ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on legal responses to convicted sex offenders, with a specific focus on sex-offender registration and notification (SORN) laws as the most widespread and empirically examined sanction. It focuses on rare acts and sympathetic victims. Explanations for punitive sex-offender legislation may be found in the high-profile sexual attacks on children in the 1990s. Other criminal justice policies aimed at sex offenders are subsequently highlighted, including civil commitment statutes, castration mandates, and Global Positioning System (GPS) monitoring policies. SORN laws likely constitute the most widespread of these criminal justice policies aimed at sexual perpetrators, as they arguably impact the majority of convicted sex offenders in America. Although less common, sex-offender civil commitment statutes, castration mandates, and GPS monitoring policies are growing in number and impact the lives of numerous sex offenders. There are many similarities and differences with respect to castration laws for convicted sex offenders.