Jessica’s Law Enforcement Ordinance Comes Up For A Vote
This just came in from city council candidate Barry Levinson:
This Tuesday night at 6:30 PM, September 21, 2010 at city hall, the culmination of 7 months of hard work by my wife Susan and myself should result in a victory for all children and their parents and grandparents, etc. in the city of Fullerton. An ordinance presented and recommended by the Fullerton Police Department will be brought before the city council for a vote. The ordinance will make it a misdemeanor crime for a convicted pedophile to live within 2000 feet of a school, park or day care center. The penalty is up to one year in jail! Almost 4 years to the day that the voters in California spoke through their support of Proposition No. 87, known as Jessica’s Law will there be an actual penalty attached to the above actions.
This is just the start. I have been working with and getting the cooperation of the County District Attorney’s Office to make sure that a similar law is presented to our Orange County Board of Supervisors. We want the same protections for our kids throughout the County.
Please attend the Tuesday night meeting! Send a firm and clear message to all our current council members. A full house will provide leverage to make sure that the council does the right thing by passing this ordinance to provide additional protection for the weakest and most vulnerable among us, our kids.
-Barry Levinson
This is a no-brainer. How could it be anything but a slam dunk, unanimous vote to approve? Good work, Admin. Thank you to you and your wife for all of your effort.
Hey dogmom, thank Barry Levinson and his wife Susan for their work, I just posted what Barry sent me.
Thanks for the correction, admin. Like duh, if I’d read it more carefully it was obviously efforts by Levinson. Interesting discussion that followed. Personally, I think sex offenders should be moved to the desert, far, far away. But I also agree that a large percentage of offenders are in the home, related to the victim. What then? Unless caught, Jessica’s Law will not save them. We can only do so much.
I duno if it’s exactly a slam dunk. The questions I’d be asking are “will it hold up in court?” and “how much will that battle cost?”
A 2000 foot radius is almost a square mile. If you add up all the parks, schools and child care facilities, I’m guessing that’s pretty much the entire city of Fullerton. Where are the pervs supposted to live?
Anaheim.
The problem is not only where can they live, but Jessica’s Law does not distinguish between repeat sex offenders- parolees released from prison- and first time offenders, released on probation and deemed not to be a threat to the community. It’s no wonder so many of them end up off the radar, have no chance of making it, given limited residency options, and end back in the system.
you’re correct…current system gives no allowance for rehabilitation / no-threat to community. not all ‘sex offenders’ are pedophiles. 2000ft…why not just tatoo ‘S’ on their forehead?
That’s why it may come to. Most of them get little help from probation officers, many of whom don’t have a clue, send out confusing mixed messages, and in the end, they’re left to fend for themselves. As one guy on probation said: ” I feel like I’m in the middle of nowhere. Guy on the right tells me to go left. Guy on the left tells me to go right. In the middle is a guy with a gun who says “go for it”. Dead in the water. No rehabilitation, no compassion. They’re criminals, regardless of the degree of their crime.
Thank you for your work on this matter !!
far and wide, they the pervs can live at the fox fullerton theatre. no one goes there, it serves njo purpose so great use of a useless building
Now that’s funny!
I agree! Too funny! Put that building to some practical use.
Please provide more information.
What part(s) of the Levinson proposal is new? Is the 2,000 foot distance their concotion or is it that the violation would now be a misdemeanor?
Why not 10,000 feet or fifty miles? Why not make a second violation a felony?
If the basic Jessica’s Law is toothless, why was it passed in that inneffective fashion? And does this (Fullerton) ordinance fix it? Does every city in California now need to become aware of the fraud of our State Legislatures action in passing a toothless law, which each city must now repair?
Also an actual map of the effect of the 2,000 foot limit would be helpful. I do NOT think that 2,000 feet il at all sufficient.
Good work Barry! I hope everyone ca turn out to pressure the city council! By the way the 2000 feet is actually part if Jessica’s Law. It was written in haste because of a murder kidnapping. The lack of teeth was because the liberals in Sacramento knew they had to act but couldn’t appear to but too harsh. The common phrase heard was “where will they live, 2000 feet us so far. There aren’t any houses there!
What I like about this study is, it proves what experts and studies have proven all along. That is, The VAST majority of a repeat (first time)sex offender is very low and the vast majority is within the First 3 years. After that it drops off in a HUGE way. In other words, “The longer an individual remains free of another sex offense, the less chance that he/she has of re-offending.
States and the Federal government need to re-evaluate their draconian attitude!
RECIDIVISM OF PAROLED SEX OFFENDERS – A TEN (10) YEAR STUDY
Here are the highlights of Recidivism.
California Sex Offender Management Board (www.CASOMB.org June 2008
The following figures on a ten-year California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) follow-up study of the recidivism of 3,577
individuals convicted of a sex offense who were released from CDCR prisons in 1997 and followed until the end of 2007
The bottom line with this study is:
CUMULATIVE TOTAL OF ALL WHO HAD BEEN RETURNED TO
CUSTODY UNTIL 2007- A 10 YEAR PERIOD
3.21% were returned to custody with a new sex crime by the end of third year.
3.21 re-offended and the remaining seven years produced the remaining 0.17%
AFTER
PERCENT
INCREASE
YEAR 1 79 2.21% 2.21%
YEAR 2 26 0.73% 2.94%
YEAR 3 10 0.27% 3.21%
YEAR 5 3 0.09% 3.30%
YEAR 10 3 0.08% 3.38%
TOTAL 121 3.38% 3.38%
You would have to look at it on a twenty-year scale, not a ten year. A molested 5 or even 10 year old may take ten to twenty years of therapy before contacting law enforcement.
I’d love to know how you’re addressing the fact most sexual abuse occurs in the home by people not on the registry. I wonder how you address the fact that most on the public registry will never commit a new sex crime. I wonder why you fail to consider the example set forth by Iowa, who repealed residency laws after a horde of “unintended” consequences while failing to reduce sex crimes in the state. Revenge oriented policies backfire.
In a “revenge” situation I think this kind of “offender” dies.
If I had been in the Assembly or Senate crafting a law in “quick response” to the Jessica situation, I would have proposed a statute under which: “No parent or direct blood relative of a victim of of child sexual abuse shall be charged with any felony or misdemeanor or other type of crime in the event that such relative should kill the perpetrator of such child sexual abuse.”
See, that was quick.
The kids prevailed with the passage of Ordinance No. 3149, Sex Registrant Residency Restriction, which attaches penalties for violating parts of Jessica’s Law.
Any predator who has been convicted of a sex offense against a minor (under 18 years of age) can not live within 2000 feet of a school, park, or day care center in Fullerton.
The penalty is a $1,000 fine and six months in jail for each offense and it accrues daily.
In addition to the 2000 feet ruling, there was also included in the ordinance a restriction that these sex offenders can not “visit” within 300 feet of a park, school or day care center without written permission from the authorities (i.e. a sex offender who has custody of a child and must take them to school).
The day after we passed this ordinance, the Fullerton Police Department received more than a half dozen calls from other Southern California cities asking for assistance in drafting their own version of the law.
In addition, we have kept in contact with the OC District Attorney’s office and have been assured that they are diligently working on their version of the ordinance which we hope will be ready in the near future.
Good things can be accomplished at city hall with citizen involvement and determination.
Next stop solving Fullerton’s unfunded pension liability issue!
Im very happy the judge made a decision to change the Jessica law.When people hear the world sex offender they go bolistic and pass laws without thinking of the consequences.People are so getting punish for a sex crime when some offender have nothing to do with children.Okay so people rather see them homeless no matter what they also have rights and 2000 feet from a park or a school if they really want to get your chilldren they can drive this law does not protect your children.Let the parole agents do there job there all ready tracked on mointors what more do people want.If offender our homeless there still by a park or school so why does it make a difference.Another thing I notice not everyone has there info on megan Law.Also If your a transient offender youll never no where they are only the parole agents I guess thats thats good for people who voted in 2006 for that jessica law how is this protecting your children.When they get off parole they live where ever they want so why does it matter where they LiVE.Yes I have children but this law they had came up with doesnt protect them.Its are responsibility to protect our children not a law.
The fact that you have children and can be rational enough to see the forest for the trees. Children must be protected by their parents, taught to report anything, no matter how trivial, that could be a red flag. I haven’t seen many case studies of the hidden issues for some of the sexual offenders- not to make excuses for them, but to shed light on studies that should be done. The man I have spoken of who’s on probation. He was molested by a family member when he was around 11, carried the secret, the shame, for 45 years. He should have gotten counseling, but he was racked with guilty and shame. I wonder how many sexual offenders were themselves molested as children and repeat the very transgression?
Congratulations on getting the law passed. Why don’t you think that more counties have a law protecting the children? I think it’s of most importance in any public area designated for children.
I definitely agree that the children must be protected first and foremost, especially from the repeat pedolphiles, sex offenders. I’m all for lifetime incarceration, even the death penalty for the sexual predators. My concern is that there is no distinction between the categories. Case in point: guy who had consensual sex with a 16 year old. Yes, he was much older, but the boy had already had previous sexual encounters. Though the man’s on probation, which is a far cry from being on parole from prison, he’s treated like a sexual predator/pedophile.