Ecection Exception in New Sex Offender Law
The most unenforceable aspects of the 2000 foot sex offender zone are finally going away once Governor Culver signs Senate File 340 (which he's said he will).
Instead of focusing on where offenders live, the new law will focus on where they can be. The bill aims to keep offenders 300 feet away from schools, libraries and other such facilities.
Only the most serious offenders will still be under the 2000 foot restriction which has concentrated sex offenders into the tiny handful of places where it was legal for them to live.
There's a few reasonable exceptions, one of which went unreported: On election day, and offender may go to their polling place if it's in a school "solely for the period of time reasonably necessary to exercise the right to vote in a public election."
The worst.
I find it interesting to note that these bills only were opened up for debate last Monday the 20th. The public was not given a reasonable amount of notification. I went to the public hearing on the 20th and at that time they were only discussing the exclusionary zones, they hadn't actually put a "foot" amount to it. I find it more alarming that senators and representatives can sneak in bills without giving the public a reasonable amount of notice. I think there needs to be more discussion about the constitutional rights of people who have served their time and are still being punished based on media generated hysteria and unproven assumptions that politicians use to get elected.
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