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Lawmakers ignore reality of sex crimes, opt for simplicity
Published on Thursday, Jan 31, 2008
What is so outrageous about Ohio's new law on sexual offenders is not how much of a mess it is. It is that those involved with its passage last year were aware of the potential legal and practical difficulties.
Then they went ahead, anyway.
Sexual offenders are the easiest political targets imaginable, their crimes triggering public revulsion and primal fears.
They don't have a political action committee to make contributions. What's more, Ohio's prompt action to comply with the federal Adam Walsh Act brought the promise of a bonus in Department of Justice grant money. Refusal would have brought a reduction, starting next year.
So the legislative gears meshed. The attorney general's office was on board. You can imagine the political calculation: We get to kick the stuffing out of sexual offenders (again) and get paid for it! What could be better?
As it turned out when the law took effect this year, quite a lot.
The Adam Walsh Act called for the classification of sexual offenders based solely on the type of crime committed and not, as under previous state law, evidence of the likelihood that offenders would repeat their crime. Judges no longer have flexibility.
The biggest problem is not moving forward on new sexual offender cases. It is that the classification system called for by Adam Walsh Act applied retroactively. Some 26,000 existing offenders in Ohio were notified recently that they could challenge their new designations within a 60-day period.
And provisions of the new law are tough. Time limits for registration were extended, in some cases from 10 years to life. Community notification was greatly expanded.
Not surprisingly, a legal quagmire resulted.
On Friday, Summit County's common pleas judges, facing the potential of handling several hundred challenges, issued a 90-day stay. Several other counties have done the same. Summit's judges estimate it could cost $100,000 to provide legal representation to indigent offenders who want to fight the new law. (The federal bonus money hasn't been appropriated yet.)
Besides the difficulties of handling a crush of cases, fundamental legal issues arose. Didn't the reclassification really amount to punishment after the fact?
The Ohio public defender's office, among the organizations that warned legislators about complying with the Adam Walsh Act, filed suit in U.S District Court in Cleveland seeking class-action status for reclassified sexual offenders and asking for a temporary order blocking the new law. Similar lawsuits are in the works in the state courts.
What's worse is that the underlying assumption behind the Adam Walsh Act, that it will make children safer, is highly questionable, at best.
Steve Austria, Senate sponsor of the bill that changed Ohio law on sexual offenders, voiced the prevailing sentiment last spring.
''We want to have the strongest laws possible to protect our families against sex predators, who, even after serving time in prison for their crimes, choose to repeat them when they have the opportunity,'' the Republican from Beavercreek told his colleagues.
The overwhelming evidence is that around 75 percent of sexual offenses against children are committed by family members. Research has shown that 90 percent of child sexual abuse is committed by someone who knows the child well.
In that context, providing family counseling and monitoring of teachers and day-care workers would appear to make a lot more sense than spending money tracking down low-level sexual offenders who fail to meet registration requirements.
(Which, if not met for a second time, results in a mandatory three years in prison, at a cost of around $25,000 a year. Where is that extra federal money, anyway?)
The other highly questionable assumption is that sexual offenders are likely to repeat their crimes. Research cited by Sarah Tofte, author of No Easy Answers: Sex Offender Laws in the U.S. and of a recent essay that appeared on this newspaper's Commentary page, indicates that three out of four sexual offenders do not reoffend even 15 years after being released from prison.
In fact, burdensome and lengthy registration requirements, and the ostracism that comes with community notification, easily could drive sexual offenders out of the system, giving communities no notice whatsoever. County sheriffs had difficulties enough enforcing the previous state law.
The legal and practical difficulties, and concern over assumptions underlying the Adam Walsh Act, were essentially brushed aside last summer.
In such an atmosphere, almost any argument for toughening laws on sexual offenders made sense. Attorney General Marc Dann went so far as to argue that if Ohio failed to act, it would become a haven for sexual offenders.
Those offenders might consider moving here — until they checked the want ads to find work.
Hoffman is a Beacon Journal editorial writer. He can be reached at 330-996-3740 or e-mailed at slhoffman@thebeaconjournal.com
What is so outrageous about Ohio's new law on sexual offenders is not how much of a mess it is. It is that those involved with its passage last year were aware of the potential legal and practical difficulties.
Get the full article here.
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