ABSTRACT
In the 1990s and through the 2000s, several U.S. high-profile cases that involved abduction, sexual assault, and murder of children or young adults led to a public outcry to take preventive action. State legislatures, and subsequently the federal government, responded with laws that required convicted sex offenders to register with their local law enforcement officials. This was later expanded to require notification of where registered sex offenders live, along with details of their offenses. More restrictive laws followed, and local jurisdictions were given minimum standards to implement and, to a large extent, license to develop additional restrictive guidelines, such as prohibiting sex offenders from living within a certain distance from places where children congregate.
