PHOENIX – A loophole in Arizona law allows sex offenders to live near schools, in some cases just feet away from campus.
Per state law, it’s only illegal for a sex offender to live within 1,000 feet of a school if that person has been convicted of a dangerous crime against children.
According to the state sex offender registry, one sex offender in Mesa lives steps away from two schools, Ishikawa Elementary School and Stapley Junior High. The Maricopa County Adult Probation says his victims were adults, not children.
We combed through the registry and found dozens of similar cases.
But it doesn’t end there. It turns out the law isn’t actually that cut-and-dry. A 12 News I-Team investigation has found that even crimes against children won’t keep some offenders from living near schools.
In one case, Loma Linda Elementary School in Phoenix can be seen from this offenders front yard. He was convicted of raping a child under the age of 16 in Massachusetts. His probation ended in September of last year, allowing him to live wherever he wants.
While some parents are shocked people with this type of criminal history can live so close to schools, some people are calling what they call rational laws.
Directors of Arizonans for Rational Sex Offense Laws Terry and Patricia Borden say sex offenders already have a hard enough time finding a place to live after they’re convicted, and that it would be wrong to forbid them from living near schools.
Read more (the end is interesting)
“Regardless, the fact that these sex offenders living near schools are legally doing so doesn’t make the news any easier to swallow for parents.”
Yeah, well, they better find a way to accept it, make peace with it and find a way to live with it!
This just proves the registry doesn’t assuage fears, it exacerbates them..
Megan’s Law gives parents a FALSE sense of relief and the illusion of control and power over their children’s safety.
More fear-mongering, as usual. And there’s that word again so often bandied about by the media and the powers that be: “loophole.” Any little bit of normalcy and liberty in regards to registered citizens is always a f***ing loophole that must be closed, lest the world explode. Glad to see that AZ has a RSOL organization, though.
The article said, “Their message to concerned parents?”
My message to “concerned parents” is go F yourself. Mind your own business. Stop harassing families. Go F yourselves. Oh, and have a great day. Not.
Sometimes ignorance is bliss, particularly when you don’t fully understand the information you have. Literally everyone involved on all sides would have much happier lives without the registry.
The directors of Arizonans for Rational Sex Offense Laws Terry and Patricia Borden are 100% correct in saying that 95% of new sex crimes are not committed by registrants and people’s children have a better chance of falling victim to the registry that to a crime by a registrant. Why are people (majority of society) so ignorant to statistics? Or are they just so stupid they don’t understand?
What pisses me off is that no news organization can do a story about the registry without referring to everyone on the registry as PREDATORS!
I live in AZ and it’s NOT a loophole. Arizona law states that the 1000 foot law DOES NOT apply to persons who are a Level 1, while on probation, people who had lived at the address before a school was built, or those persons who have had their civil rights restored. So, the FAKE NEWS 12 team needs to put out the FACTS. It’s a good possibility these people fall under these exceptions.
I wonder how the parents would feel if a ex offender saved their childs life