Limits on where sex offenders live moves forward

A Senate panel agreed Thursday on a bill that would make it tougher for sex offenders to find places to live.
Under the bill, approved by the Judiciary subcommittee and sent on to full committee, sex offenders convicted of certain crimes such as first- and second-degree criminal sexual conduct, or committing or attempting a lewd act upon a child under 16, could not live within 1,000 feet of schools, playgrounds, parks and other public facilities. 

The bill is sponsored by Rep. Joan Brady, R-Richland, who spoke before the subcommittee. "The premise of the bill is protection," she said.

Comments

[BigCountry15]

Sex offenders should only live in prison. That will eliminate the need for any registry because the public will know they are behind bars.

[BigCountry2000]

Apparently BigCountry15 hasn't done his homework. The Bill, H3094, is "crime specific" only those who were convicted of a violent offense are covered and they are "grandfathered" in their present homes.

It also requires the Police to provide the area's where they can move too in a town or city should someone decide to relocate.

And towns and cities cannot enact harsher local ordinances above the state statute.

This is a fair Bill that takes "offence classification" into account. It's high time. "One size fits all" is not the answer. Not all the individuals included in the SO Registry were convicted of a violent "contact" crime.

Many of the non violent low level offenders made a mistake as a youth a long time ago and have rebuilt their lives and have families of their own and decent living wage jobs paying taxes like every one else.

I have no problem with someone who is convicted today of a very violent contact crime receiving a life sentence or 30 or 40 years.

But does BigCountry15 advocate the Police showing up at a low level offenders home at 3am after 10 or 20 years since conviction and taking them into custody with no charges and no due process and taking them to a WWII style enternment camp with no possiblity to ever be released? Sounds like it.(also, who pays to support the "special camp")?

We would be no better than Communist China or the USSR or Nazi Germany. I think Big Country15 also knows that would never pass constitutional muster.

Because of "one size fits all" laws, the RSO Registry has swelled nationwide to between 500 and 600,000 offenders. What happens when it reaches 1,000,000?

The original intent of Megan's law was to know the location of the Level III most dangerous offenders that were out of control. It morphed into a registry for all,regardless of offense and life improvement mitigating curcumstances for the non violent 1st time low level offenders.

Just food for thought.

[wtf]

This chicken little law is worthless as MOST child abusers are known family members or close acquaintances and NOT the eerie mysterious stranger.

Real life is not an after-school special and this law does nothing to stop child abuse. In fact it only makes the situation worse by providing false senses of security.

[BigCountry2000]

wtf has it right, This is a useless "feelgood" law that will do NOTHING to stop a family member that wants to offend with a "contact crime" in their own home that has NO criminal record and no one is paying attention too.

This law is saying that 95 to 100% of abuse cases are the very rare "stranger danger" high profile cases that Fox News,MSNBC and CNN absolutly beg to have for the sensational ratings the stories generate.

I have been told by a reliable source that the media calls these kinds of news stories "hamburger helper" stories they can use to garner ratings when their is a lack of political "hard news" coming out of DC.

If a violent stranger danger or family rape took place and this individual was so incredibly dangerous, why did the Judge not hand down many years in prison?

And the folks out there that just advocate "string em up" violence against every RSO regardless of offense and time since the crime occured with no research into the facts has become no better than the offender.

Bottom line is, when South Carolina is forced to have to adopt the Federal Adam Walsh Act, that the states have until July 2009 to enact or loose Federal funds, it makes the states classify offenders as Level I, II or III offenders, with III being the most likely to re-offend.

And after 15 years of continuous registration, with no other convictions, Level I offenders will no longer have to register, thereby thinning the RSO rolls nationwide so what ever the controling legal authority is over a particular offender is, those scarse resources can be concentrated on the truly dangerous violent repeat offenders.

The "one size fits all" "never give an inch" conservatives can't complain about the wording in the Adam Walsh Law concerning classification because it's your conservative US Reps. and Senators that agreed to that language in the US House and Senate Confrence Committee back in July 2006 when it passed.

You had your chance to have your voice heard if you didn't want classification. Now it's coming and high time.

If the RSO registry is going to exsist, the page you look at must contain facts, not very short statements with no other info to really know what happened.

I could go on forever on this subject but I don't have the time. My prediction, five years from now, nothing will be any different in SC as too the amount of any kind of abuse going on to anyone in any situation just because this law exsists.

The politicians know this behind closed doors, it's just and election year, in 2009 they won't care.