Increasing Safety Zones For Sex Offenders

How do lawmakers justify laws they have enacted? In order to justify laws enacted, someone must break the law and get caught, only then can lawmakers justify the law!

Note the police say, that, NOT ONE RSO was arrested for breaking the 300 foot prohibited zone last year. Thats a problem for lawmakers, they cannot justify (i.e., get brownie points with voters) the law enacted.

So this year lawmakers decide, lets make the distance greater, maybe we can catch someone and justify the law. They make the same claims to voters as they did last year. i.e., we are keeping RSOs further away from kids.

Most interesting is, the police (Sgt Adams) notes that, these laws are a waste of time as there is no proof they work.. Frustrated lawmakers -under the guise of protecting children- will grasp at anything, no matter who gets in their way, or who they may harm.

3-11-2010 Oklahoma:

Oklahoma lawmakers are talking about tougher rules designed to keep predators away from children.There are certain places convicted sex offenders are not supposed to be in Oklahoma.

Under SB2064, Senator Jay Paul Gumm, D-Durant, wants to make those areas that are currently off limits larger.

FOX23’s Abbie Alford explains if local law enforcement believes this is an effective law to keep registered sex offenders away from children.

In Oklahoma registered sex offenders whose victims were 13 years of age or younger are forbidden for being anywhere near a safe zone including schools, parks and permitted or licensed daycare centers.

“Zones of Safety” are designed to protect children from those who would prey on them.
"To keep them off the street and away from our children," says father James Henson.
Tulsa police report there are 15%-20% of registered sex offenders in Tulsa who victimized children 13 years of age or younger.

Those people cannot be trusted anywhere close to a child.

"He may get off the bus and hang out on the fence line and stare at the kids that may be his sexual gratification is looking at children that may be all he needs to fulfill his fantasy," says TPD Exploitation Sergeant John Adams.

So Senator Gumm wants to increase the safe zone distance from 300 feet (about the length of a football field) to 500 feet for registered sex offenders who loiter in these areas.

"It's not right when you don't feel safe letting your kids go out in front of the house and play," says Henson.

Although the father might feel safer knowing sex offenders would be kept 500 feet from kids in safe zones instead of 300 feet, Sgt. Adams says there are no hard facts that safe zones actually keep sex offenders from preying on children.

"It's just another tool it makes everyone feel safer and it makes everyone feel better," says Adams.

Tulsa police say in the last year they have not arrested a registered sex offender for violating the 300 feet safe zone loitering law.

This law would also require registered sex offenders who need to enter the safe zone to notify the facility once a month the time and day they will be entering the safe zone. ..Source.. Abbie Alford

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Lee sex offender ordinance language deemed too vague by judges

Two issues are relevant:

1) If it takes a judge and a couple of lawyers to decide whether or not a person violated a law, then the person is innocent simply because laws are supposed to be written so that "a reasonable man/woman" can understand them; this one is not easily understood from how it is written;

2) There is no proof that "children regularly congregate" anywhere, their parents may take them to places (designed by adults to attract or lure children to come. i.e., schools, parks, playgrounds, etc.) but that is not proof that the children would do so of their own accord. No one can know the minds of children or be able to ascertain what they might do or not do, or what they wish to do. The phrase where "children regularly congregate" is the legislature trying to read the minds of children, like a lie detector trys to read a person's mind.

12-17-2009 Florida:

Portions of a child safety/sex offender ordinance passed in Lee County earlier this year have been deemed unconstitutional by two county judges in a ruling signed Monday.

The ordinance prohibits registered sex offenders from being within 300 feet of several places, including parks, restaurants, pools, schools, bus stops, playgrounds, zoos or any place children may congregate.

Two men have been arrested for violating the ordinance, and their Fort Myers attorneys — Pete Aiken and John Charles Coleman — had argued the ordinance was unconstitutional because it was too vague and too broad.

In a six-page ruling, Judges Radford Sturgis and John Duryea decided that while it wouldn’t dismiss the charges against the two men based on constitutionality because each had been arrested at a clearly-defined places — pools. Further, the judges said they wouldn’t rule based on hypothetical situations.

But, they did find that certain language contained in the ordinance was over-broad. Namely: “business or transient facility,” “permanent or stationary facilities,” “but is not limited to,” and “other similar type places where children congregate” or “regularly congregate.”

“The number and range of facilities already listed under those definitions is so diverse such as to make the added inclusive terms of ‘but not limited to’ and ‘other similar places’ over-broad and inclusive of innumerable locations which could potentially have a chilling effect on the exercise of fundamental constitutional rights,” the judges wrote.

Therefore, those terms were stricken from the ordinance — but the ordinance still remains in place, and otherwise is considered constitutional, the judges decided.
Aiken, who represented Joseph Comfort, said while it was a disappointment for his client, whose 20-year-old offense was not related to children, the ruling is in some ways a victory.

“It’s a kind of a split the baby ruling,” Aiken said. “We won with regard to getting rid of some of the key language, but I can bring the issue up again with a different client to address some of the other vague, overly-broad language.”

Prosecutor Cameron Siggs had argued last month before the judges that sex offenders have forfeited certain rights, including an expectation of privacy and unfettered freedom of access.

The ordinance, written by a sheriff’s sergeant and promoted by Sheriff Mike Scott, was passed by county commissioners in March. ..Source.. Rachel Revehl

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