MS- Official: ID sex crime convicts

There isn't a single reason for a policeman to know, beforehand, that someone he stopped is a sex offender, because officers -by law- should be treating everyone stopped equally. Further, since the law prohibits LIVING, not BEING, within a certain distance of a school, such a stop does not justify what this proposed law will do. Finally, marking a driver's license further stigmatizes those offenders in their personal financial transactions where a license is needed for the transaction. This amounts to lawmaker vigilantism as it does not in any way protect children!

10-17-2009 Mississippi:

State lawmakers could discuss legislation during their next session that would give police the ability to distinguish sex offenders by simply looking at their driver's license.

".My goal is not to embarrass someone. My goal is to protect children," said Rep. Brian Aldridge, R-Tupelo, who is drafting the bill. "If someone gets pulled over within 500 feet of a school ... this would just give officers one extra tool to find out whether or not this individual is a registered sex offender."

State law prohibits registered sex offenders from living within 1,500 feet of a school, day care or playground. It also outlaws them from loitering within 500 feet of school property while students are present.

Aldridge said he came up with the idea after observing Lee County deputies conduct stings on online child predators.

"This came to the forefront for me because of the stark reality of what we've seen in Tupelo and Lee County and the number of people arrested due to the stings," he said. "This is a sleepy little town and a sleepy little county, where this stuff is not supposed to happen. And for me, it was, 'OK. This is happening here.' It was eye-opening."

His bill would require the state Department of Public Safety to cross-reference driver's licenses or Social Security numbers against the state's sex offender registry and mark sex offenders' licenses.

Mississippi has a population of about 3 million and about 6,000 registered sex offenders. The department issues photo ID cards to registered sex offenders, who are required to carry the IDs, spokesman Jon Kalahar said.

"They have to come in every 90 days to renew," Kalahar said. "That's how we keep track of where they are living."

Florida, which tracks more than 41,500 sex offenders among its population of 18 million, enacted a similar law in 2007.

"It's simply used by folks in law enforcement to know who they are dealing with," said Dave Westberry, spokesman for the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. "It's not the scarlet letter."

Westberry said the law did not require his department to spend much in the way of additional resources.

"It was not a problem. We just made modifications of the licenses and added another field to our driver information database," he said.

The idea has support from local law enforcement. Aldridge said the Lee County Sheriff's Department already has signed on. Hinds County Chief Deputy Steve Pickett said the proposed legislation, "on the face of it, is obviously a good idea."

"I personally don't see this as punitive; it's just like a driver's license for a truck driver," he said. "Anything that can help law enforcement, our office would support."

But getting advocacy groups on board may be a problem.

Mississippi Forum on Children and Families President Jane Boykin said she's concerned the license marking may subject some to unfair treatment. In Mississippi, offenses that require registration range from statutory rape - for instance, a 19-year-old convicted of having sex with a 16-year-old - to forcing a child into prostitution or sexually abusing an elderly or mentally disabled person.

"I want to always protect children, but prevention is where my focus has been for the last two decades," she said. "All sex offenders are not alike."

Nsombi Lambright, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi, said the organization thinks the state should put more resources toward rehabilitation and treatment of sex offenders.

"Our opinion is that we continue to focus more on punishing people who have served their time and paid their debt to society," she said.

.A driver's license designation is continued punishment, Lambright said, because it would be noticeable in situations that have nothing to do with law enforcement, such as when a license is used as identification for writing a check or obtaining public utilities.

"And I don't see the point when Mississippi already has a registry," she said. "I can go to the registry right now online and put in someone's name to find out if they're registered or if they live near a school."

Aldridge countered, saying the marking could be discreet. Already, DPS marks licenses to identify people who carry concealed weapons or who are organ donors.

"I'm not looking to make the licenses fuschia or put 'sex offender' in big, bold, huge letters. As far as I'm concerned it doesn't even have to be on the front," he said. "It should just be something that a law enforcement official could identify." ..Source.. by Kathleen Baydala