Sex offender laws are not supposed to protect anyone at bus stops, and there is a reason for that, no registered sex offender has ever abducted or committed a sex crime at a school bus stop, which was in front of or close to his/her home. Fear mongers have posed the idea, but the reality is, this is not how offenders commit crimes.10-25-2010 South Carolina:
Has a child ever been abducted from a school bus stop, likely yes (Phillip Garrido did exactly that) but he lived miles away in the next state. Moving bus stops or preventing offenders from living near them will not prevent what the fear mongers have said. Parents need to take and pickup their children from bus stops, its that simple, it is not up to the state to pass a law to protect children at bus stops, its a parent's job.
AIKEN COUNTY, S.C. -- South Carolina passed its sex offender residency law two years ago. Under the law, offenders can not live within 1,000 feet of schools, day cares and parks.
But, those residency restrictions do not include school bus stops.
Dawn Bieber stands at her son's bus stop to make sure he gets home safely from Hammond Hills Elementary in North Augusta.
"Every morning and every afternoon to get them off the bus...even though it's right down the street from the house," Bieber said.
While Bieber keeps a close eye on her son, South Carolina's sex offender law DOES NOT prevent sex offenders from living near school bus stops.
"We come out it's still dark. It's 6:20 in the morning. So, you don't know who is outside," Bieber said. "As parents we try to make sure we stay together and make sure one mom is as least outside."
Sgt. Chris Funk with the Aiken County Sheriff's Office says the sex offender law puts the responsibility on school districts.
"Take turns watching the bus stop, make a rotation, share the responsibilities as a parent watching all the students at the bus stop---walking to and from the bus stop," Funk said.
South Carolina Law Enforcement is currently working on a statewide mapping system to help you find where sex offenders are living from county-to-county.
Offender Watch is already available online in Aiken County on the sheriff's office website.
Under Georgia law, bus stops ARE included in residency restrictions for sex offenders, can not be enforced.
The state recently approved other changes to that law.
Georgia offenders cannot live within one-thousand feet of places where children gather if the incident happened on or after July 1, 2008 or based on the severity of the offense. ..Source.. Sheena Bodie
1 comment:
The whole "bus stop" movement is about excluding RSOs from areas from which they were previously not excluded. It's not about safety, it's about playing to unfounded fears and playing politics.
It is virtually impossible for an RSO to be in compliance of such restrictions. What is he to do, call the school board every morning and ask for a list of the bus stops so he can compare them to his residene and workplace? This is similar to Alabama's use of "child care facility" which also includes in-home daycares -- it is virtually impossible to know where these things are. Even if you are able to get access to a list of them (and that's just what the law intened, right? -- giving the RSOs a LIST of where the kids are, just so they can know not to live there?) it is woefully out-of-date. It's designed to be a trap, plain and simple.
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