Source: kansascity.com 2/20/23
When something horrific happens to a child, the impulse is to take every action necessary to ensure it never happens to any child anywhere again. That tendency is understandable and often praiseworthy — but there are times it can also be destructive.
So it goes with “Lailah’s Law,” a bill now under consideration in the Kansas House. The legislation is named for a 7-year-old Wichita girl who was assaulted and nearly killed in 2017 by Corbin Breitenbach, who had recently been paroled on a previous conviction of sexual assault. Corrections officials had approved him to live at his mother’s house and ordered him not to consume alcohol. He assaulted Lailah after a night of drinking at his girlfriend’s house, a violation of those terms.
Lailah is a teenager now. Her family is asking legislators to require people who live with parolees to report when those ex-offenders aren’t home during required hours — or else face misdemeanor charges punishable with fines and jail time if the parolee commits a new crime.
The family’s anger is understandable, as is their desire to find a solution.
But we cannot support the proposed bill, which has the potential to criminalize thousands of blameless Kansans and upend the already-fragile systems of support for ex-offenders reentering society.
…
“The bill would … increase the number of cases filed in district courts because it creates a new crime associated with failure to make a required report,” Proffitt noted. And in an ironic turn, he said, that would actually create more offenders for the courts and corrections system to supervise.
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Kansas residents, show up, stand up, and speak up to oppose this terrible bill!
If not you, then who?
I would like to propose “Nono*’s Law“: a law that would require local, state and federal agencies to provide at least 30% of sex offender funding (used to register, harass, prosecute, and incarcerate individuals convicted of sexual offenses) be mandated for pre-offense prevention programs.
No Offenses and No Offenders = “Nono’s Law” 👍🏻
(Wait…. they all just talk about “prevention” but don’t really mean it?? They just mean more prosecutions, longer sentences, new more punitive laws, etc? 😒)
*Rhymes with Bono.
Its just a big money making industry
I predict the bill won’t pass, then the bill’s proponents will go back and rework it, narrow it down to make it specific to “sex offenders” released on parole. The bill would then get the support it needs to pass, and that will be the end of the story
Protecting children is supposed to be the job of their families not politicians that pass bad laws