Monday, October 31, 2016

Sex offenders face backlash in Minnesota

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports how many communities in Minnesota are scrambling to enact restrictive sex offender residency restrictions. The ordinances are a backlash against recent court rulings against the state's sex offender civil commitment program. More than 40 communities have passed restrictions. As per The Crime Report:
The city of Dayton, 25 miles northwest of the Twin Cities, is the latest flash point. On Friday, the city passed one of the most restrictive measures yet, barring offenders from living near churches, pumpkin patches, and apple orchards. In an emotional three-hour hearing, residents lashed out at the state for attempting to move three convicted rapists to a private group home in Dayton, as City Council members called for a statewide movement against such placements. 
The situation has devolved to the point where threats have been made against the children of the director of the state agency charged with placing offenders in communities.

Read more here.




1 comment:

  1. Enough! It is time for the United States Supreme Court to step up and put an end to all of this nonsense. Statistically speaking, citizens in any community are not safer because of this kind of city ordinance. The statistics currently reflect this fact. While I can empathize with the public to a certain degree, the fact remains that no citizen in the United States has a constitutional right to be free from crime. In this matter life, as long as we all walk and breathe the air on this planet, there are always going to be a risk. No American is entitled to special rights beyond that which is afforded to each and every citizen. I believe that the United States Supreme Court committed a great error when it reversed the Kansas Supreme Court in Kansas vs. Hendricks. This decision has polarized this entire country. We can never forget the only reason civil commitment is permitted in the first place is because of the public, as well as the mental health field, and the attorneys for the states believed and advocated that treatment reduces recidivism rates significantly. If this is true, and I believe it to be, then the public needs to choose wisely on how it is responding to these unfounded fears. Historically, statistics have unequivocally demonstrated that once identified, charged, and convicted through the criminal justice system offenders have lower recidivism rates than any other type of offender in the criminal justices system. Furthermore, there is a lot of enaccurate information being circulated regarding just how dangerous these individuals actually pose to our communities.

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