Protection or Punishment? New Sex-Offender Laws Prompting Questions
By Ashby Jones
This much makes sense: You don’t want convicted sex offenders teaching in elementary schools, leading youth church groups or coaching Little League.But at what point are restrictions on sex offenders too onerous, too punitive, too blatantly unfair?
It’s a question some are asking in the wake of new restrictions approved out in Orange County, Calif. County supervisors there recently passed a law significantly restricting the movements of registered sex offenders, banning them from entering some beaches, parks and harbor areas. Click here for the LA Times story.
Writes the LAT:
Under the rules, sex offenders who visit any of dozens of public spaces without prior approval from county officials face up to six months in jail or a $500 fine. The ban covers some of the region’s top attractions including the Orange County Zoo, Irvine Regional Park, Newport Harbor and Dana Point Harbor.The rationale for the law, as articulated by Orange County Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas: “We are setting up a safety zone by keeping parks and recreation zones safe from predators.”
But critics immediately expressed skepticism about the law, saying it would be difficult to enforce and seemed to be constitutionally suspect.
For instance, Franklin Zimring, a UC Berkeley law professor, said the law was overly broad and misdirected, because more than nine out of 10 sex crimes targeting children are committed not by strangers in a park, but by family members or acquaintances.
Jill Levenson, a veteran social worker and professor of human services at Lynn University in Florida, told the LAT that such laws should be tailored to avoid unintended consequences.
“There may very well be certain sex offenders who shouldn’t be in parks, but rather than a blanket law, that should be part of assessment … based on the risks and needs of individual criminal offenders,” she said.
No comments:
Post a Comment