Sex offenders in, out of hotel

Although I've posted to several sex offender blogs, I still feel it's very important to get this message through. Our children and families are under a greater threat of domestic terrorism than at any point in our country. We should consider not only restriction the length of distance a child molester lives from our schools and parks, but consider a concentrated place to intern registered sex offenders AWAY from ALL children and vulnerable citizens.

It is time we seriously consider building sex offender colonies throughout the western United States and Alaska.

It is obvious. Nobody wants sex offenders to live in their neighborhoods, or even their cities. I'm a parent, and I would fight tooth and nail to prevent sex offenders from living anywhere that children may live, even if their victims were people they knew. It means NOTHING to me; what means EVERYTHING to me is they committed an atrocious crime against children. That's enough for me.

Unfortunately, these sex offenders have rights. If they are not in prison, they will probably get the ACLU to sue the city and we will have to spend thousands of dollars defending the restrictions.

The ONLY thing, therefore, is to create an amendment to the US Constitution, creating sex offender colonies to restrict where these convicted sex offenders live in the first place. How to do this?

The first thing that needs to be done is to create an outline of such an amendment. I looked at the process for how an amendment is created. Here is the process:

Under Article V, there are two ways to propose amendments to the Constitution and two ways to ratify them.

To propose an amendment

1. Two-thirds of both houses of Congress vote to propose an amendment, or
2. Two-thirds of the state legislatures ask Congress to call a national convention to propose amendments.

To ratify an amendment

1. Three-fourths of the state legislatures approve it, or
2. Ratifying conventions in three-fourths of the states approve it.

I would submit that the state legislature route would probably be more effective, but the congressional method can be tried first. It can effectively be used as a litmus test for voting, i.e., if someone doesn't want to vote for proposing the amendment in congress, their 2008 opponent can have a field day in saying that the incumbent protects sex offenders at the expense of children's safety, etc.

Such an amendment would solve many problems. First of all, the registry would not exist in its current form. Parents don't have to worry where the sex offenders live, as they all would, by law, have to live in the colony. This also eliminates the need for GPS, as the sex offenders would be restricted to the colony in the first place. No worries about convicted child molesters stalking your children's school or favorite park, or trolling on the Internet.

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Next, registrants would constitutionally have to be subjected to non-court ordered search of their premises within the zone. In addition, all their mail and phone calls would constitutionally be authorized to be monitored for illicit activities. Internet usage would also be strictly regulated, with all file storage for every computer actually done at the server-level. In addition, emails would be assigned by the administration, no Instant messaging or accessing MySpace or other children sites allowed, and all keystrokes and sites visited will be recorded 100%. All costs for such usage would be borne out by the offender, incidentally.

All registrants would be required to work, with their paychecks being handled by the administrators. Deductions for medical, rent, all services, and everything else would be done automatically, and any credit the registrant have be used for discretionary income ONLY from the colony store. Also, EVERY registrant will be required to go through treatment appropriate to his crime, and be certified as cured; otherwise, he can be subject to a felony charge and returned to prison.

Now, please keep in mind one thing: The sex offender colony is NOT...repeat...NOT a replacement for tough, appropriately long, non-paroleable sentencing guidelines in the first place! THAT IS PARAMOUNT. The colony would exist because society cannot handle the large amounts of offenders in their neighborhoods, with the inherent terror parents have with the knowledge that offenders are around their children. Therefore, the colony is SPECIFICALLY for offenders to spend their entire registration periods in a constitutionally-approved manner, eliminating the need for registries as they exist now.

Keep in mind, many offenders also are able to leave the registry for certain crimes after a specified amount of time has passed. Therefore, once a registrant's time period has expired, he can petition the administration to be relieved of the duty to register and live in the SORERA zone. A panel of professionals, law enforcement individuals, and the offender's victim representatives, will go over the request. If they feel the offender is ready to join society, then he can leave the zone and live anywhere he wants, although he will have to permanently register with law enforcement wherever he goes for the rest of his life. Bear in mind, also, that any registrant who has to register for life will NEVER get the opportunity to leave the zone. Only the most benign of the registrants will ever be allowed to leave.

So there you have it. With a constitutional amendment, we can control where they live, where they work, and how they communicate, with confidence that they won't have a "relapse" when our own children are in striking distance.

All interested people are encouraged to write to me at soretra@aim.com to further this just cause.

Advise these creeps that they only place for them to live is in PRISON for the rest of their lives. Why let them out of prison in the first place. Sorry!

sex offenders are in the same boat as illegal aliens and gangbangers in my book. hang 'em all.

I had guest from out of town stay at this Hotel.( Single female) Thank God nothing happen to her), I was not aware of the fact that the sexual predators were being housed here. There are school in the vicinity of this hotel. The YMCA on Vermont, Gardenia High School.
What is Mayor John Dear to move the parolee from this location.

Peter Del Valle your comments are way too extreme.

Once a sex offender has done his time, he should be able to live his life without harrasment. This is the way the laws of our society have been set up. We should not to go back and punish someone for something they were already punished for.

The DOJ states that sex offenders have the lowest rate of recidivism compared to all other major felonies. Only 3.5% of sex offenders are likely to re-offend, while nearly 70% of other felons(drug sales, assult, robbery, domestic violence, etc.) are likeley to re-offend.

Many people have fallen prey to the fear created by political candidates seeking to get re-elected. Check the stats on how many kids are killed by drunk drivers in one year and compare that to how many sex offenders re-offended.

Let's focus on laws on actually protecting kids, not passing "feel good" laws.

This is about fifth story I've read in the last two weeks about the problem of homeless sex offenders. It seems like current sex offender laws are creating more problems than they are solving. If all sex offenders are truly dangerous, what good is it to have them on the streets homeless? How does that make communities saver? And how can a convicted felon who also a sex offender ever straighten his life out if he can't find a descent job and must pay $80-$150/night for hotel shelter?

This is another example of how well paid law makers pass laws without thinking about the long consequences of those laws.

Peter Del Valle, I've asked this question before in another related article. Could you provide data on just how many sex offenders molest a child within the so-called safe zone of a school or park? I ask this because most child molestations involve children who know the adult who molests them, e.g. parent or relative.
I have yet to read an article which provides statistics about how many sex offenders offend on an actual school campus or park. We know there are cases of it, but we just don't know how many. What are the stats?
As for your colony idea, I think it sounds like laying the grounds for a Nazi -type discrimination. You don't "heal" people by alienating them from society. You heal by helping them back into communities and providing them real treatment they need.
Also, you can't treat all sex offenders the same. New draconian sex offenders laws are now applied to people as young as 14yro. They include individuals who were a part of entrapment cases in which the convicted person never touched a real child. They involve people who have had sex in the park at night. They involve mentally ill people.
I certainly understand as a mother of two children the need keep our children safe, but your solution does not address the problem adequately. If this society begins colonizing offenders, where does it end? You can certainly make a case that drug dealers, thieves, pimps, and other convicted criminals are even more of menace to society. We have overflowing prison populations already. So how many colonies will we need? If colonize sex offenders, then why not homeless people? Drunk drivers? Alcoholics? Anyone who may danger a child. Where does it end?

roscoe, that is my solution. it's the law that keeps me from fixing the problem.

Finally some common sense. Thank you Nancy. It's so easy to judge folks from their computer, but when it affects them or a family member, they realize it's too late. Also too many people think that because you are on the sex registry, you must be a child molester, when in a lot of cases, that just ain't so. Public Exposure, taking unauthorized photo's of grown adults can land one on the registery.

If people only new the hell it is to be on the registry. If only they knew.

Joe, you should get out of your trailor more often and actually research this issue. So you mean to tell me that you'd approve of hanging a 10 year old? Because that's how young many on the registry are?

Former Native wrote:

Advise these creeps that they only place for them to live is in PRISON for the rest of their lives. Why let them out of prison in the first place. Sorry!

So does this go with all the 10-15 year olds that are in the registry for playing doctor? I mean, let's not be biased on just a select few? How about the 19 year old who had 1 picture on his computer of a 15 year old?

Think.

Well said Nancy Wright!

I am the father of 4 and I think the current sex offender laws go too far. They do more harm than good. The current laws treat all offenders equally, when in fact, their crimes are not equal.

ICU2 - Get the facts before spewing your hate.

Sex offenders are homeless because of laws people like you voted for. Others on the verge of losing their homes have the economy, lack of planning and buying a home that can't afford to blame.

95% of sex offenders want to work and pay their own way, but the overboard laws make it nearly impossible.

Peter, why don't we just relocate everyone on Catalina and stick them all out there? We can have the Coast Guard patrol the area with orders to blow anyone attempting to leave out of the water.

You'd also have to change the laws that state an offender has to be paroled to the county where they last lived.

Maybe we can just remodel and reopen Manzinar or one of the other camps that the Japanese citizens were interred in during WWII.

10 to 15 year old's on the registry? I am fairly sure that these 10 and 15 year olds aren't being put in prison. We are talking about grown adults that live in their state sponsored "pervert colonies". Anyone saying the sex offender laws are too harsh and has kids should be stuffed in a rusty 55 gallon drum and dumped out to sea. Indecent exposure would never get you a prison sentence.

Diaper Beach--

Maybe not prison, but certainly juvenile hall.

Check out Utah--they had a case not too long ago where a 12 and a 13 year old were caught having sex...and they were both considered a victim and a sexual predator under the laws. At the same time!

Anyone who claims that the sex offenders laws *aren't* too harsh has no idea what they're talking about.

Diaper Beach wrote:

10 to 15 year old's on the registry? I am fairly sure that these 10 and 15 year olds aren't being put in prison. We are talking about grown adults that live in their state sponsored "pervert colonies". Anyone saying the sex offender laws are too harsh and has kids should be stuffed in a rusty 55 gallon drum and dumped out to sea. Indecent exposure would never get you a prison sentence.

You are VERY naive. Should I contact the several hundreds of parents who's 'children" under 15 ARE on the registery AND in prison?

Yes, children are being sent to prison under these laws. And those that are not, under these laws, are suffering greatly.

Roscoe Rules wrote:

By the way, there are no 10 or 15 year olds registering per 290 PC here in California. Doesn't work that way.

Naive.

Thank you Nancy/Citizen, finally some people with some common sense! Relocating sex offenders to colonies is taking us back to the 1940's and the Japanese concentration camps which housed many innocent Japanese American’s because people were afraid of them. What an embarrassment that was, and now we want to do it again with another group of people just because they have been singled out and labeled “not fit to live in society.” What next, gays and lesbians, people with mental disabilities, cancer and AIDS patients, people with DUI arrests? Sounds really crazy doesn’t it and guess what, it won’t work. The majority of sexual offenses are committed by people who ARE NOT on the registry. I commend the manager of the hotel for not discriminating against these people and helping them have a roof over their head. The majority of the offenders on the registry do not repeat offend and deserve a chance to re-build their lives and show they are good people at heart. A man murders a young mother while her child sleeps in the next room, he receives a seven year sentence and when he is released from prison has no restriction on where he lives. And we are told he deserves a second chance because he has paid his debit to society, yet we will punish a young man for having an inappropriate picture on his computer for the rest of his life! Where is the justice in that?