Monday, January 4, 2010

Sex Offender Laws: helping or contributing?

I am sure most of you have read or heard of the 11 year old girl in Salisbury who was abducted by a child sex offender who had been dating her aunt. At this time, he is only charged with kidnapping, but little Sarah was murdered and her body dumped in the woods. During the search for Sarah, which started Wed. 12/23, 2 state police stopped by my house and 230 a.m. Thursday morning. They were questioning all sex offenders in the area. Sarah was an 11 year old. Why in the world would the state police spend precious minutes to question someone who was not a CHILD sex offender, someone whose conviction was over 30 years old, someone who has never re-offended nor even violated any aspect of his parole? They only had the Wicomico County Sex Registry in their hand. Unfortunately, the Wicomico County registry does not seperate the child sex offenders from those who are not. Since Sarah's abduction and murder, many citizens are demanding another sex offender law be put in place "Sarah's Law". Why in the world would we want another sex offender law when there are too many now? First, the sex offender registry needs to be cleaned up. They need to take off all the Romeos, all those that peed in public, or "streaked". They also need to remove those whose convictions are greater than 15 years old providing that offender has not re-offender nor has not violated conditions of his parole. With 174 sex offenders on the Wicomico County Sex offender registry, there are not enough law enforcement nor enough money in the budget to properly identify nor monitor those who are at a high risk of re-offending. If they can not properly manage the registry...how can we expect them to enforce all those sex offender laws. Add to the responsibility of monitoring 174 sex offenders, add to that the increased crime, increased gang actvity: its way too much for law enforcement. Although Wicomico County does not have residency laws. they do not work either. When you take everything away from a man or woman, they will do whatever they can to survive. It is human nature.

If I didn't think they were serious, it would be absolutely hilarious at some of the solutions that the citizens of Wicomico County have stated in comments: 1> execute all sex offenders ( we all know that there are innocent men and women on the sex offender registry just waiting for the day their appeals are heard...so what happens if an innocent were to be executed...just going to say to the family.."OOOps, sorry."? 2> Castrate all sex offenders (again, what if they are innocent?) 3> Ship all sex offenders to a remote island like they use to do to lepers 4> Keep them in jail for longer sentences (prisons are over flowing now..do we let out a murderer, a serial killer to keep a sex offender?) 5> put them in prison with all the other prisoners, have the guards turn their heads, and allow the other prisoners have their way with the sex offenders. These so called solutions sound sick, don't they? Well, the little hick newspaper printed them along with the interview with a resident of Wicomico County who said that all sex offenders names and photos should be published in the newspaper for those without computers. If you can remember, I wrote a comment earlier that this same hick newspaper did just that!

I don't know about the rest of you but I am sick and tired of everyone lumping all the sex offenders together and all of us, the offender and their family, are treated like lepers. I keep asking but no one can give me an answer: why all the hype about sex offenders when no one gives a second thought to the drunk drivers who kill children, when drug dealers get little kids hooked on crack, when families keep guns in their homes and a child is accidentally killed when playing with one?

I was hoping 2010 was going to be a better year. It has started like all the rest: Politicians can't wait to get back in session so they can present yet another feel good law, a law guaranteed to get them re-elected, Sarah's Law. Its time for citizens to get smart and realize what these politicians are doing and realize that the more laws but on the books, the more ineffective they are because law enforcement do not have the man power or the budget to ensure all laws are being followed.

Happy Freaking New Year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!