page_title: Sex offender registries in the United States
section_title: Megan's Law of 1996
hierarchical_section_title: Sex offender registries in the United States / History / Megan's Law of 1996
caption_attribution_description: English: Sign, Wapello. This was put up in reaction to Megan's Law.
context_page_description: Sex offender registries in the United States exist at both the federal and state levels. Registries contain information about persons convicted of sexual offenses for law enforcement and public notification purposes. All 50 states and the District of Columbia maintain sex offender registries that are open to the public via websites, although information on some offenders is visible to law enforcement only. Public disclosure of offender information varies between the states depending on offenders designated tier, which may also vary from state to state, or risk assessment result. According to NCMEC, as of 2016 there were 859,500 registered sex offenders in United States.
  The majority of states and the federal government apply systems based on conviction offenses only, where registration requirement is triggered as a consequence of finding of guilt, or pleading guilty, to a sex offense regardless of the actual gravity of the crime. The trial judge typically can not exercise judicial discretion with respect to registration.
context_section_description: In 1994, 7-year-old Megan Kanka from Hamilton Township, Mercer County, New Jersey was raped and killed by a recidivist pedophile. Jesse Timmenquas, who had been convicted of two previous sex crimes against children, lured Megan in his house and raped and killed her. Megan's mother, Maureen Kanka, started to lobby to change the laws, arguing that registration established by the Wetterling Act, was insufficient for community protection. Maureen Kanka's goal was to mandate community notification, which under the Wetterling Act had been at the discretion of law enforcement. She said that if she had known that a sex offender lived across the street, Megan would still be alive. In 1994, New Jersey enacted Megan's Law. In 1996, President Bill Clinton enacted a federal version of Megan's Law, as an amendment to the Jacob Wetterling Act. The amendment required all states to implement Registration and Community Notification Laws by the end of 1997. Prior to Megan's death, only 5 states had laws requiring sex offenders to register their personal information with law enforcement. On August 5, 1996 Massachusetts was the last state to enact its version of Megan's Law.
caption: Sign at the limits of Wapello, Iowa; sex offender-free districts appeared as a result of Megan's Law.
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