Who doesn’t want sex offenders tracked and kept away from
children?
Who doesn’t want sex offenders tracked and kept away from children?
As the only provider of services for victims of sexual assault in South Santa Clara and San Benito Counties, Community Solutions is committed to our community’s safety and victims’ rights. However, as such, we recognize that Proposition 83, dubbed Jessica’s Law, will not be conducive to protecting our community from sexual predators.
Though well-intentioned, Prop. 83’s shortcomings far outweigh its benefits. Its strategies may appear to have potential, but they will pose unintended implications that will place the public further at risk. Our greatest concerns include the proposed residency restriction, which will prohibit sex offenders from residing within 2,000 feet of any school or park, and its lifetime global positioning system monitoring.
The residency restriction will not protect the vast majority of child victims. Sexual assaults against children are most often committed in the child’s home or another familiar location. According to the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault , 90 percent of child victims knew their assailant.
Consequently, residency restrictions will force offenders to relocate from urban areas to less densely populated rural regions where law enforcement has fewer resources to supervise them and there are fewer viable housing and employment options. Such factors do not foster the stable environment that research has shown reduces the risk of re-offense.
Furthermore, high-risk offenders may be less likely to comply and instead stop reporting to authorities and slip under the radar, which occurred when similar legislation was passed in Iowa. As the law does not adequately discern offenders based on the type of offense committed, non-violent offenders would also be forced to relocate, potentially having to pull their families away from community ties and jobs.
The proposed lifelong GPS monitoring will also not be limited to high-risk violent predators but will pertain to all sexual offenders convicted of a felony. Under such guidelines, law enforcement will be overburdened with nonessential monitoring duties and data that only make the real risks harder to recognize and track. According to CALCASA, GPS monitoring would be used for 50 times the expert recommended number of past offenders. The cost of this counter-effective monitoring would potentially put a strain on already limited resources that could be designated to programs that offer real preventative benefits.
In order to protect our children, law enforcement needs be able to focus their time and effort on offenders that present a real risk and know where they are located. Such extensive mandated convict relocation and monitoring of non-violent criminals is only going to make the dangerous offenders harder to track. Prop. 83 appears even less fruitful when we consider the six bills that Gov. Schwarzenegger signed on Sept. 20, 2006. This new legislation already offers many of the beneficial aspects of Prop. 83.
Please join Community Solutions and the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault in voting ‘No’ on Prop. 83.
For more information on the risks of Prop. 83, access: http://www.calcasapublicpolicy.org/?page_id=58
Jacqueline Solari
Communications & Development Manager
Community Solutions
