Do Registries Help Law Enforcement?
Police have used sex offender registries to identify potential suspects when a sex crime has been committed in their jurisdiction. Yet, given that most sex crimes are not committed by registered offenders (See Chapter IV above), the utility of the registries for law enforcement is limited. For example, a 1999 study about Massachusetts sex offender registry showed that of the 136 new sex crimes in a particular jurisdiction, only six were committed by individuals listed on a police registry.127 Human Rights Watch asked a state law enforcement official in Minnesota whether the sex offender registry changed the way he investigated new sex crimes. He told us, It gives us a place to start, but most suspects we arrest are not previously convicted sex offenders. Last year, Minnesota had 585 sex offender convictions, and only 58 of those individuals had a prior conviction for a sex offense. 128 With over 600,000 men and women listed on sex offender registries,129law enforcement cannot actively
