National Coverage of Iowa’s Sex Offender Laws
March 15th, 2006 at 01:35pm Chase Martyn
Well, this issue isn’t new (blogs have discussed it in the past, and Fallon mentioned it when he came to Grinnell last week), but the New York Times has an article today about the flaws in Iowa’s “can’t live within 2,000 feet of a school” law for sex offenders convicted of crimes involving children:
While some of the Iowa’s largest cities, like Des Moines, have become virtually off limits for those convicted of sex crimes involving children, the new rules have pushed many to live in groups away from their families, in places like the Ced-Rel, or the Red Carpet Inn in nearby Bouton, where nine offenders rent rooms.
Michele Costigan, whose driveway is right across Highway 30 from the Ced-Rel in this rural stretch just outside Cedar Rapids, said she had stopped leaving any of her four children at home alone, had told them to dial 911 if anyone they did not recognize pulled into the family driveway, and was considering moving.
“If the point of his law was to make us safer, we are not,” Ms. Costigan said.
Even more worrisome to law enforcement officials in Iowa, the restrictions appear to be leading some offenders to slip out of sight.
Of the more than 6,000 people on Iowa’s registry of sex offenders, 400 are now listed as “whereabouts unconfirmed” or living in “non-structure locations” (like tents, parking lots or rest areas). Last summer, the number was 140.
But a UPI piece (which I’m linking to through DailyIndia.com just because the fact that we get so much coverage in India is funny) has this to say:
… [S]tudies by the Colorado Department of Public Safety and the Minnesota Department of Corrections found no correlation between a predator and their living close to children.
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Entry Filed under: Iowa Legislature, State Politics
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