IA- Seize chance to redo sex-offender laws Statutes waste resources, don't improve safety

12-4-2008 Iowa:

The Iowa Legislature will have the opportunity next session to repair an ill-conceived and ineffective state law. Though the price of scuttling this bad law will be adopting another bad one, it is a trade-off lawmakers should exercise, though with extreme reluctance.

The existing Iowa law makes it a crime for convicted sex offenders to live within 2,000 feet of any facility where children congregate, including schools and child-care centers. In many cases, this means men and women convicted of sex crimes are limited to living under bridges, along riverbanks or remote areas of the county. The law absurdly does not prohibit offenders from hanging out at any of those facilities, however.

The legion of critics of this law has grown to include law-enforcement officials, county prosecutors and even crime-victim advocates, who say the law has numerous unintended consequences, including discouraging reports of sex offenses and driving offenders underground.

Although lawmakers have so far lacked the courage to repeal the 2,000-foot law, they now have political cover: They can replace it with a new statute that would bring Iowa into conformance with a new federal law that expands federal sex-offender registry requirements to all 50 states.

The new draconian federal statute goes beyond Iowa's offender-registry statute to include a longer list of sex offenses and lengthens the registration period up to life, depending on the severity of the crime.

That's not an improvement. More years on the registry will consign people convicted of sex crimes to more years of suspicion and problems getting or holding jobs, continuing education and leading normal lives. The federal law thus is afflicted with some of the same defects as Iowa's 2,000-foot rule, and the same unintended consequences of forcing offenders underground and discouraging sex-crime reporting.

Moreover, if Iowa adopts the federal law, the Iowa Department of Public Safety and all 99 county sheriffs will absorb additional expenses and time riding herd on thousands of convicted sex offenders. Offenders must show up in person to re-register annually - some every three months - and not only report their current residence but employment, school and travel plans of more than seven days.

But the state of Iowa has a gun to its head: If it refuses to enforce the federal law, the state stands to lose 10 percent of federal law-enforcement grants. Besides, lawmakers reasonably might be reluctant to make Iowa a haven for sex offenders, which could happen if our law was more lenient than those in surrounding states.

So, in this lesser-of-evils equation, the greater good would be done by complying with the new federal law, and, in the process, scrapping the 2,000-foot rule and instead prohibiting sex offenders from entering schools and other places where children congregate.

The next step will be to work on Congress to rewrite the federal registry rules. Some who commit sex crimes may be incurable predators, and they deserve special treatment. The law treats all sex offenders alike, however, and as a result no one is any safer, law-enforcement resources are wasted and lives are unnecessarily ruined.

Iowa has learned that lesson. Now, Congress should get the message. ..News Source.. by The Register's editorial