A town in Connecticut passed a new law this week that bans registrants from virtually all of its public sites, including parks, recreation centers, event centers, swimming pools, trails, and open space land. The new law also prohibits registrants from attending school events even if their children are participating in them.
The town’s decision to ban registrants was made about the same time as their public schools prepared to participate in “The Great Kindness Challenge”, an international program meant to show that kindness matters. The irony of these two events taking place in the same town at almost the same time is overwhelming.
How can a town that publicly states that it values kindness act in such an unkind way? How can an elected official in that town state that “sex offenders” belong in only two places – jail and then Hell?
During consideration of the new law, the elected officials discussed the possibility of a legal challenge to that law. Their legal representative answered that “courts have upheld ordinances…if they are reasonably calculated to achieve health, safety, and welfare.”
Does this new law achieve health, safety, and welfare? It does not!
Instead, it is based upon the myth that everyone convicted of a sex offense, regardless of the gravity of that offense and when it occurred, poses a current danger. The new law also ignores both government and academic studies that conclude that laws, similar to the law passed in Connecticut, do not increase public safety, but instead decrease it.
This new law in Connecticut must be stopped! For if the law is not stopped, it is likely to spread to towns throughout that state as well as to all of New England.
Similar laws have been stopped in California and Illinois. Registrants in those states are now allowed to visit public sites and the results have not been that children are assaulted there. Instead, children — including children of registrants — have enjoyed picnics and played softball with all members of their families. They have also enjoyed the support of their parents at school events, both academic and athletic.
The only way to stop the new law in Connecticut is to challenge it in court by filing a lawsuit. A lawsuit similar to the 31 lawsuits filed in California that restored the rights of registrants to visit public sites. California is prepared to help registrants in Connecticut restore their rights. Discussions have begun to do just that. Please stay tuned.
— by Janice Bellucci
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Great news Janice, thank you!!!!
They simply failed to Google search “Janice Bellucchi will eat you alive”
Don’t worry you guys and girls in that area, help is on the way.
We will see if those lawyers in those states decide to step up and fight this. Ten years ago we couldn’t find ANY lawyers willing to fight on behalf of RC.
I attended a great college in CT. Good state. But that Naugatuck mayor was foolish and impulsive to advance this ordinance. Janice will win. Naugatuck mayor will lose. Period.
CT ACLU itself should file suit against this bad law. It’s totally ex post facto punishment.
One thing is for sure. The identification and labeling of those who have committed sex assaults maybe of public interest, but the underlying intent is to punish. The town wrote law, err ordinance that imposes banishment after the fact. The intent is to punish period. That the town seeks safety is irrelevant.
I think the sentence “The irony of these two events taking place in the same town at almost the same time is overwhelming” should have been written “The hypocrisy of these two events taking place in the same town at almost the same time is overwhelming”
Ah yes, the self-righteous followers of Ted Kennedy.
Unbelievable!! Thanks Janice for offering help outside of California. This can’t be constitutional and it will be struck down!! Murderers and Drug Dealers are allowed in these places, so I guess our children are safe? How ridiculous.
From coast to coast, Janice works to make RC laws toast! 🙂
I have long wondered why we’re still expected to continue funding, via our tax dollars, public spaces we aren’t even allowed to enjoy anymore.
Go get ’em, Janice. You are pretty much my only hope at eventually toppling this whole evil oppressive police-state scheme.
Why should registrant tax dollars support parks, swimming pools and rec centers that they can’t access? And what does “open space land” mean, sounds like registrants aren’t allowed to exist unless it’s in a cell in some prison.
Thank goodness for lawyers like Janice! If ever there was a Wonder Woman, she is it, Go Get Em!
We have an uphill battle as long as the media continues to portray us as demons. And when I say media, it’s not just in the news/opinion media doing so. TV and movies are doing as much damage for us as they are, if not more.
I have quit watching several TV shows lately because of how they portray sex offenses/offenders. Last month, a Blindspot episode made the claim that sex crimes are given a low priority by police compared to crimes like homicide and vice. We know that is far from the truth because some of us have been victims of a system that is overzealous when it comes to prosecuting these crimes, some even to the point of being victims of manufactured accusations. As long as the media portrays these crimes as being “low priority,” the public will believe that lie and demand fiercer prosecution of sex crimes.
Another was an episode of Bull which aired this week. On it, a man in his mid 30s lies on social media to attract a 16 year old girl to meet him, and then upon their initial meeting, he gives her an option to turn around and go home or go out with him. He doesn’t force her and she willingly goes with him. The episode then jumps to over a year later and they are robbing a jewelry store together and are caught. The episode is centered around the idea that he must have forced her, threatened her, and raped her violently. The episode had a very clear message, for a girl at that age to run away from home and to have sex with an older man, the only reason must be that he forced her to do it, that he was violent, and that he held her as a prisoner.
TV shows and movies continue to portray us as monsters, and Law and Order: SVU isn’t the only one doing so.
Ahh…Connecticut…the place that gave us the 2003 Connecticut Department of Public Safety V Doe 2003 SCOTUS case. The case where the Justices decided it was OK to publish sex offenders on an internet list and the Second Circuit Court’s judgment was reversed on the basis that due process does not require the opportunity to prove a fact that is not material to the State’s statutory scheme. Injury to reputation in itself, even if defamatory, does not constitute deprivation of liberty. The Procedural Due Process challenge failed.
However, The Court did not answer whether the law violated the substantive component of due process…ever…and even suggested that putting someone on a list that infers dangerousness without a hearing to determine that may violate Substantive Due Process. This is something from 2003 that still hasn’t been challenged to the level of SCOTUS even though they practically begged for it and we could have gotten these dangerous public disclosure web sites shot down long ago.
Sorry if it’s a little off topic, but it’s all I can think about whenever I see this state mentioned.
Thank you, Janice and team!
Conflate this “cruel and unusual punishment” by the city in CT with the public meeting reactions of Adelanto, Ca along with Colorado’s Judge Matsch’s ruling that the public make the registry “cruel and unusual punishment” should obliterate that the registry is simply regulatory in nature.
I was watching a PBS episode on Prohibition. On it, it stated that only 10% of Americans become adversely affected by alcohol. It seems foolish to have a law that punishes 100% of Americans that only affect 10%. It took many organizations to overturn the 18th amendment, Prohibition, including a Women’s group to sway voters. (That reminded me of WAR – Women Against the Registry.)
Similarly, we all know that the recidivism rates of registrants are the second lowest, with murderers being the lowest recidivates. Why punish 100% of those convicted of sex crimes when less than 5% recidivate? Or in case of the California Sex Offender Management Board’s (CASOMB) latest results or less than 1% recidivism rates for the past two years.
The SCOTUS needs to face their egregious mistake of creating a class of monsters by way of false data by someone making an advertisement for their employ with 80% recidivism rates. Not only do Dr’s Ira and Tara Ellman’s research work proves that extreme rate false, but the people who gathered up the information have revealed to the WAPO that they didn’t know what they were doing because there wasn’t enough data to give.
This is a prime example of how communities can pass absurd laws that will remain on the books until they are challenged. Then, when they go unchallenged, it spreads like a cancer to the next town, and the next town… and the next. It’s what happened in California and started with a district attorney and a county supervisor in Orange County who teamed up to create the framework of an absurd and completely unconstitutional ordinance that spread throughout the state like wildfire. ENOUGH!
There’s a civil rights attorney in CT whose name I’m not gonna drop but I think many here can probably guess… this seems like it would be perfect for that person.
Thank you, Janice!
Janice’s arguments hold true and the United States constitution applies even to felons.
I have read this post i understand both sides. We all have a right to how we feel and as well to our options. My opinion is we need to have stricter law’s . The law gives convicts to many rights. When they should receive no rights. Did the CRIMINALS give any of their VICTIMS any RIGHTS . NO ! They didn’t. What one state wants for their people and children should be an eye opener for other states to see they need to make a change . Not to save the criminals who are predators that feeds devil inside them. If our laws were not WEAK AND LIBERAL. We wouldn’t have as much crime. It’s very disappointing that victims or their loved ones that feel righteous Justice was not prevailed tend to go make Justice and they are the one who get locked up for life or more years then what a criminal who does do the ACT or Acts repeatedly only get a slap on the wrist they do receive years but not enough .also for the ones who are sex predators also get to register themselves into Megan’s Law when that should be done by the law when they do judgment and sentencing. It’s time we all look at the big picture here. Look at what is happening to our SOCIETY. …