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Legislation to Enhance Safety of Communities, Children
As we are continuously reminded on the nightly news, it remains an incomprehensibly dangerous and unpredictable world. Natural disaster, terrorism, and violent crime all cause us to evaluate the safety and security of our own families, and take what precautions we can to inoculate ourselves and loved ones from these terrifying threats. While no amount of preparation can fully ward off every conceivable tragic occurrence, if armed with timely and accurate information, we can then take the necessary steps to better protect ourselves from harm. With this in mind, the U.S. House of Representatives gave peace of mind to families and communities last week by passing H.R. 3132, the Children’s Safety Act of 2005. This legislation will crack down on child sexual predators by requiring lifetime monitoring of felony offenders, creating a new national database to help parents and police get information about these predators, and implementing tough new penalties for offenders who fail to update their whereabouts. The majority of the victims of sex offenders are kids. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, 67% of the victims of sexual assault are less than 18 years of age, and 33% are less than 12. Sex offenders represent the highest risk of recidivism of any classification of criminal, and predators typically strike in the neighborhoods in which they live. Alarmingly, there are approximately 550,000 convicted sex offenders in America. Of those, the whereabouts of nearly 20% are unknown to law enforcement officials or the communities where the offenders now live. The recent high profile case of a Florida girl, Jessica Lunsford, helped demonstrate some of the deficiencies in current state sexual offender registration requirements; Jessica was brutally killed by a convicted sexual offender who had failed to notify law enforcement that he had moved into the girl’s neighborhood. In 1996, Congress passed “Megan’s Law,” legislation requiring the states to maintain databases of convicted sexual predators, and post these names and addresses on the internet. In an effort to better protect their families from the dangers living among them, millions of Americans across the country have since accessed these websites, and sexual predators can no longer live in anonymity amongst us. In Ohio, these databases can be accessed on the county sheriffs' websites, or through the Ohio Attorney General's site. With this information at their fingertips, parents can better protect their children from threats that may be in their own neighborhoods and communities. Unfortunately, however, because the various state databases were independent of each other, and because the penalties for offenders failing to reregister their whereabouts were weak, offenders often moved from state to state undetected. Hurricane Katrina further illuminated weaknesses in Megan’s Law. The disaster has displaced roughly 10,000 convicted sex offenders from the Gulf Coast region, and law enforcement is profoundly limited in its ability to monitor their relocation. The Children’s Safety Act will vastly build upon Megan’s Law and other existing federal statutes protecting our children from sexual predators. Among other things, the bill will increase penalties on offenders failing to comply with the registration law, and classify such failures as both state and federal felonies. The bill requires all offenders to verify their registry information in person every 6 months, and enforces monthly verification by mail for certain high-risk offenders. Equally important, the Children’s Safety Act improves information sharing when sex offenders move from state to state, requiring States to have a uniform, public access sex offender registration website. Finally, the legislation expands the types of offenders required to register to include juveniles who victimize children. While it is impossible to remove all dangers from our society, the information age has vastly improved our ability to make informed choices and to become better aware of the potential threats around us. As a former prosecutor and judge, I know too well the devastating and lasting impact that the exploitation of children can inflict upon individuals, families and communities. And, as the mother of a little girl, I want our communities to be as safe as we can possibly make them to protect all of Ohio's children. The Senate is expected to take up a similar bill later this year, and upon its passage, I look forward to providing law enforcement and communities yet another tool to safeguard our families from these most heinous of crimes. |
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