Assessing the Practical and Monetary Efficacy of New Jersey's Megan's Law, 1972-2007 (ICPSR 26401)

Version Date: Apr 19, 2013

Cite this study |

Principal Investigator(s):
Kristen Zgoba, New Jersey Department of Corrections; Philip Witt, Associates in Psychological Services, P.A.; Melissa Dalessandro, New Jersey Department of Corrections; Bonita Veysey, Rutgers University

https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR26401.v1

Version V1

Slide tabs to view more

Summary

The study investigated New Jersey's Megan's Law and its specific deterrence effect on re-offending, including the level of general and sexual offense recidivism, the nature of sexual re-offenses, and time to first re-arrest for sexual and non-sexual re-offenses (i.e., community tenure). Data were collected on 550 sexual offenders released during the years 1990 to 2000.

Citation

Zgoba, Kristen, Witt, Philip, Dalessandro, Melissa, and Veysey, Bonita. Assessing the Practical and Monetary Efficacy of New Jersey’s Megan’s Law, 1972-2007. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2013-04-19. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR26401.v1

Export Citation:

  • RIS (generic format for RefWorks, EndNote, etc.)
  • EndNote

Funding

United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. National Institute of Justice (2006-IJ-CX-0018)

Subject Terms

Geographic Coverage

Smallest Geographic Unit

none

Restrictions

A downloadable version of data for this study is available however, certain identifying information in the downloadable version may have been masked or edited to protect respondent privacy. Additional data not included in the downloadable version are available in a restricted version of this data collection. For more information about the differences between the downloadable data and the restricted data for this study, please refer to the codebook notes section of the PDF codebook. Users interested in obtaining restricted data must complete and sign a Restricted Data Use Agreement, describe the research project and data protection plan, and obtain IRB approval or notice of exemption for their research.

Distributor(s)

Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research
Hide

Time Period(s)

1972 -- 2007

Date of Collection

2007-03 -- 2007-06

Data Collection Notes

  1. The study was conducted in three phases. Phase One was a 21-year (10 years prior and 10 years after and the year of the implementation of Megan's Law) trend study of sex offenses in each of New Jersey's counties and of the state as a whole. In Phase Two, data were collected on 550 sexual offenders released during the years 1990 to 2000. Phase Three collected data on the implementation and ongoing costs of administering Megan's Law. Only Phase Two data on 550 sexual offenders are available as part of this data collection at this time.

  2. The study focused on data from 550 sexual offenders released between 1990-2000 but the data provide information on offenses as early as 1972 and as late as 2007.

Hide

Study Purpose

The purpose of the study was to examine the impact of community notification and registration laws (Megan's Law) in New Jersey. The study examined Megan's Law for its specific deterrence effect on re-offending, including the level of general and sexual offense recidivism, the nature of sexual re-offenses, and time to first re-arrest for sexual and non-sexual re-offenses (i.e., community tenure).

Study Design

The research team developed a Megan's Law study data collection tool to extract information from paper-based inmate folders/records on the 550 sexual offenders in the study. For each of these cases, extensive demographic, clinical, institutional and service use, criminal history, and crime offense characteristics information was collected. This provides an opportunity to contrast outcomes of offenders arrested and released prior to the passing of Megan's Law with offenders arrested and released after the legislation passed in 1994. The outcome measure of recidivism was collected through June 15, 2007. The remaining measures were adjusted to assure that all offenders had an equal time at risk, specifically 2,358 days or approximately six and a half years.

Sample

The study used a stratified random sample of sex offenders released from New Jersey Department of Corrections facilities (either the Adult Diagnostic and Treatment Center [ADTC] or one of the general population facilities) before and after implementation of Megan's Law. Fifty sex offenders per year (25 from the ADTC and 25 from the general population) were randomly selected for the period covering 1990 through 2000, 11 years in total. This yielded a sample of 550 cases.

Time Method

Longitudinal: Cohort / Event-based

Universe

All New Jersey sex offenders released from incarceration between the years 1990 and 2000.

Unit(s) of Observation

individual

Data Source

The research team developed a Megan's Law study data collection tool to extract information from paper-based inmate folders/records on the 550 sexual offenders in the study.

Data Type(s)

Mode of Data Collection

Description of Variables

The study contains 122 variables including outcome variables as well as offender characteristics/demographics, intervention/treatment variables, index offense information, prior sexual and non-sexual offense variables, and re-offenses and incarcerations variables. Outcome variables include recidivism, community tenure, and harm. Community tenure includes time until first re-arrest. Harm includes number of sex offenses, violence of sex offenses and number of child victims.

Response Rates

Not applicable

Presence of Common Scales

none

Hide

Original Release Date

2013-04-19

Version History

2018-02-15 The citation of this study may have changed due to the new version control system that has been implemented. The previous citation was:
  • Zgoba, Kristen, Philip Witt, Melissa Dalessandro, and Bonita Veysey. Assessing the Practical and Monetary Efficacy of New Jersey's Megan's Law, 1972-2007. ICPSR26401-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2013-04-19. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR26401.v1

2013-04-19 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

  • Created variable labels and/or value labels.
  • Standardized missing values.
  • Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.
Hide

Weight

none

Hide

Notes

  • The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.

  • One or more files in this data collection have special restrictions. Restricted data files are not available for direct download from the website; click on the Restricted Data button to learn more.