In recent weeks there have been two stories reported in the Tribune about a sex offender ordinance that would restrict where sex offenders could be in relationship to facilities frequented by children, such as the library. This ordinance is supposed to provide more safety for our children from predatory sex offenders.
How does this ordinance provide any safety to my child or anyone else's. Is the intention to ask any man, and don't forget there are female sex offenders as well, who are milling about in these restricted area if they are sex offenders? What could compel them to respond to the inquiry?
The only way to look people up on the sex offender registry is by knowing where they live. In Waltham there are six Level III sex offenders. So if a man/woman from Newton, who was a stranger was making people nervous about whether s/he was an offender, if you did not know where s/he lived, you would have no way to know their sex offender status.
Where is the information about how this bill will actually work? It was not provided in the articles that have been written and the author of these articles has been unwilling to respond to my concern that such ordinances perpetuate the hysteria around sexual offenders. I am concerned about the lack of journalistic inquiry. There was far more information about the ordinances to prevent door-to-door salesman and have overhangs on produce outside than there was about this sex offender ordinance.
The incident that occurred in the library in Bedford was the result of a judge refusing to accept the professional testimony of two specifically trained clinicians in sexual offending who assessed a man too be a sexually dangerous person. The judge ignored these clinicians' assessments and released this man to the street rather than committing him a day to life to the Treatment Center at Bridgewater State Hospital for sexually dangerous persons.
If as a society, we have concluded that these individuals, who have done these heinous things to our children and often times their own, are not redeemable to live amongst us then lets us change the sentencing laws and detain them in prison. If released to our communities, there is no safety in depriving them of every opportunity and avenue to rebuild their lives. I am not "soft" on sex offenders. I want us to be "smart" about sex offenders and provide thoughtful supervision and monitoring rather than ordinances and restrictions that are born out of hysteria and feel good legislation.
RHONDA J. BOURNE, Waltham
