2-15-2010 Virginia:
RICHMOND – A bill making headway in the General Assembly seeks to protect employers of sex offenders by not listing the name of the offender’s workplace on Virginia’s Sex Offender Registry.
Senate Bill 635, sponsored by Sen. Dave Marsden (D-Burke), would still list a sex offender’s work address. The bill passed the Senate unanimously this month and now will be considered by the House of Delegates.
Marsden said the bill is meant to help sex offenders integrate back into society.
Currently, the Virginia Sex Offender Registry’s displays a photograph and description of each offender; lists the offender’s crime; and shows the offender’s home address and the name and location of the offender’s employer.
As a result, some sex offenders lose their jobs, because a customer complains or because the employer fears the stigma of being associated with the sex offender registry.
“It’s the address and the location that is still important, not the name of the business,” Marsden said. “We don’t want businesses to be harmed, and we don’t want the offender, if they’re doing everything they’re supposed to do, being harmed.”
A group called Reform Sex Offender Laws of Virginia approached the senator about filing the bill.
Mary Devoy, organizer for the group, said employers who are willing to give sex offenders a second chance despite the negative publicity should not be punished. Devoy said that when sex offenders are unemployed, they can’t meet their parole requirements.
“We want the folks on the registry to be able to survive,” Devoy said. “Let them live their lives, have a job and raise their children. This bill is one step toward that.”
Several people have posted comments about the bill on the Richmond Sunlight Web site. One said that by listing the employer’s name, the sex offender registry has “effectively applied the ‘social pariah’ label to responsible businesses.” ..Source.. Veronica Garabelli
February 15, 2010
Bill protects employers of sex offenders
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5 comments:
Admirable, but do Legislators not realize that an address is identifying information (hence it's inclusion on the registry in the first place) and thus one need only look up the address to identify the business name?
To Chance: By chance can you count the number of folks who, know the address of the businesses they go to daily or weekly?
Secondly, how many of them check the registry before going to those businesses?
Finally, how many of those will also look up the addresses of the businesses they go to and coordinate same with the registry?
I dare say, zero, no one cares that much and only the vigilante type person is going to even make an issue of this.
For once I must admit this is a good change if it can get through lawmakers.
eAdvocate
It's a start. But keep in mind it isn;t always the customer who is looking. It is often the coworker. That is how my family member lost his job -- a coworker searched for those within a radious of the work location (employer names not listed in our state).
Ahh Yes, I see what you mean (Co-workers), but that would raise other employer / employee issues.
The unfortunate thing here is the employer would have to decide who stays and who goes, if it came to a head.
An employer with good skills in handling such situations may be able to justify why a certain employee was chosen to do a job. Hopefully the other employee would settle for the explanation.
It all comes down to the employer making the best decision for his business and sometimes letting someone go who disagrees with him/her is the best decision.
Personally I would opt for keeping both employees since if I were the employer I made the decision -in the first place- to hire both of them.
eAdvocate
Would be wonderful however address are identifiers as well how about making it a crime to print information of sex offender web sites and bringing it to SO place of employment in an attempt to get the SO Fired. WOW what a concept
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