Banning sex offenders from community is more dangerous

Thought: Which are folks more afraid of A) What a person knows; -OR- B) What a persons does not know? In other words, former offenders that you know where they live, or the stranger lurking in the streets or night? Decide!

10-8-2009 National:

I was horrified to read in the "National News in Brief" section on Sept. 28 of Georgia's encampment of sex-offenders. Barred from living anywhere else due to city ordinances, these people are literally being directed by probation officers to set up camp in the woods.

This is the logical outcome of a community dominated by fear, ignorance and revenge. Everybody wants to feel safe, but this approach will erase any possibility of ex-offenders resuming any semblance of societal life, and communities will be LESS safe.

In Rochester, we have had our own examples of attempts to ban sex offenders from most of the city. Two years ago the Olmsted County corrections department tried to establish a transitional home for sex offenders where they could be closely monitored. Between neighborhood protest and our city ordinance it became impossible. The home they hoped to use violated the ordinance banning sex-offenders from the area, and another legal residential area could not be found.

I implore my fellow community members to remember Georgia's extreme example of rounding up undesirables and forcing them to be homeless the next time you hear of an agency trying to establish a well-monitored, safe-housing option for those we so fear in our community. Don't delude yourselves into thinking that you will be safer if you can just push them outside your own backyard. ..Opinion.. of Stephanie Kilen, Rochester MN