WI: Here’s why it’s time to reconsider sex offender residency restrictions

[kenoshanews.com – 7/12/18]

Nicholas Fitzpatrick is now homeless.

After serving time for sexual assault — he pleaded guilty to having sex with his 14-year-old girlfriend when he was 17 — Fitzpatrick hoped to move into a home in Trevor.

However, that home is less than 1,000 feet from a tiny park known as Jason’s Pond, and that runs afoul of Salem Lakes’ sex offender residency rules.

So he appealed to the Village Board for an exemption. Several relatives and residents spoke on his behalf. Fitzpatrick told the board he earned college credits while incarcerated. Board Chairwoman Diane Tesar talked to his parole officer, who vouched for him.

“If I don’t get approved here today, on (July) 11th I’m homeless,” Fitzpatrick told the board on Monday. “This is my last shot.”

But the board balked, and now Fitzpatrick has no place to live.

What’s ironic is that the board on a earlier occasion granted an exemption for a man who was convicted of possessing child pornography. So to a majority of board members, it’s apparently better to have a child pornographer living near a park than a man who, as a teenager, had sex with his underage girlfriend.

This isn’t right, and it points to the larger problem brought on by sex offender residency restrictions.

In our zeal to protect ourselves from sex offenders, communities throughout the country have imposed all sorts of restrictions on where sex offenders can live. Often they are forbidden from living near churches, schools, parks and other places where children gather.

The result, in many instances, is there is no place in a community for a convicted sex offender to live once all the restrictions are applied.

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It’s amazing to me that no one is questioning why a 17-year-old should be labeled a “sex offender” for having sex with his 14-year-old girlfriend. Or why that is considered “sexual assault.”

That this young man should be relegated to homelessness now is utterly disgraceful.

“Prof Luna said her research has shown that the pre-frontal cortex – the part of the brain controlling adult-like reason and planning – is active in adolescents, but it is trumped by the hormone dopamine which triggers feelings of happiness when taking risks.

“I really want to dispel this idea that adolescents are unable to use their pre-frontal cortex for planning and reasoning. They really have the capability,” she said.

“Sometimes adolescents act just like an adult so you get confused when they do stupid things. But they need that variability of experience and to be able to do things.

“It’s not that they are not listening but what they do is determined by the increase in motivational processes in the brain that is meant to encourage them to venture outside of the nest.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/11413884/True-adulthood-doesnt-begin-until-age-25.html

Oh no! All of the bullshit the courts and prosecutors have been spewing about adolescents incapable of using their brains has all come crashing down. The Truth is so inconvenient isn’t it?