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Megan's Law email: The political math |
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Tuesday, 01 April 2008 19:00 |
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Think what you want about sex offender registries and whether they make communities safer.
The recent announcement by New York leaders of a $593,000 federal grant
for a program to send out email notifications about registered sex
offenders raises a question that pro-child, anti-crime voters can't
keep ignoring. After a full decade when Internet registries became
America's official national policy for responding to the sexual assault of children, isn't it time for serious people to say, "Enough"?
We won't debate here whether spending nearly $600,000 of precious
taxpayer money on email alerts, when we know how to rescue victims of
child exploitation, makes sense. What we will tell you -- as a
grassroots organization that has fought for child protection in
legislatures from coast to coast and will never take one dime of
government money -- is the truth about the politics of sex offender
registration.
To zero in on exactly how it works, consider how two different groups
think and operate: politicians and the news media. When it comes to
child protection legislation, politicians want three things: (1) a bill
that will get them great media coverage, (2) a bill that does not cost
too much and (3) a bill their legislative leadership will go along
with. It's rarely any more complicated than that.
What does the media want? They're always looking for a few things: (1)
an issue that makes "good t.v." or sounds like a "compelling story,"
(2) an issue that is not too complicated or technical, and (3) a story
that can be localized.
Put these two together, and you have a predictable formula. A "parole
bill" (boring and technical) requiring that released sex offenders be
kept under intensive surveillance and court-ordered restrictions
(expensive) doesn't have much of a chance (forget leadership support).
A Megan's Law bill to send out an email heads-up to parents whenever a
predator is released into their neighborhood (without any of these meaningful parole restrictions) is a winner.
Add to that priceless praise and photo ops from charities and some advocates and, well... you do the math.
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