If the Spirit Moves You by Justine Picardie Extract from The Limits of Privacy, published by Basic Books. All rights reserved. Excerpted by permission from Basic Books. The sad fact, which cannot be stressed enough, is that Megan's laws, even if fully implemented, do not protect children sufficiently.
Many hardcore offenders are unable to control their violent sexual urges.
Moreover, sex offenders often are rather crafty at seducing and befriending young children, particularly by offering them candy, rides, uncritical attention, or illegal drugs. Despite critics' claims, these offenders are not branded, and hence it is far from easy to identify them when they hang around playgrounds, kindergartens, schools, and the walkways and byways children use to go to school, ride their bikes, or visit friends. Registration with local authorities and a one-time notification of members of the community that a sex offender has moved into the neighbourhood will often fail to protect the children unless the whole of community life is modified so that children are not left alone on playgrounds and not allowed to walk to school or to a friend's house unchaperoned. Little wonder that three states, Utah, Arizona, and Rhode Island, are reported to have already enacted laws that go a step further, treating sex offenders as though still on parole, banning them from places where children congregate, monitoring their activities, and demanding that they enrol in treatment programmes. Above all, the underlying image is misleading.