Posted on 02/02/2008 5:04:10 PM PST by Clint Williams
It's a new law which is supposed to keep you protected and, especially, protect your children from sexual predators. Ohio Senate Bill 10 just took effect last month. But critics say the law will not only cost taxpayers millions of dollars, but will actually make things more dangerous.
Local 12 Reporter Jeff Hirsh reports on how a well-intentioned plan may end up backfiring.
It means more paperwork, more computer work.
"It's tripled. The workload for us has tripled."
And because of all that...
Deputy Adam Breeze, Hamilton County Sheriff's Office: "No free time to do anything else. If we need to look at some files, or write a warrant, or investigate some offenders, it really cracks down on our time, in that aspect, with the tripling of our registration with offenders."
Ohio has had a sex offender registration law for a decade, making names and addresses public. But Senate Bill 10 pushes thousands of the lowest level offenders statewide into the highest level ... and adds years of reporting requirements. For example, under the old law, bottom tier offenders registered their addresses with the sheriff once a year for ten years. It went on a website, but neighbors were not notified by postcard. Under Senate Bill 10, most of those offenders now have to register every 90 days for life, with postcard notification of neighbors every time they move.
In Hamilton County alone, 600 low level offenders are now high level offenders... same people, no new crime, just a new label.
"The sheriff's office is not taking a position pro or con on the law. They have to enforce it. They're simply pointing out some of the unexpected implications. But there's another organization which definitely has a point of view." "It's political pandering."
The Ohio Justice and Policy Center is suing to get Senate Bill 10 thrown out. The suit challenges retroactively changing someone's offender status But the group also says upgrading low level offenders adds fear, without adding safety.
Margie Slagle, Ohio Justice & Policy Center: "What the politicians don't tell folks is that most of the people on this list are not child molesters."
"Now they're being told that they're the worst of the worst, and threats to children, and that's ludicrous."
Until the lawsuits are resolved, Hamilton County is not sending out postcard notifications for low level offenders who've been upgraded. But if the law stays the same, postage costs will more than triple to half a million dollars yearly, because hundreds of notification cards are sent out per offender.
Jeff Hirsh, Local 12.
Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann and the sponsor of Senate Bill 10, Senator Steve Austria of suburban Dayton, have both said the measure is constitutional and will be effective in protecting children.
I’ll bet there are more than enough moms and dads out there that are willing to volunteer time to get this data entered.
Look for a way to comply, and quit looking for a way to weasle out.
Shut...up...and...do...your...%@#%ing JOB!
Yes! The teenage boy who mooned an old lady is now equivalent to rapists and murderers!
This isn’t much of a change, just making sure that a loophole that was out there is closed tight.
They don't register and notify the public of murderers after they get out.
Fire the judge or the district attorney who qualifies a mooning as a serious youth offense. Then go to the mandatory review hearing and demand that the kid be taken off the list.
If their second offense pushes them up a tier and that second offense is mooning some old lady, then no, sorry, I refer everyone to the Chris Rock video on YouTube - I think they're calling it LAPD training video - the sage advice from it is: Don't break the law. If you escaped a lifetime of being on a sex offender list, you should live your life as if there was a cop over your shoulder 24/7, one right behind your car, and another right around the corner. Don't come crying when your second offense gives you the punishment you probably should have gotten the first time.
But otherwise, why are you resorting to the liberalist tactic of choosing the least common representative of a class affected by a law? Are you saying that you'd rather feel better knowing that someone who mooned an old lady won't be on the registry if that means that someone who raped three girls before they turned 15 isn't?
>>>>600 low level offenders are now high level offenders
Just for the sake of fairness, does this include the “indecent exposure” charge that sometimes nails guys for peeing behind the 7-11 dumpster at midnight?
I can’t help but recall the Cambodian refugee who’d come here in 1975 but never gotten citizenship, and whose only lifetime infraction was the “sex offense” of taking a leak behind some building. So at the age of mid-thirties, and speaking barely one word of Khmer, he’s deported back to Cambodia a few years ago. No job, no money, no language skills, no social understanding, nothing.
I wonder if “peeing in the parking lot” should be delisted as a “sex offense”.
You don’t have a clue how “sex offenders” are classified, by making a statement about mother and fathers being willing to volunteer their time to pass out postcards with new offenders addresses on them.
You should learn about what kinds of “offenses” are classified as low level offenses, and whether it’s right or legal to suddenly reclassify them as high risk offenders. Low levels can be statutory rape (girls lying about their age, sleeping with men in bars after one meeting, teenagers having sex, first time caught soliciting a prostitute, women crying “rape” when their boyfriend breaks up with them, or single moms claiming their babydaddy touched their child because they don’t jump through their demands.) I know many personal situations exactly like these, whose families have been decimated inside and out just because of D.A.’s who smell blood and who want to lock up everyone in their path accused of a “sex crime”. They’ll offer them 5 or 10 years in prison for a plea bargain, threatening that if they say their innocent and go to trial, they’ll get 20 years to life. This scenario happens every single day in this country — thousands of times unnecessarily.
I am a mother of four, and a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, who speaks out publicly on issues of child abuse and sexual abuse against children. But I KNOW THE LAWS and how unbelievably unfair and unbalanced and insane they are, when it comes to how our society treats “sex offenses”. You could have a mass murder released after 20 years living next door to you who is MUCH more dangerous to your family than someone caught with 1 or 2 borderline pictures on their computer at home of “child porn”. All the laws regarding sex offenders need to be totally rewritten from scratch, including sentencing guidelines. We need to permanently lock up true sexual predators and repeat offenders who show a dangerous lack of any regard for their victims, and stop overcrowding our prisons with men falsely accused of being rapists because they make a stupid mistake with a 17 year old girl who looks like she is 25.
Bring it on...I’m sure you want to come after me for saying all this, but if you think I’m way off base, you don’t know how insane our legal system is at its core, regarding supposed “sex crimes”. Megans Law doesn’t help protect your child from the greatest risk of sexual abuse, which is right within your own family and your own circle of friends.
Kingu, you would do a 180 degree aboutface completely, if you really knew the sex offender laws and how they are actually implemented in courts, because of scare tactics and ridiculous overdramatizing petty offenses (yes, like peeing in the park, mooning a neighbor, or dating a 16 year old if you’re 20). You do not know how they really ARE now equivalent with reporting on Megans list and public disclosure and reporting as a sex offender for LIFE, to the men who rape babies and take pictures of them to distribute on the internet. In court — because of our crazy laws — they ARE treated equally — and our prisons are FULL to overflowing with guys on both extreme ends serving time side by side together. You’re naive if you don’t know this already, but you can learn.
You don’t get it — but you WOULD if you would do your homework. I guarantee it. California is the #1 example of this, by the way. Our wonderful state.
Wow. Evidently I touched on a sore subject with you.
Recidivism is rampant and children by the scores are being savaged. If you think the new laws are inappropriate, then join together with others to get them changed. Perhaps they are.
All I know is that just about every story a read today about a child who is abused or a woman who is raped or either that is slaughtered, the perp is more often than not a repeat offender.
We have young women being slaughtered for the fun of it.
You’ll have to excuse me for wanting prior offenders clamped down on.
All I say, is let the punishment fit the crime. Just because some judges have abused their discretion, doesn’t mean we should dispense with all judgment and operate by the book. That is just an invitation for prosecutors to prosecute everyone for everything.
I’ll save you the trouble: The hypothetical person doesn’t exist. Are there those who are on the sex offender list somewhere in the nation who ended up on there because of pee’ing in the park? Absolutely; it was likely the trigger conviction that brought up previous convictions that /did/ qualify them for the sex offender list, but up until now, they couldn’t be added because of grandfather exemptions.
California’s prisons are mostly filled with twentieth convicted career drug criminals. Did some of them end up serving 25 to life next to a murderer for taking a slice of someone’s pizza? Certainly. But that person in question also had two felony robbery convictions (both with firearm), sixteen convictions for breaking and entering, etc.
The point being: Every one of these people has been granted parole by the people after serving time and failed to live up to their side of the bargain and remain law abiding citizens. They broke the cardinal rule that any felon should always follow: Don’t break the law. We’re not talking seat belt violations, or smoking in an unpolitically designated manner, but that’s about as far as one can stray from the straight and narrow once one has been granted their freedom after conviction for committing a serious crime.
Now; let’s look at the local high risk sex offenders in my town. Case #1, a 54 year old man, arrested for growing weed, in the follow on investigation, videos of five children being sexually molested were found, all filmed within his living room. Prior convictions: None. Case #2, a 62 year old man, arrested last for forgery - attempting to cash the social security check of a woman he had abducted and repeatedly raped. Prior convictions: 14 counts of rape, 9 counts of strongarm robbery, 8 counts grand theft.
Both were arrested this last time, initially, for relatively minor offenses. Both could be claimed by those who wish to subvert the process as being placed on the sex offender registry as high risk offenders for having a little pot or for trying to cash a check. That’s how liberals work.
Well said. The punishment should fit the crime. Period. Hysteria should not rule the courts. Assign risk level according to the actual crime — the history of that person.
That requires giving discretion back to judges, which might be a tough sell in some circles. They could let serious offeenders off easy.
Girls look much older & many of them are having sex & the parents need somebody to blame. They don't want to face the fact their little darling has been doing it for quite awhile. Yet these same parent will let their daughters out all hours & dress like they are hookers.
I think the basic idea of Megan's law is good for high risk offenders. But I think if you repeat the crime you need to do the time. But for the boy who was tricked by a girl who tells him she is 18 & looks it but is 15 yrs old ..I don't think its fair his whole life is ruined. These guys can't get jobs & their lives are ruined . Yet these girls never have to face anything for lying.
Now towns are making laws so sex offenders can't live in them. I don't want to live next to one but where are they supposed to live? If you are a repeat sex offender you belong in jail. If that is what it takes to stop you then if you have to be jailed for life then so be it IMHO.
I know sadly from my own experience that it is usually friends , family members & people you trust that will molest.
I’m a repeat sex offender. I’ve peed outside many times. Especially on golf courses when I’ve had a few beers.
Don't know if you've seen this one: Lawmakers: Public urination shouldn't lead to sex offender status
The inceased paperwork complainers are usually the ones who want the pay without the work. Get over it, do what is required to get the job done.
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