Seize chance to redo sex-offender laws Statutes waste resources, don't improve safety

The Iowa Legislature will have the opportunity next session to repair an ill-conceived and ineffective state law. Though the price of scuttling this bad law will be adopting another bad one, it is a trade-off lawmakers should exercise, though with extreme reluctance.

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20081204/OPINION03/812040351/1035/Opinion
The existing Iowa law makes it a crime for convicted sex offenders to live within 2,000 feet of any facility where children congregate, including schools and child-care centers. In many cases, this means men and women convicted of sex crimes are limited to living under bridges, along riverbanks or remote areas of the county. The law absurdly does not prohibit offenders from hanging out at any of those facilities, however.
 

The legion of critics of this law has grown to include law-enforcement officials, county prosecutors and even crime-victim advocates, who say the law has numerous unintended consequences, including discouraging reports of sex offenses and driving offenders underground.

 

It's a law that's been in effect for the last six years, but KETV NewsWatch 7 found the restriction is creating colonies and driving others underground. KETV NewsWatch 7 checked the Iowa sex offender registry and found there are six registered sex offenders who call a small Underwood hotel home.

 

Jermaine Reazer, a convicted sex offender, said he's having a hard time finding a place to live so he's forced to live at the hotel. "That's the way it is, is they make you move out of their city, town and once you get into a place everybody else in the community wants to complain because there's a bunch of us living in the same area," said Reazer.

 

Convicted sex offender Neville Porter agrees. "It sucks, because I'm more of a city guy, not a farm community. I've done my time. I just want to be left alone,"said Porter.