In 1996, Congress passed the federal Megan’s Law, which mandated disclosure of information about registered sex offenders when required to protect the public. Pennsylvania’s own Megan’s Law was enacted in 1995 and took effect in April 1996. The law was subsequently tweaked by state lawmakers; in 2004, for instance, the law was changed so information on all registered sexual offenders could be made available to the public via the internet.
In the seemingly relentless cascade of sexual crimes against children in Pennsylvania, one can find newsd codverage of convictions of an Amish father and son, a music teacher, a doctor and a missionary. There are mug shots that are variously defiant, stone-faced, mortified, clean-shaven, grizzled, tattooed, bearded, mustachioed, but mostly, overwhelmingly, ordinary-looking people.
How do parents protect their children when child sex abusers are not the readily identifiable monsters of public imagination?
Information is power. Which is why we continue to believe that the Megan’s Law registry operated by the Pennsylvania State Police is a valuable tool.
According to that registry, 833 sex offenders reside in Lancaster County alone; 774 of them are not incarcerated. One Christopher Zweifel is included among the incarcerated.
Zweifel was a Sunday school teacher who admitted three decades ago to sexually molesting five girls ages 5 to 7, some at his then-wife’s day care. Zweifel was arrested in July 1995. Three months later, he pleaded guilty and a Bucks County judge sentenced him to 2 1/2 to 5 years in prison, followed by 10 years of probation.
Nearly 30 years later, Zweifel was arrested on new assault charges involving children who live near his East Earl Township home. On Oct. 16, he was held for court on 18 charges related to claims from the children, including three counts each of indecent assault and corruption of a minor. Unable to post $250,000 bail, he has been held at Lancaster County Prison since his arrest.
Zweifel will remain on the Megan’s Law registry for his lifetime.
This is as it should be.
We have no sympathy for people who victimize children. And we have little patience with those who try to minimize their crimes — an adult, for instance, cannot have “sex” with a child. That is rape.
We do, however, respect the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees accused individuals the right to legal defense. So we don’t take issue with the work that attorney Aaron Marcus does with the Defender Association of Philadelphia.
We just take issue with his point that the “overwhelming majority of the people on the (Megan’s Law) registry pose no different risk to the public of either committing a sexual crime or any other crime than anyone else who’s ever had a criminal record.”
Marcus noted that there aren’t registries for certain other types of crime, including theft. But the damage inflicted by child sexual abuse can cause lifelong trauma and cannot be compared to the impact of, say, most property crimes.
Moreover, recidivism rates of sex offenders are often underestimated, in part because many child sexual assaults go unreported and only a fraction result in convictions.
According to the child sexual abuse prevention organization Darkness to Light, only about a third of child sexual abuse incidents are identified and even fewer are reported. And arrests are made in only 29% of child sexual abuse cases.
Megan’s Law critics argue that sex offender registries have expanded beyond their original purpose of protecting children from serious crimes and now include offenses that don’t merit inclusion.
We’d never claim that Megan’s Law registries are a complete solution to sexual crimes against children.
They’re merely a tool in an arsenal that needs also to include, as Marcus suggested, education that helps children to identify behaviors they should report to the trusted adults in their lives.
As Cathleen Palm, founder of The Center for Children’s Justice, an independent nonprofit dedicated to protecting Pennsylvania’s children, puts it, “You just can’t have one tool in the toolbox. We need multiple tools.”
As the Darkness to Light website explains, children need to be taught that it’s “against the rules” for adults to act in a sexual way with them. They should be taught what parts of their bodies others should not touch (they also should learn the proper names for those body parts).
If a child seems reluctant to spend time with a particular adult, a parent should ask why.
Adults who sexually abuse children may be a family member, a friend’s dad, a clergy member, a Scout leader, a coach. This reality can seem scary and overwhelming to parents.
That’s why Pennsylvania’s Megan’s Law registry — which enables searches for offenders by name or municipality or mile radius from an address — can be helpful. We’d encourage parents to employ this tool for informational purposes (and never harassment).
Remember that it’s not a perfect tool, not least because only convicted sex offenders are on the registry.
But it’s something, particularly as active community notification — the distribution by police of flyers with an offender’s name, photo, address and offense — only happens when an adult offender has been classified by the court as a “sexually violent predator” (or “sexually violent delinquent child,” in the case of a minor).
We should not teach children to fear everyone. But we must teach them to trust themselves when an adult makes them feel uncomfortable. We must empower them to set boundaries and share their unease with adults they trust. And we must make ourselves trustworthy by believing them and acting to protect them, even when they’re telling us something we don’t want to hear.
Report suspected child abuse to ChildLine: (800) 932-0313.
— LNP-LancasterOnline via TNS
