The public should legally be able to view the sex offender registry to Research Paper

The public should legally be able to view the sex offender registry to protect their family - Research Paper Example Sex offender registry is where the people who have been convicted of sexual offences are recorded. The records are normally held in police offices, courts or the sheriffs’ offices but are nowadays available in a national registry as well online in the National Sexual Offenders Public Registry. They are also available in the Federal Bureau of Investigation websites by county and state. Any individual can conduct a search of the sexual offenders by state, address, and name among other search criteria. The information on this registry is updated as frequently as the information is got from the sexual offender who has to be reporting to the nearest police station and update his or her information at least once every year. Debate has risen over the sex offender registry all around the country with some people advocating for its removal from public visibility while others want it to remain and even keep on being updated so that they can remain alert and aware of their neighbours and friends. The pros and cons of this debate are discussed below in detail and they include issues such as stigmatization, family breakups, trauma to children, living in fear and forever being regarded as a criminal for the cons. The pros of having a sex offender registry are: knowledge, caution, and self-protection, early prevention among others (Tofte and Jamie 46). The sex offenders’ registry remains to be among the greatest protection and prevention mechanism parents have against sex offenders and sex predators. Parents especially with younger children are better able to protect their children against sex offenders once they have a better knowledge of whom they are. Research has indicated that majority of the people who commit sex offences are not strangers but are family friends or neighbours (Maddan, 54). Having a registry where the parents can be able to verify whether their neighbours or family friends are sexual offenders is