Four people spoke out at the Gatesville City Council meeting Tuesday to urge council members to consider passing an ordinance that would restrict where child sex offenders can live.
GATESVILLE
– Four people spoke out at the Gatesville City Council meeting Tuesday
to urge council members to consider passing an ordinance that would
restrict where child sex offenders can live.
According
to the Texas Department of Public Safety, the state's sex offender
registration program itself does not restrict sex offenders from living
near children or going near places with kids. Instead, a mixture of city
ordinances, community supervision restrictions and parole laws govern
where convicted child sex offenders may reside. In accordance with the
guidelines set by the Texas Government Code, child sex offenders who are
released on parole are typically prevented from going within 500 feet
of schools, daycares, public swimming pools and arcades while they are
on community supervision or parole restrictions.
But,
once any parole or community supervision restrictions expire, child sex
offenders may live wherever they choose, unless a local community
ordinance or some other law prevents them from doing so. Amber Wilson
and a group of Gatesville residents pressed city leaders to adopt an
ordinance that would do that by creating "child safety zones."
"They
shouldn't be allowed to the kids' football games. Anything directed
towards children is where I would like to see a child safety zone,”
Wilson said.
In
essence, she asked city council to create a law, under which convicted
child sex offenders would need to permanently steer clear of places
where children congregate—rather than only stay away from children for a
set number of years.
"The
frustration is that it's gone on for so long,” Kim Dewald, who also
spoke at the meeting, said. “Why hasn't it been brought to attention and
had action taken sooner?”
Gatesville
City Manager Bill Parry said a majority of city council believes
passing an ordinance to restrict sex offenders is a solution without a
problem. He cited Gatesville’s relatively low number of registered sex
offenders: 26, only one or two of whom are child sex offenders currently
on community supervision.
"We
want to do this in a very thoughtful way, which is: if there is a
problem, we want to identify what the problem is and again the issues of
earlier this year would not have been addressed by an ordinance or
something along those lines,” Parry said.
council
members also expressed concern Tuesday that establishing a local
ordinance could lead to a costly lawsuit for restricting the rights of
the offenders.
The
lawsuit argument has precedent. Following pressure from the nonprofit
organization Texas Voices for Reason and Justice, more than 20 Texas
towns recently eased similar ordinances governing where sex offenders
could reside. And, the nonprofit group has already sued more than a
dozen towns over such legislation.
But,
Wilson and her counterparts who support and
ordinance argue fear of a
lawsuit should not prevent Gatesville from adopting legislation to
protect children. In the last five years, Hewitt and Woodway were among a
handful of local municipalities to pass sex offender ordinances.
"I was just in complete disbelief how after all these years, how do we have nothing? Nothing for our kids,” Wilson said.
The
recent conversation in Gatesville was spurred by the arrest of Chet
Shelton, in connection with the January homicide of Kai Lamar. Shelton
is charged with aggravated sexual assault in connection with the
toddler’s death. The type of local ordinance being described would not
have applied to Shelton, since he was never required to register as a
sex offender.
For frequently asked questions about the state's sex offender registry program, click here.
No comments:
Post a Comment