Pennsylvania and Megan’s Law for Sex Offenders

There is something called Megan’s Law that makes sex offenders register with the police where they are going to live. With this act, every time a sex offender moves, they have to register their address.

Unfortunately, in Pennsylvania there are two ways to legally get away with not registering. The two groups of people are the homeless sex offender and one who moved from another state.

Jennifer Popovich, who is an assistant District attorney of Beaver County PA. said the homeless don’t have to register because they don’t have an address to register. (authors idea, have the homeless tell police around the general area or homeless shelter they are staying.) Pennsylvania law as it is currently is, says that if you are homeless you don’t have to register. (another authors note. I think some sex offenders become homeless on purpose  so they don’t have to register)

Now the legislature has proposed a change in the law and it is under discussion. This proposal, if it became a law would force the homeless to register and also the people who come from other states to live in Pennsylvania.

There is another problem that Popovich and Beaver County District Attorney Anthony Berosh have with the law the way it is. They don’t like it when a sex offender pleads guilty, then it takes so long to sentence them that because a PA law says that in a minimum of 90 days the sex offender has to be evaluated to see how long they have to register as a sex offender. Sometimes during this period the sex offender may change their plea to not guilty. When this happens, their has to be a trial. This means that the victim will testify or be in court and make them live through the tragedy again.