Posted on 06/25/2006 4:02:13 PM PDT by pabianice
The restrictions are so tough that they are going to backfire by causing people not to report and re-register with their probation officers.
ATLANTA, GA — Lori Collins searched lonely stretches of country roads and scoured industrial lots for a place she could live as a registered sex offender. After weeks of looking, she finally found a house 35 miles east of Atlanta.
But her heart sank when she learned it was close to a school bus stop.
That meant the house was off-limits under the thorniest restriction in a new Georgia law. It is one of the strictest sex-offender laws in the nation.
“OK? Now where do you look?” said an exasperated Collins, who was convicted in 2002 of statutory rape for having sex with a 15-year-old when she was 39. “I’ve looked in the country and the city. Where else?”
While many states and municipalities bar sex offenders from living near schools, Georgia’s law, which takes effect July 1, prohibits them from living, working or loitering within 1,000 feet of just about anywhere children gather — schools, churches, parks, gyms, swimming pools or one of the state’s 150,000 school bus stops.
That puts virtually every residential neighborhood off limits to Georgia’s more than 10,000 registered sex offenders.
Lawmakers began working on the legislation last year after the arrests of two sex offenders in the slayings of two girls in neighboring Florida.
“We don’t want these types of people staying in our state,” state Rep. Jerry L. Keen, R-Ga., said when he introduced the bill in January.
With the law about to take effect, a debate is under way over how tough is too tough.
A lawsuit filed on behalf of Collins and others this week in federal court by the Atlanta-based Southern Center for Human Rights (funded by George Soros through his Starbucks Marxist Open Society Institute -- Ed.)argues that the law makes it impossible for offenders to live in most of the state’s urban and suburban areas. It predicted that many will have to live out of their cars or set up tents or trailers in the woods. The center also warned that the law will undermine efforts to keep track of offenders.
“The reality is that the restrictions are so tough that they are going to backfire by causing people not to report and re-register with their probation officers,” said Sara Totonchi, the center’s public policy director. “As a result, the number of people who will abscond from the registry will increase. And we won’t be able to supervise them.”
In Georgia’s Bibb County, which includes Macon and is about 85 miles south of Atlanta, most residential areas are within the buffer zones surrounding the county’s 4,700 school bus stops, according to the lawsuit. That means all but three of the county’s 230 registered offenders must move, the lawsuit says.
And because the locations of bus stops can change throughout the school year, offenders could be forced to move over and over again, some say.
Under the Georgia law, those deemed sexually dangerous predators also would have to wear electronic monitoring devices for the rest of their lives after their release from prison. The law also increases prison sentences for rape, child molestation and other charges from 10 years to a mandatory minimum of 25 years and makes it a crime to harbor a sex offender.
While at least 15 states also restrict how close sex offenders can live to schools or day-care centers, Georgia is the only state to explicitly bar them from living near school bus stops, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Louisiana bars sex offenders from going within 1,000 feet of school buses. Texas also restricts offenders from going near places where children commonly gather, but does not specifically mention bus stops.
Miami Beach, Fla., essentially outlawed all sex offenders when it passed an ordinance last year banning child molesters from living within 2,500 feet of schools, school bus stops, day care centers, parks or playgrounds.
It would ease the problem a lot if they only listed true predators as sex offenders and not the guys who get busted for taking a leak in public or 18 year olds who had sex with their 17 year old girlfriends. some of the categories of sex offender are simply unjust and stupid.
Agreed. I can see registry for child molesters, but not seniors in high school who had sex with their sophomore girlfriends or who took a leak in public.
This article oozes sympathy for a false stereotype: depicting a typical registered sex offender as female violates all statistical logic.
The overwhelming majority of registered sex offenders are adult male dirtbags.
So what's the real point of this article, eh?
That's too f*ing bad. These people should be jailed for life or executed anyway. Who cares about how difficut their lives have been made by their sick choices. The lives of their victims have most likely been completely destroyed.
Age of consent in Georgia is 16.
Well, TOUGH punishment is the price of VERY BAD BEHAVIOR.
I have NO SYMPATHY for SEX OFFENDERS.
They are OFFENSIVE.
They don't deserve to be around children.
(Denny Crane: "Every one should carry a gun strapped to their waist. We need more - not less guns.")
(Denny Crane: "Every one should carry a gun strapped to their waist. We need more - not less guns.")
I read somewhere that in other locales this law has increased non-compliance with the registration law from 5 to 10% to at least around 50%.
"A lawsuit filed on behalf of Collins and others this week in federal court by
the Atlanta-based Southern Center for Human Rights (funded by George Soros
through his Starbucks Marxist Open Society Institute -- Ed.)argues that
the law makes it impossible for offenders to live in most of the state’s
urban and suburban areas. "
Sounds like "restorative justice" at work...in other words, trying
to let the pedophile/sex-crime offender get less and less punishment.
O'Reilly had a lawyer on that explained this concept has taken hold in
Minnesota and VT...
http://billoreilly.com/show?action=viewTVShow&showID=651
Impact Segment II
More Cashman analysis
Guest: Joshua Markie, Clastop County District Attorney
The Factor has learned
that Judge Cashman may be an adherent of the "restorative justice" theory
promoted by left-wing billionaire George Soros. Prosecutor Joshua Marquis explained
more about the radical theory. "Soros believes we have to reduce the reliance
on prisons, so he's poured tens of millions of dollars into this
'restorative justice' movement, which is centered in Vermont and Minnesota.
They believe punishment is bad, that we should literally hold hands -
have 'sentencing circles' that will restore criminals to the community."
Factor summarized the theory as an affront to justice and common sense.
"Punishment is not good - you've got to try to heal the criminal rather
than punish the criminal. So in Vermont, the little girl's rights are no more
important than the rapist's rights."
This is a ridiculous law. It does nothing to protect children, 90% of whom are molested by somebody they know. It causes non-compliance and forces law enforcement to waste time. Talk to any cop or sheriff in a state that has one of these laws and they'll tell you the truth about it.
Hmmm...I think the fine folks in Georgia are giving you a hint, i.e. get out of the state and stay out......
If these folks are a threat to society, keep them locked up.
Then KEEP them in jail. This silly monitoring and door to door identifying them is a complete joke. Once someone has served their time, that should be the end of it. If they still pose a danger, and you release them onto the community, you have no right to whine if they do a repeat. You should have seen it coming.
Jail them, exterminate them, or release them for good.
I think that those on probation are prohibited from leaving, as one of the conditions of probation.
BTW, you have the best nic I've seen here. The GIs used to grab them and use them against King Tigers, because the bazooka and PIAT were useless.
As with most "zero tolerance" laws there is "zero brain" involved.
But for the real sex offenders? Neuter 'em and send them as far away from civilized society as possible.
We need Coventry.
Per Dennis Miller
"There's an easy way to track Pedophiles, it's called Burial. Doesn't even require batteries"
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