Saturday, June 11, 2005
Councilman fails again to explain law's true benefits
Oviedo City Councilman Jim Greer has been the driving force behind his city's recent passage of the ordinance limiting where sexual offenders can live.
Greer made an appearance on this morning's Flashpoint on WKMG-Channel 6 to discuss the issue as part of a roundtable, and Slats must express sincere disappointment in what the councilman had to say, and even more so in what he failed to say.
Throughout the program, Greer had several opportunities to explain how the ordinance would actually make children safer by prohibiting sexual offenders from living within 2,500 feet of day-care centers, parks, churches, schools, playgrounds and libraries.
The concern among those who actually deal with these issues day to day centers primarily around the realities of mobility within our society as well as driving offenders underground in response to restrictive limits such as those enacted by Oviedo.
Offenders cannot be kept off the streets of Oviedo, regardless of where they live, nor can they be tracked and monitored if they fail to register their whereabouts with authorities, which is prone to happen in response to restrictions such as those now being applied in Oviedo.
It is interesting to note that in the most recent and horrific cases, which have prompted the sincere concern leading to actions such as those of the Oviedo City Council, the offenders were living "under the radar" by not having notified authorities of their whereabouts.
Thus it would not have mattered how many laws were in place prohibiting them from living within certain distances of specific institutions. Ironically, the actions of those offenders beget those of the Oviedo City Council while at the same time clearly demonstrating the shortcomings of Oviedo's alleged "solution."
Near program's end, Greer was asked to explain how Oviedo's law actually made children safer, rather than simply amounting to political grandstanding as a demonstration of how "tough" the city was on crime and sexual offenders. Unfortunately, Greer's response was entirely lacking. All the councilman could offer was that citizens expected government to do certain things to protect them and that is what Oviedo has done.
Again, the most important question of how this law actually protects citizens was left unanswered by Greer, who failed several times to satisfy that question, obviously because the law provides no true additional protection to the community.
Without casting opinion on the sincerity behind the actions of the Oviedo City Council, inasmuch as its members may truly believe they have done something constructive, that their actions will ultimately worsen this situation is a consideration they have completely and aggressively ignored. That is as scary as anything else connected to this issue.
BTW, the best comment on the issue was made by an anonymous poster in response to yesterday's blog entry. The poster stated:
The reality, though, is exactly as stated by the reader who posted that comment: treatment does greatly reduce the rates and chances of repeated offense by sexual offenders.
If we really want to protect our kids, we need to focus on treatment of offenders as a way to help do so. Providing such treatment is not something that makes us soft on offenders. It is something that makes us responsible in protecting our children.
Greer made an appearance on this morning's Flashpoint on WKMG-Channel 6 to discuss the issue as part of a roundtable, and Slats must express sincere disappointment in what the councilman had to say, and even more so in what he failed to say.
Throughout the program, Greer had several opportunities to explain how the ordinance would actually make children safer by prohibiting sexual offenders from living within 2,500 feet of day-care centers, parks, churches, schools, playgrounds and libraries.
The concern among those who actually deal with these issues day to day centers primarily around the realities of mobility within our society as well as driving offenders underground in response to restrictive limits such as those enacted by Oviedo.
Offenders cannot be kept off the streets of Oviedo, regardless of where they live, nor can they be tracked and monitored if they fail to register their whereabouts with authorities, which is prone to happen in response to restrictions such as those now being applied in Oviedo.
It is interesting to note that in the most recent and horrific cases, which have prompted the sincere concern leading to actions such as those of the Oviedo City Council, the offenders were living "under the radar" by not having notified authorities of their whereabouts.
Thus it would not have mattered how many laws were in place prohibiting them from living within certain distances of specific institutions. Ironically, the actions of those offenders beget those of the Oviedo City Council while at the same time clearly demonstrating the shortcomings of Oviedo's alleged "solution."
Near program's end, Greer was asked to explain how Oviedo's law actually made children safer, rather than simply amounting to political grandstanding as a demonstration of how "tough" the city was on crime and sexual offenders. Unfortunately, Greer's response was entirely lacking. All the councilman could offer was that citizens expected government to do certain things to protect them and that is what Oviedo has done.
Again, the most important question of how this law actually protects citizens was left unanswered by Greer, who failed several times to satisfy that question, obviously because the law provides no true additional protection to the community.
Without casting opinion on the sincerity behind the actions of the Oviedo City Council, inasmuch as its members may truly believe they have done something constructive, that their actions will ultimately worsen this situation is a consideration they have completely and aggressively ignored. That is as scary as anything else connected to this issue.
BTW, the best comment on the issue was made by an anonymous poster in response to yesterday's blog entry. The poster stated:
We need to stop looking at treatment as something we are doing for the offenders and realize it is something we need to provide to protect our children.That summarizes well a large part of the problem here. Many of those who support ordinances such as those passed by Oviedo also oppose any offer of treatment for past convicted sexual offenders, equating treatment with being "soft" on the issue while equating ordinances like Oviedo's with being "tough" on the offenders. U. S. Rep. Ric Keller of neighboring Orange County made comments to such effect earlier this week.
The reality, though, is exactly as stated by the reader who posted that comment: treatment does greatly reduce the rates and chances of repeated offense by sexual offenders.
If we really want to protect our kids, we need to focus on treatment of offenders as a way to help do so. Providing such treatment is not something that makes us soft on offenders. It is something that makes us responsible in protecting our children.
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