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| News has it wrong: Sex offender law is tough | |||||||||||
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Birmingham News Most egregiously, the headline read "Sex offender bracelets start in 2025." This headline is false, and its accompanying story is misleading. Worse yet, my office has been contacted by many who have been frightened by this reckless reporting into believing this tough new act does not strengthen the law. I write to set the record straight with the facts. Alabama's new law is tough, it closes loopholes and it punishes those who offend. In fact, the new law provides mandatory monitoring of those who commit Class A sex offenses against a child under 12. These are the worst of the worst, those who rape and sodomize and torture children. It is true that none of these criminals to whom this story referred will be monitored until at least 2025. Of course not; they will be in prison until at least 2025. Finally, these pedophiles will serve every day of their minimum, 20-year mandatory prison sentence without the benefit of probation, split-sentence, "good-time" or parole. Other sexual predators will immediately be subject to monitoring - judges will have the authority to order monitoring of them, and the Board of Pardons and Paroles will be able to condition parole on the use of these tracking devices. Because of this law, those who commit a Class A felony sex offense against a child under 12 must serve a minimum of 20 years up to life, and those who commit a Class B sex offense against a child must serve every day of a sentence of between 10 and 20 years. This bill provides what Alabamians demand - truth in sentencing for these offenders that puts them in jail and keeps them there for a long time. While no law can prevent a person from committing evil acts, this law closes many loopholes that have allowed sex offenders to disappear into our neighborhoods unnoticed and unmonitored. Some of these include: Recognizing "no-contest" pleas from other states. Under current law, if someone pleaded "no contest" to a sex offense in another state, he did not have to register in Alabama, because our law did not recognize no-contest pleas. No longer can these offenders cross the state line and disappear into our neighborhoods without registering. Prohibiting pedophiles from loitering or working near those places where children congregate - schools, day cares, ball fields and parks. Ending the practice permitted by current law that allows sex offenders to accept short-term employment and to work around children for up to 14 days. Convicted sex offenders, even those who have completed their sentences, will be subject to these new, more stringent registration and reporting requirements. All violations of the Community Notification Act are now Class C felonies. This legislation was not created in a rush or a vacuum. It began three years ago when I served as the governor's legal adviser; it was forged as I attended six regional meetings and met with 180 Alabama law enforcement officers, representing 85 different agencies, to listen to their concerns; and it was passed unanimously by the Alabama Legislature. What resulted is good, strong, progressive public policy that protects our children in a comprehensive and unprecedented way. The days of sex offenders hiding in the shadows of a weak and, in many ways, ineffective law are over. The safe harbors in which pedophiles waited to attack their next victim - maybe in a school parking lot, maybe at a ballpark, or maybe on a darkened midway where a sexual predator has accepted temporary employment - are over. Although you would not know it from what has been reported, our current law and its accompanying false sense of security posed the real risk to our children. The new law protects those children - those children for whom this law was written and those who are now safer because of its enactment. If Alabamians will read this law for themselves, they will be assured of its strength. Troy King is the attorney general of Alabama.
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News