Sunday, March 13, 2011

Plymouth decides to forgo vote on sex-offender bylaw


Original Article: http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/03/13/plymouth_forgoes_vote_on_sex_offender_bylaw/


  By Christine Legere Globe Correspondent / March 13, 2011 

PLYMOUTH — The effectiveness of municipal regulations that prohibit convicted sex offenders from living near schools, daycare centers, churches, and parks — places viewed as providing opportunity for further criminal behavior — has been hotly debated by communities across the state.

But such a battle won’t be waged on Plymouth’s Town Meeting floor this spring, after selectmen recently ruled against resurrecting a formerly defeated bylaw proposal aimed at preventing convicted sex offenders from living or loitering in areas where children gather.

“A bylaw just isn’t desirable or required in Plymouth at this time,’’ Assistant Town Manager Melissa Arrighi said last week. “It’s been withdrawn from the Town Meeting warrant, and it looks like we won’t be looking at it again for some time, if at all.’’
Plymouth is among the latest communities to decide against restricting where sex offenders can live and hang out — a position supported by civil libertarian groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union. Scituate defeated, and Hull simply passed over, bylaw proposals brought before them in recent years.

A handful of other municipalities south of Boston believe residency restrictions do work, discouraging sex offenders from moving in and containing those who still choose to come. Weymouth, Dedham, Pembroke, Rockland, and Hanson all have enacted regulations that prohibit offenders from living in areas where children are most likely to gather. Some block only Level 3 offenders, the most serious and considered most likely to offend again; others also restrict the less serious, Level 2 offenders.

Since violations are civil rather than criminal, penalties are in the form of fines, which can be as high as $300 a day.

Hanson police Lieutenant Joseph Yakavonis says his town’s bylaw has been effective, and it has never been challenged.

Only one Level 3 offender lives in Hanson. And while some opponents of residency restrictions will argue otherwise, Yakavonis said he believes “there’s a high likelihood that Level 3 sex offenders will re-offend.’’

Rockland police Lieutenant Nicholas Zeoli is also a supporter of his town’s restrictions. “Our department has taken a very proactive stand on this,’’ he said. “We get calls from probation department people representing sex offenders who want to live in the community. We give them the bylaw and tell them the limitations. Everyone has complied.’’

In Plymouth, a study committee comprising eight precinct chairs spent a year researching such bylaws and concluded that “residency is not related to repeated sex offenses.’’ Its final report to selectmen noted that research also suggests that most sex offenses are committed by people known to their victims, rather than strangers lingering in areas where children play.

Those conclusions, along with concern the ordinance could provoke litigation over civil rights violations, prompted the committee to urge selectmen take a pass.
Butch Machado, proponent of Plymouth’s 2009 proposal and a selectman then, had expressed concern that the town might become a magnet for sex offenders, if surrounding towns enacted restrictions making residency in those communities difficult.

The study committee concluded Plymouth would not be attractive to sex offenders, because it is too expensive to live in and offers limited public transportation.
Plymouth Police Chief Michael Botieri said last week the bylaw would be a nightmare for his department to enforce.

He said his department is vigilant. “It is recommended that Level 3 offenders be checked every six months, and we check every two,’’ Botieri said.

Spokesman Chris Ott said the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts doesn’t track sex offender ordinances, but it believes such restrictions are not effective. “These laws do little to enhance public safety and may even give people a false sense of security,’’ Ott said via e-mail.

Christine Legere can be reached at christinelegere@yahoo.com.



 
© Copyright 2011 Globe Newspaper Company.
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"When an American says that he loves his country, he means not only that he loves the New England hills, the prairies glistening in the sun, the wide and rising plains, the great mountains, and the sea. He means that he loves an inner air, an inner light in which freedom lives and in which a man can draw the breath of self-respect."
~Adlia Stevenson U.S. Vice President (1893–1897) and Congressman (1879–1881)

On a Personal Note

Thanks for the opportunity to express my thoughts regarding the issue of citizens’ rights, particularly addressing certain sex offenders’ crimes that do not fit the devastating, inequitable and endless punishment given.


As you know, many young men and women lives across the nation are being destroyed by incarceration, life-time registry and restrictive laws that do more harm than good. For those individuals, there is no second chance.

Below is a personal letter to President Obama:
* * * *
“Dear President Obama,

I truly agree with your sentiments that individuals, such as ex-felons, should be able to receive a second chance at life. Since we all know that one can veer off that path of life and travel along rough, rocky terrain, sometimes running off and ending up in some ditch. We all have made our fill of mistakes and sometimes those held a costly consequence that changed life forever. So we lived through it, trying harder to make things right with family, friends and those around us, but what about those who aren’t able to make things right even if they tried…because they’re labeled as too dirty, a leper, a person who is rejected from society and home.

But what if they’re a seventeen year old and had sex with a fifteen year old, consensual at that? Or they’re a teen that had gotten so enraged after a breakup that he sent out naked pictures of his girlfriend on his cell phone or email? Or an individual urinates where someone just happens to see them?

All are wrong and a travesty but do they deserve the life of no second chance with a registry that ends all. They are labeled, no jobs, no where to live…they have been deemed a menace to society, a plague. These certain circumstances, and many other situations similar to these, I believe still deserve a second change.

Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

After my son’s early release and two years of prison, I thought I had handled that fact graciously knowing after serving his time he would be able to get that fresh start, that second chance. He was an exemplary inmate, GED, college courses and vocational classes. Little did I know that a second chance on the outside was the farthest from the truth? He now struggles and lives in a trailer park sharing a trailer with another and surrounded by others in the same rocking boat, one to float endlessly in shark infested waters. I see him little because of probation requirements (he couldn’t live with us because we were 800 feet near a school). My family is afraid of what would happen to them if he lived with them…vigilantism. My son has no other place to stay since others condemn him of his crime that is screamed from the highest rooftop. Sex offender, sex offender!

Not all sex offenders are pedophiles or predators but some are simply young kids that make one stupid and rash decision that eventually changes everything, and they have no idea what they’ve done until their life is never their own. Exactly, where is that second chance for those sex-offenders who are lumped together with pedophiles and predators? Now, it makes me sick to think of my son’s future and many like him that are on the registry and many with no second chance…ever. I am asking you as a mother and as another concerned citizen of the United States that these laws are looked at again and taken into serious consideration in what they are doing to the Constitution of the United States, not for sex offenders in general but the future rights of every citizen, before anymore are put into effect. They unjustly strip an offender of their rights and place them in a guillotine that can be easily set off by anyone and at anytime. Where is the second chance for ex-sex offenders in the present, pending and future laws?”
* * * *
What truly saddens me is the weakness and deterioration of what the sex offense issue is doing to our once, great nation. Across Europe, others are seeing the injustice and disregard of rights, but we ignore this problem and it makes me wonder where humanity is heading….

We have become a hysterical society in which our latest witch-hunt is a sex offender--no matter his/her crime.

Below is a email sent from a foreign advocate to a father of a sex offender:
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“The tragic story of your son's death is just so sad that it's difficult to explain how. It was very hard to read your letters. It seems almost unbelievable that this can take place in a democracy! From our point of view, there is no justice in this. Not in any way: not for you, your son, the former girl friend – or even the state.

It is an abusive legal system. It seems barbaric. And we are so very sorry that this takes place. That's why it's so important for us to try to neutralize the debate with this…, hopefully making some changes. ….. to show the every day life of the sex offenders, trying to show how they keep on being punished, even after served prison time…..But we will for sure tell the story of the injustice that your son has been exposed to.”
* * * *
I appreciate everyone's commitment and backing to protect everyone's civil rights, plainly as noted in the Constitution of the United States and is presupposed, giving ALL men are “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.”