Updated September 25, 2000
Jacob, Megan,
and Pam: Federal Sex Offender
Registration Legislation
David M. Heger
National Violence Against Women Prevention Research Center
University of Missouri - St. Louis
Political Analyst
History
In October 1989, 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling
was abducted near his home in St. Joseph, Minnesota by a masked
man at gunpoint. Police later learned that halfway houses in St.
Joseph also housed released sex offenders. In 1989, Minnesota
law enforcement had no comprehensive list of sex offenders to
aid their efforts in solving the case. (Only a handful of states,
including Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Nevada, and Ohio,
had such tools at the time.) Jacob’s parents, through the
formation of the Jacob Wetterling Foundation, helped push Minnesota
policymakers to change this situation by enacting sex offender
registration in 1991. Several states followed suit in establishing
their own registration system — according to the Department
of Justice (DOJ), 39 states had some form of sex offender registration
in place by 1994. As the issue gained momentum nationally, Congress
passed the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sex Offender
Registration Act as part of the Violent Crime Control and Law
Enforcement Act of 1994 (commonly referenced as the 1994 Crime
Bill). The legislation, signed into law by President Clinton on
September 13, 1994, mandates that each state create specific programs
to register persons convicted of a criminal offense against a
minor or a sexually violent offense.
Around the time of the final passage of the Jacob Wetterling Act,
another hole in the criminal justice system — lack of community
awareness of the presence of a convicted sex offender — was
exposed by the case of seven-year-old Megan Kanka. On a mid-summer
evening in 1994, Megan’s parents reported to the police that
their daughter was missing from their neighborhood in Hamilton Township,
New Jersey. After conducting a door-to-door search of the surrounding
houses, police began to focus their investigation on a residence
where three convicted sex offenders lived, located across the street
from the Kankas. One of the men, Jesse Timmendequas, later confessed
to the rape and murder of Megan Kanka. Determined to prevent similar
occurrences, Megan’s parents spearheaded a campaign to enact
legislation in New Jersey providing for community notification when
sex offenders are released into a particular neighborhood. Their
efforts proved fruitful and the state enacted "Megan’s
Law" in 1995. As with the Jacob Wetterling Act, Congress caught
on to state action and passed a federal version of Megan’s
Law the following year. (Similar legislation was offered as an amendment
to the 1994 Crime Bill but was rejected by members of Congress.)
Federal lawmakers continued to build upon the foundation of the
Jacob Wetterling Act by enacting the Pam Lychner Sexual Offender
Tracking and Identification Act of 1996. Senator Phil Gramm (R-Texas)
and Senator Joseph Biden (D-Delaware) authored this proposal, named
in memory of a victim’s rights activist who died in the infamous
TWA Flight 800 crash off the coast of Long Island, New York, to
create a national database of convicted sex offenders that would
track sex offenders as they move from state to state and cover for
states not in compliance with Jacob Wetterling. In arguing for the
bill on the Senate floor, Senator Biden addressed non-compliance
with sex offender registration mandates, "(I)f any states fail
to act, we cannot allow there to be a ‘black hole’ where
sexual predators can hide and are then lost to all states."
The Legislation
The Jacob Wetterling Act
The Jacob Wetterling Act is Subtitle A of Title XVII of the 1994
Crime Bill. Provisions of the act require persons convicted of a
criminal offense against a minor or a sexually violent offense and
persons deemed to be sexually violent predators to register a current
address with state law enforcement. As defined by this act, sexually
violent offenses include "aggravated sexual abuse" and
"sexual abuse," which are legal terms used in U.S. code
basically signifying rape. The act lists various acts that are considered
criminal offenses against a minor, but ultimately discretion is
left to the states. The act describes a "sexually violent predator"
as one who is inflicted with "a mental abnormality or personality
disorder that makes the person likely to engage in predatory sexually
violent crimes."
Further provisions require state registration
programs to inform released convicts under this act of their duty
to register and keep law enforcement abreast of any address changes
and to obtain fingerprints and a photograph of such convicts.
State law enforcement agencies are also required to enter relevant
information on a released convict into an appropriate record system,
notify law enforcement having jurisdiction where such convict
expects to reside, transmit the conviction data and fingerprints
to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and verify the released
convict’s address on each anniversary of the person’s
initial registration date. Criminals under this act must continue
to register for 10 years after the date of their release from
prison. Finally, the legislation mandates that the data collected
for its purposes remain undisclosed except among law enforcement
and government agencies under certain circumstances. (This was
later changed by the enactment of Megan’s Law — see
below.)
The Jacob Wetterling Act gives states great leeway
in executing a sex offender registration program. Beyond meeting
the minimum requirements stated above, each state’s program
may differ greatly, reflecting the specific concerns of state
lawmakers. States are given 3-5 years from the 1994 enrollment
to implement the legislation.
Megan’s Law
Megan’s Law amends the Jacob Wetterling
Act of the 1994 Crime Bill. The legislation strikes provisions
of the Crime Bill that prohibit disclosure of sex offender registry
information and replaces it with language allowing the release
of information "for any purpose permitted under the laws
of the State." The last part of this is crucial: the law
gives states the power to determine what kind and how much of
the information is disclosed to whom and for what purpose. States
may go as far as giving unfettered public access to sex offender
information by publishing it on a state-funded Web site or a state
may choose not to disclose any of the information at all. Another
variable is whether states choose to release data on all types
of sex offenders or just on "high-risk" criminals. Of
course, as states pass different laws, litigation may succeed
in curtailing some degree of disclosure allowed.
The Pam Lychner Act
The Pam Lychner Act shores up the provisions of the Jacob Wetterling
Act, which requires state law enforcement to transmit sex offender
data and fingerprints to the FBI, by establishing at the FBI a national
database of released sex offenders to track their whereabouts and
movement. Provisions mandate persons convicted sexual offenses in
states that do not have a "minimally sufficient" registration
program to register with the FBI a current address, fingerprints,
and current photograph. Additionally, the legislation amends the
Jacob Wetterling Act by changing the duration of state registration
requirement from 10 years to 10 years or life, depending on the
number of prior convictions and the type of crime committed.
On-line Resources
Text of Jacob Wetterling Act (final version in 1994 Crime Bill)
(http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c103:H.R.3355.ENR:)
Text of Megan’s Law (final version)
(http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c104:H.R.2137.ENR:)
Text of Pam Lychner Act (final version)
(http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c104:S.1675.ENR:)
Jacob Wetterling Foundation
(www.jwf.org)
Parents for Megan’s Law
(http://www.parentsformeganslaw.com/)
Proceedings of the National Conference on Sex
Offender Registries
(April 1998)
(http://www.ncjrs.org/txtfiles/168965.txt)
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