Analysis Of The Difference Between Chelsea, Megan And Jessica Laws; How They Help Combating Sexual Crimes

In the year 1996 Megan’s Law was enacted and this also became recognized as Penal Code 290. Penal Code 290 basically states that once a person is convicted of a sex crime, they are required to register themselves as a sex offender. Megan’s Law was created when a small seven-year-old girl by the name of Megan was raped and killed by an infamous child molester that moved across the street from her family’s house without their knowledge of him being there. Ever since that incident local communities were warned to watch out for child molesters and now all states in the U.S. have some form of Megan’s Law.

The main purpose of this law is to make sure that people know that a child molester is living in their neighborhood and the families that have children should be cautious around them in order to ensure their children’s safety. My zip code is 92880 and there are 27 postable offenders in that location. In the city Eastvale, the data shows that there are 18 postable offenders that are located within my city.

Finally, in Riverside County, there are 3,271 postable offenders that are residing in Riverside County. While looking at what the zip code statistics list, I did not recognize any of the sex offenders, but I did notice that a sex offender lives within my community and he is within walking distance of my house. So now I know I should always watch over my little siblings and tell them to never be on their own because knowing that there is a sex offender in my community now is giving me chills. My thoughts on the analysis are that I am surprised to know that there are so many sex offenders that live in the same county as me and that a small portion of them live the smae city as me too.

Relating this back to the cities that were used for finding the crime rate I am sure that these cities would have sec offenders as well. Anaheim has 354 postable offenders, Corona has 135 postable offenders, Inglewood has 220 postable offenders, Irvine has 32 postable offenders, Los Angeles has 4,234 postable offenders, Moreno Valley has 325 postable offenders, Riverside has 524 postable offenders, Santa Ana has 485 postable offenders, Simi Valley has 111 postable offenders, San Bernardino has 704 postable offenders, and lastly Thousand Oaks has 36 postable offenders.

I believe that Los Angeles, Riverside, Orange, and San Bernardino counties have a huge amount of sex offenders due to how big and how populated they are. Los Angeles County has 13,871 postable offenders, Orange County has 2,531 postable offenders, San Bernardino County has 3,956 postable offenders, and Riverside County has 3,271 postable offenders. This correlates back to the crime rate chart because it proves San Bernardino to have the highest crime rate due to there being a lot of sex offender considering San Bernardino’s population compared to Los Angeles and Riverside which their populations are bigger than San Bernardino.

Jessica’s Law is designed to make sure that sex offenders won’t coommit that same action and strips away their ability to re-offend again. There was also another version of the Jessica’s Law, which was known as the Jessica Lunsford Act and it was presented at a federal level in 2005, but was never enacted into law by congress. Jessica’s Law was named that way because a young girl named Jessica was raped and killed in February 2005 by a previously convicted sex offender name John Couey.

Couey tried disappearing and leaving no trace of him being there, but the police eventually found him and arrested him on March 17 after his half sister confessed to the police of his whereabouts. John Couey confessed that he wanted to just rob Lunsfor’s house, but he saw Jessica and on instinct he decided to try to abduct her. He entered the Lunsford’s house one night and took her to a trailer where he raped her. He would tell her to wait in the closet while he went to work and when he had no use for her anymore, he decided to bury her alive. He was able to convince her by lying to her about bringing her back to her parents if she got into the trash bag, but ended up getting buried alive instead.

The public went crazy over this case and wanted justice for the crime that was committed by the sex offender. Florida officials replied to this outrage by giving people who molest people younger than 12 years old a minimum sentence of 25 years in prison and lifetime electronic monitoring. As for the people 18 years or older that commit sexual battery on people less than 12 years old would have to serve a life sentence in prison. Also the person convicted must now stay 2,000 feet from where children are located and if the sexual offender is high risk that means that the distance would be increased to 2,640 feet.

The Chelsea Law talks about a 17-year-old girl who was raped and murdered by a convitcted sex offender when she went out for a run one day. Chelsea’s Law was passed in California in 2010 and the law states that there would be increases in penalties, parole provisions, and oversight criminals that were first time sex offenders. The parents of Chelsea did their best to avenge the death of their beloved daughter. Her father’s name was Brent and her mother’s name was Kelly. They started a foundation called the “Chelsea’s Light Foundation”, and also supported a health service that helped kids that were abused physically or sexually called Palomar Health's Forensic Health Services. Brent and Kelly also state that kids are much safer in California today because the whole community came together to help pass the Chelsea Law.

Now these days with how our society it is important to stay safe and know that you are safe within school boundaries and that’s where the Clery Act comes in. The Clery Act states that all colleges and universities that are using federal funding must disclose information about crimes that have occurred on and near these campuses. This law is being monitored by the United States Department of Education, meaning that they are able to impose penalties such as fining institutions up to $54,789 and suspending them from getting federal funds from the government. The law got its name when a 19-year-old girl named Jeanne Clery and she was a student attending Lehigh University. While she was attending that University, she was raped and murdered in her campus in the year 1986. The person that raped her was a man named Joseph M. Henry and he was also attending that same university as well.

After he was convicted of the crime, he was put to court and the court gave him a death sentence through the electric chair. It also turns out that Clery being attacked is one of 38 other crimes that have been recorded in the University in three years. Celry’s parents argued that if they knew the crime statistics of the school they would’ve never had her enroll there and they also sued the institution for $2 million; this also led to security being founded for campuses. The significance of this law is to make sure people have the knowledge of how dangerous or how safe that institute is depending if they would really want to go there.