Sexual offenders are required to register their contact details with the authorities. This assists to keep track of their residence and activity promptly in order to avoid recidivism. Registration of contact details and email addresses notify the sexual offender that they are under constant scrutiny. Therefore, they will desist from such activity or rather become more prudent in executing their deviant behaviors. More often than not, sexual offenders are known to go back to the vice even after imprisonment. The reasons underlying this argument are lack of follow-ups by the authorities and poor monitoring and assessment methods. In this era of automation and technology, sexual offenders are up to par with these advancements. Most of them are learned people, so it is easy for them to conceal their identities and change their contact details, including email addresses to fit their sporadic profiles simultaneously (Beech & Edwards 112). This follows that it is very difficult to track sex deviants and overall, no complete way of monitoring them after giving user names to police.
A sex offender refers to an individual involved in committing a sex crime. The scope of a sex crime is depicted by various factors, which include culture and legal jurisdiction. These factors are regarded very important in deciding if a crime falls in the category of a sexual offence. Most convicted sex offenders are convicted for their crimes of a sexual nature, whereas some sex deviants have only violated an act stipulated in the sexual offences category. Ascertaining the gravity of sexual offences lies solely with the court of law depending on one’s jurisdiction and location where the act was committed (Fernandez and Marshall 154). Sexual offences include but are not limited to: sexual assault, rape, incest, and child pornography.
Sexual offences are considered an act of violence due to the actions involved. As ascertained above, sexual offences include rape, which the motive is not primarily sexual but derives from a desire to control, dominate, and express, anger and hostility towards the victim. Most rapes are planned by the sexual offender, and it takes a lot of time to plan and execute. To avoid risk of being fabricated and traced to a particular offence carried out, sexual offenders change their names and physique to portray or represent a totally different silhouette that cannot be traced back to him. This further complicates monitoring by the authorities (Serin, Malcolm and Khanna 32). Furthermore, the authorities continue adding sex offender’s portfolios in their databases of inexistent individuals without being aware that they are duplicating their efforts.
A majority of sex offenders lead exceedingly normal lives. Some have stable families; wives and children who love and treasure them because they are unaware of their secret lives. Sex offenders conceal the intricate details of their hideous lives in an effort to protect their dignity and uphold the respect of their spouses and children. The internet has provided the perfect platform for sex offenders to perpetrate their crimes secretly. It contains many websites that increase with each passing day. These websites provide sex offenders with channels to find their victims and create virtual connections with them. These websites simply require an individual to upload a recent photograph and append personal information such as likes and preferences for a person of the opposite sex. Unsuspecting people engage in chats with these individuals and even arrange to meet them in discrete places. In the advent of their meeting, the sexual delinquents expose their true selves and defile them (The Daily Aztec). When police start investigating the crimes, the offenders are normally long gone having deleted the chat accounts in the websites such that no trace done can lead to them.
It is also common for them to falsify their identities through ways such as the use of false s of multiple active s/email addresses on various sites on the internet so as to avoid detection by to the police and relevant authorities. The internet has created numerous avenues for interacting and broadening the social lifestyles of individuals who are shunned in their communities and families. An individual can own more than one email address with different websites and hosting agencies. To create an email address, sexual offenders use different names, dates of birth and locations depending on their intentions. These email addresses are usually created in different IP addresses to avoid tracking by police. (Legislative Council State House) These email addresses are created with different motives aimed at communicating with different targets. Sexual offenders usually portray hideous characteristics and may even upload different photos to disguise their profiles. Through these tactics, they are able to continue executing sexual offenses in different states and localities away from home. They may also provide data from different states or counties to make tracing efforts difficult for the police.
Registered sex offenders sometimes engage in digital reinvention of identity, whereby are they manipulate their names, social security numbers, birthdays and other social identifiers. This enables them to continue with their normal lives without fear of incarceration and appearing before relevant authorities. This is done with an aim of ensuring that the statutory implications and court restrictions are inadmissible to their daily lives. These sophisticated techniques make it easier for offenders to earn public trust from the people around them and in the worst case scenario, obtain employment from unsuspecting individuals in schools and colleges by according them easier access to unsuspecting individuals. Case in point, in 2010 a registered sex offender in the United States changed his name to Jamie Shepard and managed to get hired as a census official in New Jersey until he was identified by one of the mothers whose home he visited in the course of his work (Beech and Edwards 111). This tactic is particularly useful in areas where sexual offenders especially pedophiles are required in law to live within a certain distance from their victims.
Moreover, sexual offenders are not insane and cannot be distinguished from the normal population by a psychological illness or dysfunction. They are able to blend easily with everybody. Most of them are able to align themselves with the social constructs that constitute behavior and form meaningful interactions with people around them. These qualities often alleviate any doubt that directs blame to them. In addition to this, with the advent of plastic surgery and reconstructive surgery, thousands of people in the United States and Great Britain are undertaking these practices to change the way they look (Looman, Abracen and Nichlaichuk 280). Some people do it for aesthetic value, but other people use it to conceal their identities. This is because they have criminal records and are being searched by police. Sexual delinquents are known to use these methods to avoid identification.
They accompany plastic surgery with a change of name, physical address and dates of birth. Moreover, they apply for a new identity cards and driver’s license either legally or illegally. This poses a challenge for the police and authorities in trying to locate these individuals bearing in mind that medical records are personal, and confidentiality must be upheld by the medical practitioner. These behavior patterns and physical alterations coupled with the digital manipulation of identity makes it very difficult for the police and local residents to identify or monitor them (The Daily Aztec).
In an effort to counter, the tricks sex offenders use to avoid detection and arrest, the police and other authorities have put in place various stratagems that allow them to keep up with suspected and registered sex offenders. For example, the police assume fake online personas that are used to connect with profiles that are suspected to perpetrate internet sex crimes. This has especially worked well in the entrapment of pedophiles who navigate internet chat rooms in search of juveniles.
Technological advances have also enabled the authorities ethically hack, with the assistance of search engine companies, the profiles of suspected sex offenders. This allows them to look into the profiles’ search and download histories for evidence and indicators of sexual offences. For example, a pedophile’s online profile may have lots of searches and downloads of child pornography. The police also have public sex offender databases where all sex offenders are registered. These databases keep track of the locations and activities of registered sex offenders. They include the Australian National Child Offender Registry (ANCHOR) of Australia, the Violent and Sex Offender Register (ViSOR) of the United Kingdom and the National Sex Offender Registry (NSOR) of Canada among others
Studies and research have indicated that it very difficult to cure a sex offender. The best that can be done is taming the vice and hope that the frequency is reduced. When an offender’s prison term has come to an end, it is expected that contact details obtained and email address contacts will provide sufficient information concerning the whereabouts and activities of the individual. (Beech and Edwards 113) However, In the course of serving time in jail, sexual offenders are equipped with programs and strategies to aid in preventing the sexual offenders from committing this crime in the future. The therapies include: cognitive behavior approach which entails modifying offenders thinking patterns and changing deviant acts associated to sexual behavior, pharmacology- medication is administered to reduce sexual libido and urge of committing sexual offenses, and psycho-educational approach is directed towards developing an empathic attitude and affection towards the victim. Despite these interventions, sexual offenders find it difficult to disassociate themselves from the vice.
In addition to treatment and registration of contact details, the community where the sexual offender is notified of their actions and are urged to monitor them and alert the authorities in case of sexual acts of deviance. The sexual offenders are aware of their actions and the attitude of their neighbors to such behavior. Since sexual deviance is an addictive behavior, sexual offenders employ other methods to execute their behavior. They keep a low profile in their neighborhood to avoid suspicion. They portray normal lives and participate in social and development initiatives (Fernandez and Marshall 157). Neighbors misconstrue their actions and perceive them as reformed contrary to the facts on the ground. In case the authorities decide to follow up on these individuals, they get positive reviews from the neighbors and family members.
Work cited
Beech, Anthony and Rachel Edwards. "Treatment programmes for adolescents who commit sexual offences: Dropout and recidivism." Journal of Sexual Aggression: An international, interdisciplinary forum for research, theory and practice (2004): 110-115. Text.
Fernandez, Yolanda M and W L Marshall. "Sexual Abuse: A journal of Research and Treatment." Victim Empathy, Social Self-Esteem, and Psychopathy in Rapists (2003): 151-161. Internet.
Legislative Council State House. Sex Offender Supervision And Commmunity Notification. Montpelier: SAGE Publications, 2005. Print.
Looman, Jan, Jeffrey Abracen and Terry P Nichlaichuk. "Journal of Interpersonal Violence." Recidivism Among Treated Sexual Offenders and Matched Controls Data From the Regional Treatment Centre (Ontario) (2000): 279-290. Print.
Serin, Ralph C, P Bruce Malcolm and Arunima Khanna. "Journal of Interpersonal Violence." Psychopathy and Deviant Sexual Arousal in Incarcerated Sexual Offenders (2001): 20-59. Text.
"The Daily Aztec." Sex Offenders are people too (2012). Internet.
