What To Do With Sex Offenders
BOSTON -- Another community is considering new restrictions on where sex offenders can live.
The central Massachusetts town of Holden has a public hearing planned for Monday night on Selectman James Jumonville’s proposal.
The selectman’s plan would prohibit Level Two and Level Three sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of any school, park, day care center, elderly housing or anywhere else where children congregate. (source)
Before everyone starts saying that I’m being soft on sex offenders (that sounded bad, didn’t it?), I just want to point out the obvious.
Let’s say that you are one of those “level two” or “level three” sex offenders. I’m not sure what those categories are, but it really doesn’t matter for the sake of this argument. You have done your time in prison for your offense, and you are now out of prison, presumably being carefully watched by law enforcement personnel.
Now, my challenge to you is to pull up the map of a mid-size city or even a good sized town. Try to find a place you can live that is not “within 2,000 feet of any school, park, day care center, elderly housing or anywhere else where children congregate”? I’m not even sure that is possible. So, I suppose the question is, where are these people going to live?
I suppose some will comment or write, “Too damn bad”, “Their problem, not mine”, or, “They should have thought about that before going after an innocent child.” I too have those feelings, but beyond all of that, we are still stuck with the issue of where they will live. Making it impossible for them to legally live most anywhere just seems to be a cop out to me. One thing that comes to mind is electronic monitoring. They may have to stay within the confines of their property for a period of time. But, then you get into the issue of how long that must go on. Is it any different than prison to say that these offenders cannot leave their homes for the rest of their lives?
If that’s the case, perhaps we should be a bit more honest about this and just give them life sentences in prison. Of course, that doesn’t really help those who committed a crime once, twenty-five years ago that even police admit is no longer a threat. But, we live in the days of Guantanamo, where we can send people away for however long we want without a trial.
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I could not agree with you more, Will.
There's just something fundamentally wrong to have a law like that on the books all those years, and for a very different purpose.
When marriage became legal for gay couples in Mass., suddenly Romney found the 1913 law, blew the dust off of it, and enacted it when the law had nothing what so ever to do with gay couples getting married.
I wish that the 1913 law was more specific. If it stated specifically that two races could not marry, it would not be a point since a high court has ruled that unconstitutional.
Regardless, it is a law that has blemished Massachusetts, and my hope is that I live long enough to see the whole thing blemish Romney. THIS WILL HAPPEN.
In fact, a movement was just announced in the Mass. legislature to do just that. Interestingly, gay advocacy groups showed tepid concern for it at best, saying that their time and efforts will be better spent preserving the marriage rights we already have in the 2008 referendum question rather than defeating the 1913 law.
Personally, I think the 1913 law is a disgrace in human terms, not just gay terms, and I think it should be officially shot down.
That is good news Will. Now if he will just kill the 1913 law forbidding out of state couples from getting married in Massachusetts, we will be all set. The law was never even created to bar gay couples from marriage. It was meant to prevent interracial marriage from taking place, but was never put into effect. It's simply stayed on the books all these years, and Romney conveniently blew the dust off the law, and enforced it against our community.
Bill--just thought you'd be interested in this story that will appear on my blog tomorrow:
It was reported on CBS Radio today that Governor Deval Patrick has ordered the registering and reinstatement of 26 marriages contracted by same-sex couples from states other than Massachusetts. These marriages had been voided out personally by former Governor Mitt Romney as part of his anti-gay crusade.
Governor Patrick said that he considers Romney's action to be discriminatory and that discrimination is not appropriate in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It's so good to have a governor again who feels that he's governor of ALL the citizens of the state.