Posted on 10/31/2007 11:24:08 AM PDT by SmithL
Sacramento, Calif. (AP) -- Hundreds of California sex offenders who face tough new restrictions on where they can live are declaring themselves homeless — truthfully or not — and that's making it difficult for the state to track them.
Jessica's Law, approved by 70 percent of California voters a year ago, bars registered sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or park where children gather. That leaves few places where offenders can live legally.
Some who have had trouble finding a place to live are avoiding re-arrest by reporting — falsely, in some cases — that they are homeless.
Experts say it is hard to monitor sex offenders when they lie about their address or are living day-to-day in cheap hotels, homeless shelters or on the street. It also means they may not be getting the treatment they need.
"We could potentially be making the world more dangerous rather than less dangerous," said therapist Gerry Blasingame, past chairman of the California Coalition on Sexual Offending.
Similar laws in Iowa and Florida have driven offenders underground or onto the streets.
"They drop off the registry because they don't want to admit living in a prohibited zone," said Corwin Ritchie, executive director of the association of Iowa prosecutors.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
They could have found most of them at the Cow Palace just a couple of nights ago....
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
That would solve the problem nicely.
Why couldn’t they claim to be an illegal alien with no ID and just pick a new name?
Set up bare-bones camps for them in the wilds of Alaska where they’ll be away from the temptation of children.
Actually, what they are doing is polluting other states with their filth.
The legislature here would repeal the law of gravity if you paid them to do it. I doubt this law will survive a federal constitutional challenge.
I wonder how they define a sex offender. Doe’s it include someone who slaps the wrong person’s butt and is slapped with a sexual assault conviction?
bump
17 year-old boy takes a picture of his 15 year-old girlfriend’s naked breasts with his camera phone and emails it to a friend, who posts it on the internet. That makes both boys into internet pornographers and sex offenders, at the prosecutor’s discretion.
To get the illegal alien drivers license in New York you need to present a valid passport. You can't just claim to be someone else. I suspect there will be few illegal aliens that actually apply for the New York Driver's license. Spitzer is just putting on a show of helping illegal aliens, but the IDs are pretty much useless and can only be gotten if the illegal alien gets or has a passport from their home country.
Yep. I voted against it for some of those same reasons. Unfortunately, even on FR, people started in with the mantra of "you must support sex offenders" when I said I opposed it.
There’s a lot of land up by Alturas, and lots of it is nowhere near a school.
That is why paroled sex offenders in the tiny "City and County of San Francisco", all of four miles across, can't officially reside there yet can't move to Alturas, i.e., they violate their parole by breathing. And that's why this law is both bug-f**k nuts and federally unconstitutional.
Only if he is charged and convicted of a criminal sex offense. That is within the prosecutor’s discretion.
But hey, passing the law let a bunch of politicans hook their thumbs in their suspenders and brag to their constituents about how they were "tough on crime", so it served its real purpose...
I didn’t know that. Thanks for clarifying. Couldn’t they request to move, though?
I have noticed a lot of these court rulings have put these sex offenders in Siberia..literally. The rules almost make them move out of the country.
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