Residency Restrictions for Sex Offenders See Jill Levenson Phd and S294 a 3363 in NJ

Against Residency Restrictions for Sex Offenders

Child sexual abuse. It may be the most frightening of all crimes. Predators prey on children, using their naivete and innocence to make them the ultimate victims. In doing so, they rob children of their childhoods, and create a lifelong impact that reverberates throughout their childhood. Child sexual abuse victims may never fully recover from the abuse. Furthermore, every parent has heard of the nightmare scenarios; the crazy predator that abducts, tortures, rapes, and then murders a child. Frequently, news reports reveal that those individuals had a history of sexual violence, oftentimes against children, and the public wants to know why the police failed to protect that tiny last victim. The public demands laws that protect our children and our lawmakers respond with sex offender registries and residency restrictions for sex offenders, and the public sleeps safer at night, despite the fact that our children remain at risk. Many people also never stop to wonder about the collateral damage of these registries, where teenagers in committed relationships having consensual, but statutorily prohibited sex, are treated in the same manner as adults preying on pre-pubescent children. Anyone can see a difference in those offenses, and, yet, all too often, all sex offenders are lumped into the same category. Is that something that society can permit in a free society? Is it even constitutional? More importantly, is it moral? Yes, sex offenders who abuse children are treated like the least-worthy members of society, and, perhaps, with just cause, but are we making society safer for children by treating them this way? I do not believe that we are.

I am a mother who has seen my children impacted by child sexual abuse and sex offender laws in two significant ways. One of my children was molested as a child. The abuser would have been on no sex offender registries, because, like most child molesters, he had not been convicted of any crimes. My own child, despite coming from a supportive family, never told us about the abuse. Part of what child abusers do is use fear to control and intimidate children. The threat that, if a victim tells, the abuser will hurt their parents or siblings or the child, is frequently enough to keep a child from revealing that abuse is occurring. Furthermore, the people who engage in this type of child sexual abuse, which is the most prevalent type, do so under the guise of friendship; they have access to the children in a way that no stranger would ever have access. While I cannot describe what I would like done to my child's abuser, I realize that the reason we have a criminal justice system is so that victim's families are not the ones determining punishment.