If Proposition 83’s goal is to protect children from
molestation, uselessly putting the offenders through hoops will do
little to accomplish that.
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We urge UCLA voters to vote no on Proposition 83. While
promoters seek to appeal to voters’ emotions on a sensitive
topic, you should look at what Proposition 83 would really do:
dangerously extend invasive government powers, place an expensive
burden on our already overwhelmed criminal justice system, and
strip sex offenders (who have already served their time) of their
constitutional rights.
Proposition 83 caters to the mistaken assumption that the most
likely child molester is a stranger lurking near your child’s
school. The provision requiring all convicted sex offenders to live
at least 2,000 feet away from schools and parks plays into the
age-old “stranger danger” mentality, forgetting that
the vast majority of sexual offenses against children are committed
by persons known to the victim ““ family, friends and
neighbors.
California state law already requires that some sex offenders,
including those who have committed crimes against children, live
more than 1,300 feet away from a school. That is enough to keep
offenders away from areas where children congregate without
expelling them from urban areas entirely.
States that have put these requirements in place are
understandably having regrets. In Iowa, sex offenders have been
pushed out of metropolitan areas and are now concentrated in rural
areas with less law enforcement and fewer services such as
counseling.
Rather than concentrating our scarce criminal justice resources
on sex offenders deemed likely to offend again, we’re going
to fit them all with ankle bracelets and ship them off to small
towns in the middle of nowhere, leaving them to law enforcement who
would have a more difficult time looking after them.
In addition, this editorial board looks very skeptically upon
any law that would give the government Big Brother-esque powers,
such as Proposition 83, which would award the state government
lifetime global-positioning-system monitoring of all felony sex
offenders. Americans are supposed to get constitutional rights,
including the right to privacy, but apparently sex offenders are
now exempt.
Proposition 83 also seeks to expand government control over
sexually violent predators, extending its current two-year
involuntary civil commitment to an “indefinite” one.
Under Proposition 83, the government would get to decide when
they’re released and the conditions of their discharge with
no guarantee of consistency.
Keeping this program afloat, from both a personnel and financial
standpoint, would be detrimental to the overworked criminal justice
system. Within 10 years, the sum of Proposition 83 is expected to
reach hundreds of millions of dollars per year.
Don’t respond to the scare tactics ““ Proposition 83
is an overly expensive and wholly ineffective way to protect
California’s children.