Megan’s Law: Protecting American Families Everywhere

Megan’s Law: Protecting American

Families Everywhere

In the summer of 1994 in Hamilton, New Jersey, a small girl by the name of Megan Kanka was raped and murdered by a convicted pedophile, Jesse Timmendequas. The shocking crime rocked not only the small town, but the entire country. A desperate mother told reporters “Please, please help us find our daughter, she’s a wonderful girl ... she’s only seven. Let her come back.” (www.crimelibrary.com) No mother should ever have to beg for her daughter’s life. People thought that everyone had a right to know if a child molester was living in their midst. Dick Zimmer, then a state senator in New Jersey, and later a one-term congressman, certainly thought so. It was the dawn of the get-tough-on-crime era, and, with the blessing of the leaders of his Republican Party and support from both sides of the aisle, Zimmer and his colleagues hastily cobbled together a package of bills, which, among other things, required that anyone convicted of a sex offense undergo evaluation. The bills required that the risk sex offenders posed to the community be assessed and that, depending on that assessment, the community be notified. (www.crimelibrary.com) Megan’s Law was passed and now everyone knew who is a child-molester living in their community.

This law provides plenty of positive aspects. The law not only protects the children but it takes away the rights of the violator which to some, is a good thing. This man has committed unspeakable acts and deserves to have these rights taken away. After all he is a monster. “Every child ought to have the right to grow up in our state without the fear of being sexually abused. The damage inflicted on a child by sexual abuse is incalculable. No amount of money can buy enough treatment to remove the scars.” (Freeman). It may seem as though their freedoms are being taken away but it is only to ensure the safety of children. Because the parents are being informed of the presence of child molesters, it can prevent many horrible things from happening to their children. It comes down to simple things such as “Who are you playing with?” and “Stay where I can see.” They may seem like normal things a parent may say to their child but in actuality can save them from emotional damage or even death. (Freeman). Even having an idea of what the person may look like has helped prevent plenty of tragedies. You may know that there is a pedophile living in your neighborhood and know of his convictions but if you know what he looks like it makes it easier to protect your children. Another positive aspect of Megan’s Law is that it makes the pedophile, who had to register themselves as a sex offender, more weary of their actions. People are less likely to act a certain way or do things if they know that everyone is keeping watch over almost all their actions (www.nj.gov).

Like most things there is always a negative aspect. A negative aspect of Megan’s Law is how some people consider it to be unconstitutional. People believe that it is unconstitutional in that the rights of the pedophile to live a normal life have been taken away (Star-Ledger). Many argue that they deserve this violation but when it comes down to it, their rights really are being revoked. If a sex offender who has already served their time in prison and has gotten the help that they needed want to start a new life as a new person, they can not do this because of Megan’s Law. Megan’s Law makes it very hard for the person to try and start over now that everyone knows what they had done and their privacy had been violated (Amoroso). Megan’s Law also only lists people who are of moderate or high risk. Basically if you have done something along the lines of pedophilia but nothing that made the newspaper, no one will know about it (Amoroso). People also try to use the pedophiles as a reason why you should not buy a home (Umberger). It does make a lot of sense though, who would want to buy a home next to a child molester? It is this violation of rights that really makes Megan’s Law seem very unconstitutional.

Megan’s Law to me is really something incredible, both in how it came