In July, a neighbor molested Joy Allen’s 5-year-old son. That neighbor was a 15-year-old Columbus Dispatch paperboy.Allen, 41, of Grove City is struggling with the reality that juvenile and adult sex offenders are not treated the same way.If the attacker of Allen’s son had been 18, he might have had to register as a sex offender. But Ohio’s version of Megan’s law says juveniles do not have to register.Megan’s law was passed in New Jersey in 1994 after a little girl named Megan Kanka was raped and murdered by a neighbor who was a convicted sex offender. The law is intended to notify people if potentially dangerous sex offenders live or work nearby. President Clinton signed similar federal legislation last year.Ohio’s version of Megan’s law, adopted in January, requires county sheriffs to notify schools, universities, day care centers, police and neighbors that an offender lives in the area. Those classified by a judge as sexual predators or habitual sex offenders must register ‹ unless they are juveniles.”We have to take this problem seriously,” said Donya Adkerson of Alternative Counseling Inc. in Illinois. “We know victims of adolescent offenders are just as traumatized as victims of adult offenders.” Alan Michaels, assistant professor of law at OSU, said it is not unusual in criminal law to treat juveniles differently than adults.In the case of Megan’s law, Michaels said, the youth of juvenile offenders might have made legislators think they were less of a threat to society.”They (the legislators) probably didn’t want them to have this as a stigma,” Michaels said. But some juveniles do pose a threat to their neighbors.On Oct. 10, the Plain Dealer reported that a 21-year-old man, who recently moved to Lorain County had committed 22 sexual assaults from the time he was 12. Since the man was a juvenile when the crimes occurred, he would not have been required to register under Megan’s law. But a judge ordered the man to register as a sex offender.Megan’s law isn’t the only area where juveniles are treated differently. Kevin Miller, spokesman for the Ohio Department of Youth Services, said that because the juvenile system is completely separate from the adult system, there is no way to track whether juvenile offenders reoffend as adults.”We teach them they’ve committed a crime and they need to own up to it, and that they have a debt they need to pay to society,” Miller said. “I think they can be successfully rehabilitated.”Skip Edwards, a Grove City police detective who works with juveniles, said they are treated differently because they are supposed to be easier to rehabilitate. Edwards believes you can identify future sexual predators from certain behaviors. “We can catch it before it gets out of hand,” said Edwards. Making counseling mandatory as a part of the sentence is the best way to deal with juvenile sex offenders, he said. He doesn’t think they should have to register.”We’ve got to put more emphasis on the start of this problem,” said Edwards.The boy who molested Allen’s son was sentenced to three years probation and sex offender counseling, said Scott Saeger, the Franklin County prosecutor assigned to the case.Bill Kirby, Franklin County magistrate, said treatment is usually, but not always, required for juvenile sex offenders. He said he doesn’t see many juvenile repeat offenders because rehabilitation usually works on adolescents.But, Kirby said, there are waiting lists to get into treatment facilities. He said the probation period is usually one to two years for juvenile sex offenders. “We tailor the length of probation to the length of the waiting list,” Kirby said.Kirby thinks a juvenile version of Megan’s Law would be worth further study. A registry for juvenile sex offenders would have to be balanced with existing laws intended to protect them such as expunging or sealing records, said Kirby.”You could probably tailor a registry for juvenile sex offenders,” he said. Adkerson said there is a movement to change the federal version of Megan’s law to include juvenile offenders.Most adult offenders start committing sex crimes as children, Adkerson said. But it is impossible to track how many juveniles strike again as adults. Keith Kauffman is an associate professor of Pediatrics and Psychology at OSU. He has studied adolescent sex offenders for four years, researching how offenders find their victims, get time alone with them, gain their trust and keep them quiet after the assault.Megan’s law was not designed to treat offenders, but Kauffman said he thinks all offenders should go through extensive rehabilitation. He said the recidivism rates are lower for adolescents, and they are usually easier to rehabilitate.When adolescents commit sex crimes, they could just be experimenting or experiencing a lapse of judgment, Kauffman said. Lila Hanft, a social worker in the Center for Marital and Sexual Health in Cleveland, said prior sexual abuse is an important indicator of future sexually deviant behavior. But the reasons why people become sex offenders are different for every person, she said.No one knows for sure, Hanft said, because the research being done is so limited.”I think they (juvenile sex offenders) can be rehabilitated but only if they want to be,” she said. The accepted treatment of sex offenders focuses on examining all the factors leading up to the offense and making the offender understand why the crime is wrong. The acts of repeat offenders usually become increasingly violent, Adkerson said.”It’s such a complicated crime,” she said. “And we have a society that wants simple answers where there are no simple answers.”