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.
At the rate they keep reclassifying crimes as "sex offenses" it won't be long before they have to build schools out in the middle of the prairie because that's the only place where they can be far enough away from the legions of newly-minted sex offenders.
That's a very good point. I'm sure this will often result in parents being terrified for their children because they live down the street from a guy who slapped a women on the ass in a bar or something similar.
We all feel that way about truly violent, evil sex offenders, but wanting to hang them all and kill them isn’t going to help bring equity to the legal system that insanely lumps them all into the same tier levels of punishment and reporting after release.
It’s the reporting after release that prevents any possibility of rehabilitation or redemption after a “sex offender” is released for lower risk crimes that have a minimal possibility of “re-offending”. You can NOT just say that because some minor crimes sometimes escalate into more serious ones down the road, means that we should throw away ALL PEOPLE who are arrested for stupid mistakes, errors in judgment, or just being thoughtless of the impact of their inappropriate behavior towards an adult (crimes against children should be in their own category, I believe).
You can double the amount of prisons in every state in this country, but ALL OF THEM will have double or triple occupancy like our prisons currently do, in two years, if we do not change the sex offender laws as they currently stand now on the books.
Unless you have personal experience with the legal system, or you know people who have, you just do not understand how easy it is in this country to walk up to someone you do not know, accuse them of raping you, and know that if they do not have a very solid alibi for that period of time, they absolutely will go to prison — even if you have never seen them before in your life, and there is no DNA evidence or physical evidence of ANY KIND against them.
If you do not believe this could happen to you (as a man), I pray you never know the reality of a false accusation from a woman or from a “child” / teenager or from an ex-wife or girlfriend. Any chance you once had at a meaningful, productive life would end, the day that would happen to you. I promise you — after you spend six months in jail (judges are doing no bail holds now for sex offenses awaiting trial), and you spend $50,000 on hiring a decent criminal attorney, your lawyer will talk you into accepting a guilty plea, to avoid going to trial and having a jury of 12 regular people give you 25 years to life, for raping someone you never met, who actually could have NEVER BEEN RAPED IN THE FIRST PLACE BY ANYONE.
The D.A. will scare you into accepting a plea of 5 to 10 years in prison, with life-time reporting on Megan’s List public website. After 7 or 8 years, you will get out of prison on parole with requirements which do not allow you to LIVE with any minor child under 18 (even though your “crime” was not against a child), including living with your OWN BIOLOGICAL children. You cannot live near a bus stop, a park, a school, a library, or a home daycare. Good luck getting a decent job to support yourself, thinking that you will just tell potential employers that you were falsely imprisoned for 8 years on rape charges. That will go over REALLY well.
THAT is the life of a sex offender in this country — of ALL sex offenders of all “risk levels” — including minor offenses listed previously. Hopefully some people will hear about this injustice, and might wake up to see how unfair and ridiculous these laws are, and how damaging to the American family they are as well. Think of how that offender’s entire family unit is affected by what happened to them.
It’s truly a nightmare that thousands of men in this country go through every day.
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.
If we simply executed child rapists, this would not be an issue.
There is all ways those that pick out the extreme cases and try to present them as everyday occurrences.
Lets put it this way I have no use for a repeat sexual predator walking the face of this planet. And if it was in my power I would execute everyone of them.
Yesterday I read a report of a repeat offender that was out of jail and raped a little boy in a library. He should have been fertilizer growing grass a long time ago.
SHOULD be titled:
CONTINUED High Cost of Failure to Execute All Serious Criminals
They COULD indeed....and all too often DO.
Again, you do not know the sex crime laws on the books, my friend. There are 20 year olds who are pleading guilty to “lewd and lacivious acts on a minor”, serving 5 years in state prison — because they kissed and fondled the breasts of their 16 year old girlfriend, because the parents caught them sitting out in the driveway in his car one night. Have you ever met someone to whom this has actually happened?
Well I have — several — just exactly like I described. These young men are label “sex offenders” for the rest of their entire lives. So that’s what you want? You want the state to have THAT kind of power over your family — over your children? You think believing this is wrong means I am a “secret Liberal”?
Interesting your logic there. I hope you never experience this happening to someone you know — or someone you love. I truly don’t. It’s hell on earth, for BOTH families, even when the parents try to “retract” their original statement, after they realize they should never have run to the authorities in the first place.
There are no safe zones. You have to teach your children to be aware of what is allowed & you have to make them understand they can talk to you about anything.
If you are a repeat offender I think jail is the best place for you for everyone's sake. But for the boy who made a mistake I just can't see ruining his life over a lying girl. Nor do I think peeing in a bush ought to get you on a list.
Compared to the total number of sex offenders in prison today, child sexual predators or serial rapists are a very small percentage of them.
I do not disagree at ALL that we should execute all child rapists. But we have to clearly define what that MEANS — what we call “rape” — and how we define a “predator”.
I am not pulling out extreme cases to make generalizations. If you knew the actual numbers of the kinds of cases I am referring to, you would change your tune pretty fast.
Pandora, your husband must STOP IMMEDIATELY giving rides home to teenage girls. You do not want the bus to drop on his head for a false accusation or misunderstanding. PLEASE — do NOT let him do that ever again, and I am NOT kidding. He is playing with fire, and you will lose everything. Promise me he will never do that again.
If you only knew what could happen....
Most interesting.
If my son began dating a 16 year old at the age of 20 I would damn near disown him. If my daughter was “fondled” by someone 4 years older than her while she was a MINOR then I would go straight to the police.
If you have an issue with the age of consent laws then why don’t you let us know NAMBLA’s position? At what age do you feel a child attains the ability to grant consent for sexual activity?
Obviously your on record that 16 is old enough. How low does it go in your mind? 15, 14, 12?
I have an 8 yr old daughter & we do not allow sleepovers. Many of her little friend's parents think we are nuts. However I have dealt with 5 older now adult children & I know what can happen. I've been called overprotective but I don't care. Sassy has a fine bed at home & thats where she will sleep with her dog at her feet. That dog barks at any noise.
Sadly I see too many boys getting on Megan law list & here in NJ if you have even one mistake its parole for life. In 15 yrs you can appeal. It seems a lying girl's word goes far here. What really bothers me is that nothing is done about these girls who are so young having sex & lying about their ages. I've seen girls at 15 yrs old look 20! I hated calling parents to check ages & I am sure my sons hated me for it but I did it. And when a girl would be 14 yrs old to my son's 16 yrs she would have to go home asap. The parents would get offended too.
I don't have any answers for these problems but I do know its not fair many times in many cases. Here in NJ a man married to a woman who has children & is a low risk sex offender can not be alone with the children ever. There was talk about not allowing them to live in the same house but I do not know if it has come to that. So families are going to be broken apart.
Go figure they will tell our children its ok to be gay, hand them birth control out in school....Yet when these kids have sex one can go to jail. Seems asinine to me. They ought to be teaching teenage boys not to have sex with underage girls. And here in NJ if you both are teens the boy can be charged if they are the same age as the girl. Yet even though both are consenting he gets charged. She walks free. Thats just wrong.
I dread the day Sassy is a teenager. She will have so many sets of eyes on her & be answering to 4 older brothers & their wives beside her parents. You can be too strict , I realize that from seeing so many runaway girls but I intend to be on guard at all times. I will ask questions of her friends & call the parents. And if my gut tells me something doesn't seem right she won't be going out of the house. Some parents will lie for their teenager's friends... Sassy will just have to get used to it I guess.
Thanks for the concern. ~Pandora~
I see that you feel strongly about the insanity of NAMBLA and its philosophy of lowering or removing the age of consent laws. I can see that you are very passionate about this. Sometimes passion for something can cloud our judgment about other issues that seem to resemble the ones we are adamantly opposed to.
I don’t believe I have said anything that would reasonably give someone else reason to think I approved of anything remotely related to NAMBLA’s position about adults having sex with children. This could not be further from my mind, in my experience on both sides of the issue, with regard to child sexual abuse of any kind. It is the ultimate violation of the human soul, for an adult to act out sexually, or have any physical contact with a child of any kind that could even be interpreted as sexual in nature. I do not disagree whatsoever with the “age of consent” as it stands currently.
What I absolutely DO have issue with, is defining the legal charges of sexual activity or behavior of a legal adult with a legal minor, when that relationship has some perception of consent. I also know that our society is out of control with its over reaction to, and it’s lack of applying personal responsibility to the behavior of persons old enough to participate in sexual activity, even if one party is technically “under age” (i.e. 15, 16 or 17 year old girl or boy). The consequences and punishment for these clear violations of the laws SHOULD FIT THE CRIME. They currently do NOT, and this is escalating rapidly across this country.
As a parent myself of four precious children over whom I am fiercely protective, I would hope that the law would deal with a boy in a reasonable and responsible way, if I would be the one to drag him by his neck into the police station, after catching him (as a 20 year old) kissing my teenage daughter. But once I cross that line and make that accusation, that boy’s life and his family’s lives would be destroyed forever, because of the way our laws currently are written and implemented. As much as my emotional response as a parent can absolutely be justified on its face, I do not believe that behavior for which I personally would want him to pay a high price for, should include many years of incarceration, and a lifetime of being branded a sexual offender, no matter what I might personally feel.
I am teaching my girls as well as my boys about personal responsibility for every action they take — every choice they make. My boys are not going to be held to a different or higher standard than my girls. The laws NEED to make room for and take into consideration these very common circumstances as I have described her in this long answer to your question. They currently do NOT. They currently would suck this young man into the abyss of a prison system that would remove any chance he had of understanding the gravity of his crime against my daughter, or of taking any responsibility for or having remorse for what he did, because of the rage and humiliation he would experience, due to the over-sentencing he would surely receive, because of the disproportionate guidelines in the criminal justice system.
My hope and prayer is that this message gets out to enough of the public over time, so that the legislators who are drafting and voting on these laws will look beyond the political climate and party lines, to see the reality of how broken our justice system truly is for sex offenders across the board.
Hope I helped you a little bit with your question.
I’ve read, with interest, some of the posts here. I was actually surprised to see that there were a couple of voices of reason besides “adopt4Christ”. That’s kind of rare with this particular topic.
Most posters only seem intent upon publishing the impression that they are good, upstanding ‘mericans who are more than willing to heap any punishment possible on sex offenders. Well, good for you.
And there are those who keep telling others like Adopt4Christ to “go out and get the laws changed” if they don’t think they are fair. That sounds proper and noble, but you know she can’t do it. No more than you can get your wishes of extermination or castration carried out.
A lot of woofing to present ourselves as indignantly righteous, but none of it the least bit effective in stopping child molesting.
Can anyone here tell me why they find themselves to be proud of “demanding” ever increasingly stricter and more harsh punishments for any poor slob caught in our legal system’s sex offender trap... no matter what they did (or perhaps, as has been pointed out), did NOT do?
I really would like to know. Because I have not heard one of these upstanding citizens screaming for a pound of flesh offering even a hint of a desire to implement programs that would help stop molestation before it happens.
How is all this grandstanding any different than saying “Kill all people suspected of terrorism”, yet not lifting one finger to finance and enable early detection and prevention of terrorist attacks?
You may be making yourself feel better and demonstrating to all who read here that you are a hard-line law and order type. But what are your rants doing to help protect the little girl across the street from you who may be molested by her step father next week?
Of course, you will be at the head of the lynch mob. You will likely be caught in a nice 8x10 glossy for tomorrow’s front page... or get your tirades captured on film for the 6:00 news. But you know what? The little girl still got molested. You did NOTHING to prevent that.
But you ARE doing something!! Right? Yeah, you continue to vote for more and more laws that have proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that they also do nothing. Tell that to the little girl you might have kept from being molesting if the monies to implement detection and prevention programs weren’t being wasted on having some poor cop go out to walk off the 1,000 feet between a complying registrant’s home and a bus stop.
A couple of people on here seem to understand the priorities in this epidemic. Just a few seem to actually sit and ponder alternatives and true solutions. The rest just seem to mill around with the mob and chant the same tired, ineffectual mantras.
What do they say about true insanity being the continued employment of actions that don’t work, all the while expecting different results each time?
I invite some of you to think about seeing if there is not some way you can help that little girl I mentioned..... instead of trying to make her or her mother think you are REALLY concerned. You do little when you pat her on the head, saying “We’ll punish the guy who hurt you”.
What do you say to her when she asks “Why did you let him hurt me in the first place?” What? Do you say “Sorry, I was too busy shouting for “my” pound of flesh to have been concerned about what “you” might soon face?”
Now, I know there are a fair percentage of you just aching to defend yourselves. I certainly would expect that (I’ve read yout thoughts), but this was not written for you.... but for the minority who truly question, ponder, and strive for effective measures. To those of you who fit that category, I invite you to consider positive and working methods of protecting our children.
...
the world is mad
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