NJ- Megan's Law backers explore options

5-9-2009 New Jersey:

WEST WINDSOR -- A day after the New Jersey Supreme Court invalidated municipal laws governing where sex offenders may live, officials, activists and clinicians are looking for other ways to protect children from sexual exploitation.

Maureen Kanka, whose daughter's rape and murder inspired Megan's Law that requires the registration of convicted sex offenders, called for fingerprinting and background investigations of all volunteers who work with children, at a conference yesterday called "Protecting Our Children from Sexual Predators: Criminal History Record Background Checks."

Kanka said at the conference sponsored by New Jersey League of Municipalities that the Megan Nicole Kanka Foundation has funding for the background checks which will be provided to municipalities that adopt local ordinances requiring the checks.

She said she was not surprised by the state court's ruling knocking down the municipal ordinances restricting offenders from living near schools or churches.

She said she would prefer to see them incarcerated indefinitely, but since that is unlikely, she urges parents to warn their children not to trust everyone who seems nice.

"Nice people can do bad things," she said.

U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, R-Hamilton, who has championed Megan's Law, was supposed to give the keynote speech at yesterday's conference but was unavailable due to the funeral of his friend Jack Kemp, former Buffalo congressman and former vice presidential candidate, said spokesman Jeff Sagnip.

Smith sent a statement calling for support of his International Megan's Law, which would notify foreign governments and require those governments to notify the United States when known sex offenders planned to travel.

"We need to preserve and expand the public notification tool established by Megan's Law, so that more children can and will be protected," Smith stated.

In a separate telephone interview yesterday, Kenneth Singer, executive director of the New Jersey Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers, called for a more rational, research-based approach to protecting children from pedophiles and sex offenders.

Singer, a licensed clinical social worker, said not all convicted offenders go free and commit similar offenses when they complete their sentences. Those deemed to be sexually violent predators by the courts are subject to civil commitment at the state's Special Treatment Units in Avenel and Kearny, where they may be held indefinitely.

He said research shows the majority of convicted sex offenders who have served their sentences can be safely supported in the community if they have ongoing therapy and are monitored by the parole or probation departments.

Singer said measures like the residential restrictions and offender registries, which use the pedophile and sex offender labels too broadly, may actually cause offenders to lose jobs, be unable to continue therapy and even become homeless.

Those stresses could lead to the commission of a crime that would not otherwise have happened, Singer said. ..News Source.. by CHRIS STURGIS, Special to the Times