As expected, letters were sent out Friday to Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen and Corrections Secretary Edward Wall in connection with the city’s effort to force the state to do something about the disproportionate number of sex offenders who are being placed in the city.
In his letter to Wall, Murphy noted that Grave Roberts, who runs the state’s sex offender program, stated that residency restrictions “inadvertently have negative effects on public safety.”
“As such, we believe it prudent and an agency obligation for you to send an unequivocal statement to the Attorney General that local sex offender residency restrictions undermine public safety and lack of action by the state can only characterized as a conscious decision to compromise public safety,” Murphy wrote. Full Article
This issue could be resolved quickly if both sides would look at the statistics. Most of the “sex offenders” are in the homes, churches and schools, not registered, and you can’t tell them were to live, because you don’t know who they are, unless you catch them first. Once you catch them they as a group have a 5 % chance of reoffending, less if you focus your efferts on mental health treatment, so essentially they are “ex offenders” and you are wasting everyone’s time and the public treasury worrying about where people who present no significant danger live.
There are those who hate to confuse matters by introducing facts. Or like others put it “I don’t want to intellectualize the discussion”. ’nuff said…