From the Prison Legal News, word of a perhaps unsurprising study that finds that public misperceptions about sex offenders has influenced legislators to pass punitive sex offender laws.
A 2015 study authored by Christina Mancini, an Assistant Professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, and Kristen Budd of MiamiUniversity (Ohio) found that numerous misperceptions about sex crimes–such as the myth of “stranger danger,” the perception of abnormally high sexual recidivism, and offense amplification–have been the impetus behind laws passed by “get tough” legislators spurred on by a misinformed public.
Read more at Prison Legal News.