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Parole Board Members’ Views of Sex Offender Registration and Community Notification

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Abstract

Little is known about how criminal justice officials perceive fairness, efficacy or scope of sex offender registration and community notification procedures, despite their importance in implementing such policies. There is also scant literature regarding parole board members and their attitudes or approaches to their work. This study addresses both issues by examining the attitudes and beliefs regarding sex offender registration and community notification among members of state parole boards. Using a survey methodology, including the Community Attitudes Toward Sex Offenders (CATSO) scale (Church, Wakeman, Miller, Clements, & Sun, 2008), parole board members are shown to hold moderate views of the importance of such practices and to frequently question the efficacy and scope of registration and community notification. Additionally, the CATSO is shown to not be of assistance for understanding the views of parole board members.

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Notes

  1. Maine and Minnesota do not have parole boards and therefore are not included in the present study.

  2. We acknowledge our less than total response rate. Other studies of views of sex offenders and registration/community notification are also plagued by lower response rates (Kernsmith, et al., 2009; Levenson & Cotter, 2005; Levenson & Tewksbury, 2009; Tewksbury, 2004–2005; Tewksbury & Humkey, 2010).

  3. Most respondents in the survey were either White or Black, and very few indicated they were also Hispanic. As such, in order to get a meaningful interpretation out of this measure we dichotomized race into White and Other.

  4. Because the other 2 models had no significant variables nor did they, taken together provide a significant fit as a mode, we do not discuss them in this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Justice Administration, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, USA

    Richard Tewksbury

  2. Department of Sociology, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, USA

    Elizabeth Ehrhardt Mustaine

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  1. Richard Tewksbury
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  2. Elizabeth Ehrhardt Mustaine
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Correspondence to Richard Tewksbury.

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Tewksbury, R., Mustaine, E.E. Parole Board Members’ Views of Sex Offender Registration and Community Notification. Am J Crim Just 37, 413–431 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-011-9119-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-011-9119-1

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