Curbing sex crimes: It's about enforcement, not more laws
(Dan Abrams)
The new legislation designed to crack down on sex offenders is often nothing more than political grandstanding. Tough new laws mean little if those laws aren't enforced.
Take the case of John Evander Couey: It turns out that Florida state authorities alerted county sheriffs back in November that Couey, a registered sex offender, had failed to respond to a letter verifying his address and was therefore considered a missing sex offender.
The sheriff's office in Citrus County— where Couey had last reported living— says it never got the letter. They say the state got the sheriff's address wrong so the county never even knew Couey hadn't checked in.
A wrong address? If they had gotten the letter, Couey might have been arrested and been behind bars rather than on the loose in February when Jessica Lunsford was abducted. And that's just one example.
Couey wasn't considered a high priority offender even though we learn that he twice asked the state for psychiatric treatment because he believed he had a “mental problem” and “could not control his sexual attraction for young children.” In 2003, after Couey had served time for numerous drug-related criminal offenses, his probation officer allowed him to take a job as a construction worker at a middle school. His probation officer at the time claimed no one told him Couey was a registered sex offender. One year later, he took another construction job at a school in Citrus County where Jessica attended. He was registered as a sex offender there but no one checked his criminal record before hiring him.
And last summer, after spending two months in jail on a probation violation, he was supposed to report into a probation officer. He never did.
So no one knew he changed his address, was living 150 yards from Jessica Lunsford, and no one went looking for him until days after Jessica had gone missing.
The new Jessica Lunsford Act tries to address some of the holes in the system. Tougher sentences make sense, but the rest of the proposals— electronic tethers, tougher reporting requirements, limited areas for offenders to live— just aren't going to do the job without better enforcement.
New laws make headlines, but they need to allocate more than that $21 million set aside under the new legislation for enforcement. If there's an attached electronic monitoring devices to all sex offenders, who's going to track them?
Before I offer praise to lawmakers, I want to know that those laws are going to make a difference.
DAbrams@MSNBC.com
