Doing something about it

Last week, in a story about problems with New York State’s Megan’s Law, our news pages told you of a convicted child molester apparently moving into the Highland area.

Shortly after our publication, a flier appeared on the bulletin board of the Barryville Post Office recounting some of the story’s information, expressing concern about local children’s safety and urging parents to attend the next Highland Town Board meeting. It advised, “together we can try to stop this.”

The truth of the matter is that the town board has no power to keep anyone from moving into the community nor to throw anyone out… and that’s definitely a good thing.

The problem lies elsewhere, and what can be done about it cannot be done on the local level.

The object of last week’s story, as TRR reported, was admitted problems with the state law that provides a registry of those who commit sexual crimes against children.

Ambiguity in the 1996 law’s construction and subsequent legal challenges have left the registry and local use of it in limbo, according to the Sullivan County Sheriff’s Department.

New York’s law provided for three, ascending levels of likely future public risk in placing names on the registry. The names of higher risk, second and third level, offenders were to be available to the public.

Opponents of the law have raised privacy issues in the public dissemination of personal information about these released convicts and characterized the open registry as cruel and unusual punishment, a life-long stigma.

In 1998, a U.S. District Court Justice approved an injunction that prevents placing the names of convicted people, who had committed crimes prior to the enactment of the 1996 law, into the higher-risk levels two and three categories of the registry, without their first having an opportunity to challenge the high-risk classification at a hearing.

Parents for Megan’s Law (PML), a national advocacy group, said the impact of that injunction was that, “Megan’s Law in NY was virtually taken away from its citizens.” PML charges that 52 percent of those convicted and released on child molestation charges historically have done it again. “Our state laws and court decisions must reflect our collective beliefs… We want to be made aware of the presence of those known sex offenders who pose a risk to our safety and to the safety of our children, so that we may be proactive by taking necessary precautions,” the PML says.

In 1999, the state amended the law to provide for these hearings, but the injunction remained in force and with some 7,000 registered offenders in the state, many cases have not been heard. Thus the names of those classified prior to the last 1999 amendment are not available to the public.

While all this offers little comfort to parents who may be worried about next week’s school bus rides, we must understand that this is a question for our courts and legislators to sort out. Our job is to let them know how we feel about it.

Experts say precautionary education is the best action at home. PML advocates that parents be thoughtful about all those who seek individual contact with children, and instruct their children about the roles of those with whom they have daily contact and the boundaries of those roles.

Anything that invokes fear for the welfare of our community’s children can readily become an emotional issue. PML advises proper use of the existing registry and warns, “Be aware that harassing or committing any type of vigilante activity against any individual registered, not only undermines the tremendous effort to bring you this information, but is a crime.”

For more information about Megan’s Law in New York State, visit www.parentsformeganslaw.com.

David Hulse, News Editor