TN- Bill would put teen sex offenders on registry

Lawmakers fail the youth of today, lawmakers know that youth do not possess solid reasoning powers, and thus must be treated as one without full faculties, even when they commit serious crimes. It is the duty of an adult to recognize facts that today's youth can not, lawmakers are failures when they ignore such realities and proceed with a vindictive mind.

9-30-2009 Tennessee:

COOKEVILLE -- Should juvenile sex offenders be listed on the state's Sex Offender Registry, just as adult sex offenders are? State Rep. Henry Fincher of Cookeville thinks so, and other legislators, including Sen. Charlotte Burks of Monterey, agree. They are among state lawmakers who have tried to enact a new law providing that convicted sex offenders under the age of 18 be treated like adult sex offenders when it comes to the registry, a public listing of those convicted of sex offenses.

A bill that Fincher and Burks are sponsoring in the legislature would require that juveniles 14 to 18 who are found guilty of aggravated rape of a child, rape of a child, aggravated rape, or attempts to commit these offenses be listed on the Tennessee Sex Offender Registry as violent juvenile sex offenders. The proposal is currently under study in a legislative subcommittee. According to Fincher, similar proposals have been discussed by legislators for some time, but no new law has been made.

Fincher says that passing such a bill is important not only for the protection of the public but also because it would trigger increased grant funding for law enforcement agencies in this state. And while Fincher, who said he has sponsored several bills aimed at "making it tougher on sex offenders," hopes to get the latest proposal passed, he stresses that it would apply to "violent" offenses, not to incidents in which "somebody just made a mistake.

I know that sometimes, juveniles make mistakes that do not amount to these more serious kind of sex offenses we are talking about in this bill," Fincher said. "And I know, of course, that the ideal in the juvenile justice system is to give kids a second chance."

But that rehabilitation, second-chance philosophy of the juvenile justice system must be balanced against the reality that some juveniles do commit very serious sex crimes, he said.

"We have to balance the ideal against the reality that there are sex offenders under the age of 18 who commit very serious crimes," Fincher said. "I have a 9-year-old daughter, and I don't care if someone living next door is 15 or 50, I have the right to know about any violent sex crime record." He said that failure to pass the bill will jeopardize some federal grant funding to Tennessee which comes through a program stressing the need to enhance laws protecting children. "I just think that a law that would help warn the public about dangerous offenders and also get the state more money is a winner," Fincher said. The Herald-Citizen was unable to reach Burks this morning for comment on the proposal. ..Source.. by Mary Jo Denton, Herald-Citizen Staff