Dozens of sex offenders who have satisfied their sentences in New York State are being held in prison beyond their release dates because of a new interpretation of a state law that governs where they can live.
The law, which has been in effect since 2005, restricts many sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of a school. Those unable to find such accommodations often end up in homeless shelters. Full Article
“The various residency restrictions that have consigned many sex offenders to life as transients are now being interpreted to require their continued incarceration.”
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It appears the prison industry is capitalizing on this interpretation of residency restrictions to support a self indulgent existence. I could imagine it’s only a matter of time before they begin lobbying for residency restrictions for other categories of criminals, thus keeping their prisons full to meet quotas under the heading of “public safety”. I’m sure Senator Kline will receive a healthy campaign donation for his corroboration. I find this ideal to be very maddening and troublesome. Greed replaces the objective to reform an individual’s behavior.
Janice is in the wrong state. If where were in NYC, she could make millions off the stupidity of the NY legislature. These individuals aren’t even civilly committed.
Seriously? Keeping someone in jail beyond their sentence? In addition, none of these state-kidnapped citizens are allowed to get court-appointed lawyers, because they aren’t technically charged with a crime? SERIOUSLY??
And yes, they are “state kidnapped citizens,” as they are not being charged with a current crime, not EVEN a registration violation. They should be compensated hundreds of dollars a day for every day they remain as captives of the state.
And this doesn’t violate ex post faco and a myriad of other basic human rights embodied in our constitution and bill of rights?
Public policy leadership MUST be based…must have foundation on the Constitution.
Seems it wasn’t too long ago that Justice Scalia prophesied that internment could be used again in “times of war”. This prediction has reached fruition in the war against registrant citizens. If this can be done to “sex Offenders” based only on the fear of what they might do, then there’s no reason this wouldn’t apply to other groups of citizens we’re concerned about.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights restricts the use of internment. Article 9 states that “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.” Obviously this is another human right we’ve decided doesn’t belong in the good old U.S. (Sarcasm).
If a person is being detained longer due to his registration requirement, shouldn’t SCOTUS recognize this as proof that registration IS indeed punishment and gives states endless authority to punish registrants further than their sentence?
As I read this today 1/15/15 the day before my son was to be released from prison this has happened to him. He was only told 3 days ago. I was told today after many phone calls to find out where he was going. On top of this he has a mental illness and had stabilized very well even though staff at Attica let out the fact why he was there and he was assaulted many times while in prison because of his offence. This reminds me of when in WWII President Roosevelt held citizens of our country in interment.