OK- Nursing Home for Sex Offenders Becomes Law, a First in America

This report will be updated tomorrow when I've had time to analyze some very interesting wordsmithing in the original report on sex offenders in nursing homes.

UPDATE: All of the original reports referred to by Wes Bledsoe ("A Perfect Cause") have been removed from the Internet thereby preventing further analysis of any numbers or percentages reported in them. One can only ask WHY when they were there for the longest time?

6-10-2008 Oklahoma:

The Most Concrete Legislation in America to Protect Long-Term Care Residents in Over 30 Years

OKLAHOMA CITY, June 9 --The Sex Offenders Long-Term Care Facility Bill, the first of its kind in the nation and the most concrete legislation to protect venerable long-term care residents written in the past thirty years, will be signed into law by Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry on Tuesday, June 10 at 11 am CDT in the Oklahoma State Capitol's Blue Room.

Wes Bledsoe, the nation's leading advocate on Predators in America's Nursing Homes states, "Enactment of this bill will directly reduce murders, rapes, sexual and physical assaults against vulnerable long-term care residents, as well it serves as a model for the federal government and state legislatures across America."

The bill (House Bill 2704) ultimately establishes a long-term care facility for Level III (High Risk) and Level II (Moderate Risk) Registered Sex Offenders. The bill was authored by Representative Kris Steele, sponsored by Senator Tom Adelson, and co-sponsored by almost 10% of the Oklahoma State House and Senate membership.

Both chambers of the legislature passed the Sex Offenders Long-Term Care Facility Bill on Thursday, May 22 by unanimous votes.

The bill was inspired and championed by Bledsoe's four-year crusade which uncovered almost sixty murders, rapes, sexual and physical assaults committed by violent and sexual offenders while living as residents in long-term care facilities. Victims of these criminal acts include female and male residents, staff and even one 3 year-old visitor.

-Read the above carefully, acts committed by VIOLENT OFFENDERS -and- SEX OFFENDERS, but he does not break them down, because to do so, one would find that no one would support this bill for sex offenders only. I suspect that the majority of the crimes were committed by "violent offenders." Hopefully we can find his research to show if and how lawmakers may have been misled.

Further, also missing is , that state corrections departments were using nursing homes to house anyone they could not find immediate housing for. Accordingly, statistics are most likely erroneous, because they are not just sex offenders, this time sex offenders were the pretext to get this law passed, when the real cause was offenders who did not have a real need for being in a nursing home.

Notice numbers 1 and 5 below, proof that he included non sex offenders in the stats, clearly misleading lawmakers.

Bledsoe's research has also debunked numerous fairy tales used as justifications by elected and appointed officials to warehouse violent and sexual predators in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. Erroneous justifications include:

1. The offenders are all old
2. Old offenders don't pose a threat
3. Incapacitated or wheelchair bound offenders are safe
4. Child molesters are safe around old people
5. You only need to worry about sex offenders
6. Nursing homes are capable to handle these offenders
7. Prior offenses were minor or they happened long ago
8. Offenders have paid their debt to society
9. It's not rape, it's consensual sex

Bledsoe is currently working with Congressional leaders to call for and conduct a Congressional Hearing to address this "disgraceful issue." ..News Source.. by Wes Bledsoe