The City of Taft has, for all intents and purposes, settled a lawsuit filed on behalf of a registered sex offender Tuesday night when it repealed a seven-year-old ordinance regulating where convicted sex offenders could live and visit. Full Article
Monthly Meetings: Jan 16 Recording Uplaoded Details / Recordings
This is good, in fact great news for registrants living in and around Taft. This article states fact’s that ALL cities refusing to repeal or are only partially repealing their ordinances really need to revisit. Fact’s like the courts opinion in the Nguyen case where the state supreme court said these kind of ordinances were unenforceable The court called these ordinances unconstitutional and denied a review, and their decision applies throughout the state.
Many of the city counsel members throughout the state don’t like what is happening, but the law is the law. It’s a true wonder that these people seem to have a mental blank spot when it comes to empirical facts drawn from many years of research by well educated people and scholars who specialize in the area of the sex offender phenomena and it’s accompanying laws. Instead they prefer to listen to the seemingly pulled out of thin air and wild claims made by those with a vested interest in keeping non factual myths and skewered facts alive.
The recurring theme I keep hearing goes like this; “we don’t have much of a choice.” I disagree because all the members on all the city counsels statewide had the ability and opportunity to measure what they only thought they knew and had been told about people on the registry against what has been learned through empirical research done by experts. I can only conclude that their opinions on registrants and their opinions on what they need to do about registrants are not their opinions at all; their opinions seem to be someone else s opinion conveyed to them by the media, or people like the Orange County District Attorney and his staff, who went from city to city telling of a nonexistent threat to little girls living in predominately white middle class neighborhoods. I find it really strange that this threat doesn’t seem to exist in their phantom filled minds for ethnic children. I don’t recall ever hearing of a Black, Hispanic or Asian child living in the state needing protection.
It’s kind of humorous every time I read of counsel members saying things like “I’m not too happy about it” as they cast their vote to repeal their ordinance, which to me sounds like an admission of ignorance. I think we can expect our victories for truth and justice and common sense to be attacked by those that believe in scary bedtime stories, myths and urban legends.
You’re right. There is a lot of things to reduce sexual abuse, a they have all the resources they need to come up with alternatives that don’t trash the constitutions. Basically they ate fixated on punishment and excusion. They are basically limited by their own predudices. Has anyone one of these councils said. “Hey, you know, the well being of ALL children is important. Lets set up a task force, to bring in those who have devoted their lives to studying this and come up with some solutions. Let’s even run it by carsol so we can avoid future law suits. Oh right we have that committee already, it’s called CASCOMB. Maybe we ought to see what they have to say.”
Tim:
The fact of the matter is that registrants pose no more a risk to the public than people not on the registry. Serial sex predators of children and adults are very few indeed, and in my eyes not as dangerous as criminals like drug dealers and gang members that recruit young people into a lifestyle that goes nowhere and causes great harm to the public, and let’s not forget murderers. It’s a fact that the vast majority of sex crimes (and you can’t call everything that will land someone on the registry sexual in nature) are committed by people not on the registry. The truth is I don’t think a registry is needed at all. It was never needed before, and most of this perceived threat doesn’t exist. It’s a lie because they twist one thing into something it’s not and brainwash people into considering themselves life long victims. Things like incest is a fact of life, just like bad weather. I’m not saying it’s acceptable, but the moral crusade to bring the masses into having a singular view of anything sexual as the media is allowed to broadcast what is nothing less than smut to children is clearly a strategy that is never going to work. Those that think up these laws are actually the least qualified to have any sort of an opinion on what is socially acceptable and what is not.