American Pie: Strong Statutes Don't Always Good Neighbours Make
…In contemporary society, neighborliness is frequently absent, and parents are oftentimes distracted by the pace and intensity of their working and social lives. As a result, perhaps too much reliance is placed on statutes such as Megan’s Laws, and on inculcating fear into children’s minds…
Whilst not arguing against greater child protection, John Merchant thinks it is regrettable that parents are indoctrinating their children not only to be suspicious of strangers, but of any man outside their immediate family circle.
Megan’s Law is a statute passed in New Jersey following the 1994 death of a seven-year-old girl named Megan Kanka. She was raped and killed by a sex offender on parole who lived across the street from her. Subsequently, most other states adopted some version of "Megan's Law." These laws require public notice that a convicted sex offender is moving into a neighborhood, with the intention that people in the area will take increased care to protect their children.
The relevant portion of the Federal Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 was amended in 1996 to require states to adopt set procedures for neighborhood notification. The information disclosed about individuals is quite specific, with distinctions made in various state statutes between different types of information (addresses, photographs, and descriptions of modus operandi) and the degree of risk to the community.
Like any good thing, there is a price to be paid. In the case of Megan's Laws it is in part the conflict between the protection of the public and the protection of the privacy rights of offenders who have served their sentences and been released. This makes the Laws very controversial, though it is well established that sex offenders who prey on children frequently repeat the crime, and are not responsive to psychiatric treatment. Their loss of privacy then is a small price to pay.
But there is another, more subtle penalty that is seldom stated, and accrues from the impact on parental awareness by the publicity given to child abductions. This heightened awareness often results in responsible parents indoctrinating their children to be suspicious not only of strangers, but of any man outside their immediate family circle. This is unfortunate, because the statistics indicate that child abductions that involve sexual predation and/or murder are quite small in number.
There are extensive statistical analyses of child abductions in the US, most of which crimes are instigated for purposes other than sexual predation, such as family abductions, and sadly, what are categorized as “Thrown away children.” Stranger-abduction events are usually committed for sexual purposes (49%) and in over 40% of the cases, the victim was murdered. That is in addition to the 4% that are never found.
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (Abduction is a Federal crime) handled 93 cases of stranger-abductions in 2001. That figure is a decrease from previous years, especially during the 1980s when the average per year was around 200 incidents. The reduction in the latter part of this period is possibly attributable to the existence of the Megan’s Laws. Though the victim in most of these cases did not know the suspect, there was previous contact between them prior to the crime while the suspect had a legitimate reason for being where he was.
Whilst it’s impossible to argue against greater child protection and heightened awareness of danger on the part of the child, the wider impact on the overall relationships between non-family adults and children is regrettable. I was prompted to write this article after reflecting on the almost total lack of interaction between myself and a neighbor’s three children. The family moved into the house six months ago, and in the time since then I have seen the two boys and their sister three or four times.
I’m not sure of their ages, but the girl is the oldest and could be 12 or 13. On each brief encounter, the children were polite, but obviously anxious not to prolong the conversation. As a result, I know nothing more about them than I can observe. Of course, it may be a false assumption on my part that the children’s diffidence is a manifestation of parental cautioning, and then again it may not. I likely will never know.
From my point of view this is a sad state of affairs. They seem like nice kids, and my own grandchildren, and some great grandchildren that I have never seen, are thousands of miles away. I’m not looking to find surrogate grand children; I was never very good at the grandfatherly thing anyway, but it would be pleasant to have a dialogue with young folk, and to learn about the lives of a new generation.
One of the happy surprises about the community we moved into two years ago is the age spread of the people who live here. Some of them are young parents. This is atypical of many Florida communities, some of which are age restricted to homeowners over 50 years of age. The only children to be seen are those visiting their grandparents for short stays.
In years gone by, one could expect to make the acquaintance of children through their parents in the normal course of events. Not that this provided an absolute guarantee to parents that their children were not endangered, but familiarity, coupled with appropriate parental care and supervision went a long way towards keeping the children out of harm’s way.
In contemporary society, neighborliness is frequently absent, and parents are oftentimes distracted by the pace and intensity of their working and social lives. As a result, perhaps too much reliance is placed on statutes such as Megan’s Laws, and on inculcating fear into children’s minds. In my opinion, placing the principle responsibility for child safety on laws, and on the children themselves, is an abrogation of good child-rearing practices.
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