Jessica's Law

When it comes to sex offenders, our law makers are trying to do many different things to help keep our children safe. Like my first blog on sex offending I talked about Megan’s Law there is also another known as Jessica’s Law. This law which was passed and put into action in the state of Florida was proposed to Congress in 2005 but never enacted. Since Florida enacted the law, 42 other states have passed the law.
The name Jessica’s Law comes from a girl in Florida named Jessica Lunsford who was raped and murdered by John Couey a repeat sex offender. Public outrage over this case spurred Florida officials to introduce this legislation. Among the key provisions of the law are a mandatory minimum sentence of 25 years in prison and lifetime electronic monitoring of adults convicted of lewd or lascivious acts against a victim less than 12 years old. In Florida, sexual battery or rape of a child less than twelve years old is punishable only by life imprisonment with no chance of parole.
There has been some criticism to this new law by families of sex offenders and others who believe the registries are a bad idea. They believe that the sex offender’s registry is filled with individuals who did not commit a violent offense but committed loose offenses such as victimless crimes and underage consensual sex which they call, “Romeo and Juliet” cases. They believe that our countries registries are filling up to fast and need to be narrowed. The counter argument to this is that the Jessica’s Law is a list of offenders who harm children under 12 so they are the more serious offenders. The families of sex offenders say that the punishment is too harsh due to the fact the sentence can be for 25 years but they will always be labeled as a sex offender in their communities and may even be harmed by the address being given out.
Some key supporters of this bill are John Walsh of “Americas Most Wanted” of Bill O’Reilly of “The O’Reilly Factor.” They both say that the laws against sex offenders needs to be tightened so they crime is not worth the punishment. The new laws coming out against sex offenders are all great ideas in my eyes. With all the offenders out there that sneak under the radar all they are doing is hurting our children and our children may grow up to be the same way or may go on to murder because of the pain they felt while growing up. Sex offending is on the decline but does that mean we should lighten our offenses? Maybe it’s declining because our punishments are getting harsher. So why on earth should we lighten the punishment?



http://www.billoreilly.com/outragefunnels
http://jessicas-law.blogspot.com/
http://www.cdcr.ca.gov/News/Sex_Offender_Facts/Jessicas_Law.html