Material Listing

Developed in Australia, this curriculum provides learning activities that aim to provide students with opportunities to develop the knowledge, understandings, skills and values related to the Growing and Developing Healthy Relationship topics. Topics include: staying safe, growing bodies, respectful relationships, emotional wellbeing, health literacy, and diversity.

This report to the Minnesota Legislature discusses community placement of high-risk sex offenders. The report concludes that residential proximity to potential child victims is unrelated to recidivism risk and that imposing such restrictions unnecessarily complicates the work of corrections staff attempting to reintegrate these men into communities.

Levenson argues that there is no evidence that sex offender residency restrictions prevent sex crimes or promote public safety. Rather, Levenson believes that such policies may actually exacerbate offenders' psychosocial stressors and thereby increase the likelihood of reoffending.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the unintended consequences of policies that restrict where sex offenders can live.

This report examines safety issues raised by sex offenders' community living arrangements, with particular focus on: (1) Do the living arrangements of sex offenders, including shared living arrangements, have an impact on community safety? (2) Do the location of sex offender residences, specifically in proximity to schools and childcare centers, have an impact on community safety? The report concludes that recidivism rates were significantly lower for men in shared living arrangements and that family and community support were important factors contributing to lowered recidivism.

Community notification, known as "Megan's Law," provides the public with information about known sex offenders in an effort to assist parents and potential victims to protect themselves from dangerous predators. The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of community notification on the lives of registered sex offenders. Two hundred and thirty-nine sex offenders in Connecticut and Indiana were surveyed. The negative consequences that occurred with the greatest frequency included job loss, threats and harassment, property damage, and suffering of household members.

This report attempts to address these issues by providing an overview and analysis of existing treatment and reentry practices for sex offenders who are involved with the criminal justice system. It focuses, specifically, on four broad areas of practice: treatment in prison, treatment under community supervision, reentry programming, and community supervision

This paper discusses critical issues in the management of sex offender employment, including assessing potential job placements, approaching the job search process, making sound job placement decisions, developing relationships with employers, and monitoring sex offenders' job-related activities.

This policy and practice brief is designed to inform the efforts of correctional administrators and staff, parole boards and other releasing authorities, community supervision officials, treatment providers, and non-criminal justice partners as they work collaboratively to support the successful transition of sex offenders from prison to the community while ensuring victim and community safety.

Currently there is a significant amount of attention focused on the large number of offenders who are being released from prison to communities across the country. Leadership and support from the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs have created opportunities to discuss, plan and implement new strategies to more effectively deal with offenders who are going home.

The Institute was contracted to evaluate the effectiveness of the Department of Corrections' 'Going Home Project.' The program was designed to transition younger, high-risk, violent offenders into the community. To date, not enough time has passed to conduct an outcome evaluation with a comparison group and 36-month follow-up. This interim report outlines the research design and provides 18-month recidivism rates for program participants.

The author points out that the risk assessment and management of sex offenders is heavily influenced by the unique social and political context in which our society views sex crimes and sex offenders.

It is divided into five sections: (1) Developing or enhancing the use of electronic supervision tools, (2) Obtaining and maintaining needed resources, (3) Making technical decisions, (4) Supervising offenders with electronic technologies, and (5) Program Accountability.

The purpose of this brief is to provide an overview and discussion of emerging practices and lessons in communities across the country in the management of sex offenders under community supervision.

This guide was developed to assist Safe Havens grantees who want to enhance the safety and well-being of women and children by working more deliberately with abusive fathers who use the centers to visit their children. These interventions are based on the learnings from the Fathering After Violence Initiative, developed by the Family Violence Prevention Fund (FVPF) and five current and past SVP grantees with funding from the Office of Violence Against Women (OVW).

Contents include:

"In a recent Issues article entitled Thinking about batterers as fathers: Reconceptualizing and rethinking policy and practice, we raised the question 'Are we (individuals, community agencies, policy makers, etc.) willing to work with batterers to help them become better fathers?' In this article we consider some of the programming and curriculum issues related to working with batterers as parents."

The authors confirm that community notification efforts protect and inform residents, thereby serving the purpose that policymakers intended, but at the cost of increased public anxiety, hindered reintegration of offenders into society, and increased labor burdens on service providers. In documenting community resident responses and expectations, Zevits and Farkas acknowledge the need to educate the public about what notification laws can and cannot accomplish.

Washington State's Community Notification Law: 15 Years of Change by the Washington State Institute for Public Policy (2006)

In 1990, Washington became the first state to authorize the release of information regarding sex offenders to the public. Since then, the law has been amended numerous times to expand its application, increase uniformity across counties, and increase citizen access.

Violent and sexual felony recidivism by sex offenders in Washington has decreased since passage of the 1997 statute. The causal link to notification laws is not proven by this research, but the drop in recidivism rates by sex offenders is clear, and the influence of community notification laws cannot be ruled out.

As part of this evaluation, the Institute contracted in 1997 with the Social and Economic Sciences Research Center (SESRC) at Washington State University to conduct telephone interviews with a sample of Washington State residents regarding the community notification provisions of the Community Protection Act. In 2007, the Institute again contracted with SESRC to conduct a nearly identical survey and learn how responses may have changed.

The purpose of this study was to examine public perceptions about sex offenders and community protection policies. Data were obtained from a sample of 193 residents in Melbourne, Florida. It was hypothesized that the public holds some inaccurate beliefs about sex offenders, and that there is strong public support for community protection policies. It was found that community members believe that sex offenders have very high recidivism rates, view sex offenders as a homogeneous group with regard to risk, and are skeptical about the benefits of sex offender treatment.

This policy and practice brief examines the differences in state laws regarding community notification and explores some innovative approaches to notification and education in place across the United States.