That law Dedham passed to make it harder on sex predators to operate is not a law at all; the state lawyers are holding it up.
Seems the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts has stepped in to challenge the law.
Dedham’s law would restrict where a convicted sex offender can live and travel in town.
Meanwhile, there is a law like Dedham’s that is making its way through the legislature that would apply to the whole state. That might be ruled upon at the same time as Dedham.
If a law effectively forces ex-sex offenders out of town and out of other towns and cities with similar laws, it thereby creates a population of itinerants whose lives are destabilized by homelessness, unemployment, and inaccessibility to supervision networks, says the ACLU. The law also impinges on the Sex Offender Registry law, says the ACLU, and denies convicted sex offenders rights protected by the Massachusetts and U.S. constitutions.
Many residents of Massachusetts would choose to protect themselves and their children from sex offenders instead of worrying about offenders’ constitutional rights.
But the ACLU objection does have some points that must be addressed.
They will, in the end, seriously affect innocent peoples’ lives.
If all the cities and towns of Massachusetts adopted the Dedham law or one like it, they could effectively drive ex-sex offenders out of state. And if a federal law did the same for all the states, ex-sex offenders would have no place to go.
That would create an underground culture of sex offenders with no homes, no work, and no-where to seek or get help.
But if it is allowed in Massachusetts, it would be the first step toward creating this underground of invisible sex offenders.
Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley is holding up Dedham’s law. Her office has not specified what part of the law is under question.
Either way, the nation has to apply itself to drawing up a law that protects the innocent and gives the offenders their constitutional rights.
This is not bowing to sex offenders, it is keeping society’s eye on troublesome individuals.
Anyone who thinks that a town can whisk away sex-offenders with a law is dangerously naïve.
