given then number of households where one parent is not actively involved in raising the child, this creates yet another battleground about which household has to be listed as the home of a registered sex offender.
Furthermore, when the Age of the Victim is listed on the sex offender registration form, it is static. While the victim’s age never changes, the offender’s age and photograph changes every year. Do you see how that starts to become a problem in cases of consensual sex? If a juvenile must register for 10 years, and must continue to update his photograph every year for 10 years, it will incorrectly appear that a 28 year-old sexually assaulted a 14 year old. The age discrepancy increases with every year.
Finally, the risk assessment tools were not properly designed with teenage boys in mind. When scoring factors like “number of previous relationships” or factors indicating employment and housing stability, the STATIC-99 presents false positives on the risk assessment. Psychologists that treat children use different assessment tools; the sex offender notification risk assessment should do the same.
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