Legislative bills named after child victims get A+ for emotion, F for effectiveness
By Sandy . . . The Jacob Wetterling Registration Act, which created the sex offender registry; Megan’s Law, which mandates public disclosure; the Adam Walsh Act, which sets new guidelines: Each name
evokes the image of a child and, for those required to register as sexual offenders, specifics about the laws and what they require. The use of children’s names to create these acts and laws was initiated at the national level, and it occurs at the state level as well, such as Jessica’s Law in Florida, which strengthened the registry and added harsher penalties; and Chelsea’s Law in California, which also increased and enhanced penalties and sentencing.
In Texas, in 2024, eleven-year-old Audrii Cunningham was murdered by a man who was a friend of Audrii’s father and was living in a trailer on her grandparents’ property. He had an extensive and varied criminal background, including a conviction for child enticement—in Texas, not a registerable offense.
If media publicity is the measuring rod, Audrii’s Law, Texas House Bill 2000, is the only piece of
legislation that matters in the 2025 legislative session. Compared to the other laws with children’s names attached, it is somewhat mild. It will have no effect on Texans who are already registered. It seeks only to make the charge of child grooming a registerable offense going forward, which adds more names to an already bloated registry, a registry that studies uniformly validate as failing to improve public safety.
However, Audrii’s Law has far more in common than in opposition to the other laws.
- Each of them was enacted as a response to a specific crime, in all cases the murder of a child or, in one instance, a teenager. In some cases, the perpetrator was a registered sexual offender, in some not.
- In each case the law or act is named after the child victim, female in all but two instances.
- In all cases there was a great deal of public outrage; often vigils and memorials were held.
- Each act or law extends—or creates—the registry or consequences to persons on it.
- Each of the laws and acts ignores the vast body of evidence-driven data concerning not only the realities of child sexual abuse but also the failure of the sex offender registry to improve public safety.
- None of the laws or acts address the very real tragedy of child sexual assault—although that is how they are publicized. These cases involve isolated situations of murder; in at least one of the situations, a sexual component may not have been present.
- The perpetrator of each crime therefore has virtually nothing in common with the three-quarters of a million plus individuals who are required to register in America today.
Creating laws based on rare, horrific crimes is bad and dangerous public policy. It uses a tragic, one-off situation and applies it to a group of people who have not done nor will do what was done. It creates “umbrellas laws,” punishing entire categories of individuals for the crimes of a scant handful.
The result is a burgeoning prison population equaled by a burgeoning demand on taxpayer funds to support the imprisonment of so many who could adequately, safely, and much less expensively be managed through community supervision.
To be effective, laws must bear a direct relationship to the desired outcome. The desired outcome is to come as close as possible to eliminating child sexual abuse. The perpetrators of child sexual abuse are
almost always individuals who are not on the registry but are, dependent on the age of the child, between 94 and close to 100% of the time family members and other persons trusted by the family. A continued emphasis on the registry, which is based on “stranger-danger” and focuses exclusively on those already registered due to a previous conviction, has been ineffective in meeting the objective and will continue to be so.
The protection of children is too important a goal to be sabotaged by laws that do not address the issue and are disconnected from the desired outcome. Proven prevention programs, improved support for victims, and sentencing that allows for accountability with support for rehabilitation should be the building blocks that drive this vital goal. Using rare, tragic cases as the impetus for laws and naming those laws with the names of the child victims pull at the public’s heartstrings, make “heroes” out of legislators who support the laws, but fail miserably at meeting that goal.
If authorities were truly serious about preventing child sexual abuse/assault/contact, they would follow what is helping in Europe. Instead of wasting all of this money on sting operations, incarceration and registration, resources should be focused on advertising and directing people who have minor sexual attraction into safe, confidential, specific, effective MAP therapy before they offend. The attraction doesn’t go away, but people can learn to live with it, cope with it, find safe avenues for sexual gratification that don’t victimize children and thus prevent these child sexual offenses in the first place. Isn’t that what we all want? We’ll see.