Megan Kanka was raped and strangled by a twice-convicted sex offender across the street from her home in Hamilton Township, N.J., in July of 1994. Her parents, Maureen and Richard Kanka, pushed tirelessly for the law that alerts parents when a sexual predator moves into the neighborhood. Two decades later, the family is still haunted by the tragedy. Full Article
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This story is different than I recall. I heard Mr.kanka knew a sex offender lived across the street, and Mrs.kanka was down the street having a drink with friends when the murder happened. The law was suppose to cost NJ 175k per year.
While their story is tragic and while they have had 20 years to deal with the certain devastation that a trauma like that would most certainly cause I wonder how they sleep at night knowing that their actions have caused so much damage to millions of individuals and their families all in the name of their daughter!
A single individual caused this tragic event to that single individual and yet and yet each and every day of the year more victims are being created thanks to the law honoring their daughter…only these victims are not innocent children but rather individuals who get caught up in the surreal nightmare called the “Registered Sex Offender list” – a nightmare that they can never wake up from!
This list made to “honor” the memory of their daughter has become a bloated hit list for nuts and vigilantes to easily chose victims giving them all the information to stalk, harass, and even murder them.
This list has not be proven to work. It has not saved anyone and has been used for political gain and fear mongering to manipulate voters by politicians. It continues to ruin countless lives daily yet “save” no one at all.
Is this really the best way of honoring their daughter by creating more victims and causing pain to so many individuals and their families as well?
“It is the ultimate justice that we can bring to the memory of our little girl,” Maureen Kanka said at the time. “Megan was worth a life.”
I have to wonder if Maureen Kanka is aware of the millions of innocent people negativity impacted by her and her husbands crusade to save America.
Tired of hiding points out that this crime that affects millions was committed by one individual. The article doesn’t mention the millions of family members impacted by the law named after their daughter. It says nothing about the children that are treated as outcasts, bullied and essentially banished at a time in their lives when their social skills are developing. It says nothing about all the people murdered, beaten, burned or vandalized homes.
What I want to ask the Kankas is if they still think what they have done is a good thing after considering the fact that their efforts have harmed an untold number of children and other people, and if they can show me one documented case of a child being helped or saved in any way, shape, or form by the law named after their daughter.
Yes Maureen; you have made an impact alright. And do you still think it’s the “ultimate justice;” or just an illusion of justice?
We all should grieve the loss of any human life and honor those taken at an early age whether it be by the deranged individual in this case or victims of gang violence etc. This compassion should extend to the families as well, no doubt.
We should not make others pay in advance for the crimes of one individual and create a subclass of human beings to be offered up to the families of crime victims as a societal peace offering or panacea.
The profile and situation of this individual should be the focus of any law, especially since he was on parole and had an extensive history of violence, as do many walking around today who have multiple homicides and countless aggravated assault convictions of any kind, making this current approach a very narrow and reactive and prejudicial with the complete presumption of guilt for crimes that have never been committed.
The constitution was written with these legal concepts in mind and it is a complex instrument with very little tolerance for these arbitrary “adjustments” implied by these “feel good” statutes. These laws have the same effect on the constitution and the protections it affords all Americans and making such radical laws is tantamount to trying to work on the engine of an aircraft while it is in flight.
With every politician using these vigilante mechanisms to secure their futures without regards to inherent constitutional protections afforded to all, and with a judiciary not able to exercise checks and balances, the future for all Americans is bleak when this erosion of freedoms starts to take over more and more, little by little, exactly what our country stands for and what rights Americans inalienably deserve.
Anything less is a miscarriage of justice which compromises the very fundamentals of “Liberty and Justice for All” this country was founded on.