The study estimated the cost of implementing Megan's Law in New Jersey at around $555,000 in 1995. By 2007, the annual costs of maintaining the programs totaled around $4 million.
New Jersey was among the first states to enact laws requiring community notification and sex offender registration. The laws, now in all 50 states, are named for Megan Kanka, a 7-year-old New Jersey girl who was raped and killed in 1994 by a twice-convicted sex offender who lived near her home.
Megan's Law requires law enforcement agencies to notify the public about convicted sex offenders living in their communities.
When the most dangerous sex offenders move to a neighborhood, police go door to door to personally notify citizens and past victims. Those considered to have a lower risk of re-offending are listed on an Internet registry available to the public. The lowest risk offenders must register but aren't subject to notification laws.
Kanka's mother, Maureen Kanka, says the laws were never intended to alter the behavior of sex offenders.
"It was to provide an awareness to the public, which it has done," Kanka said Friday. "We never said it would stop them from going somewhere else and sexually abusing."
She added: "Would having that knowledge have made a difference for my daughter? Absolutely. She'd have been alive and well."
But Kristen Zgoba, one of the lead authors of the report and a research supervisor for the state Corrections Department, said that increased awareness alone doesn't result in safer communities.
"There's no other way to increase safety other than to decrease the likelihood of these crimes taking place," Zgoba said.
A public defender, Michael Buncher, said the money spent on Megan's Law would be better used for improved supervision of sex offenders and sex offender therapy in prisons.
