Upgrade the sex-offender registry
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he vilest of the vile in American society are sex offenders -- the people who prey on children, creepy flashers who expose themselves in public places, etc. And because they tend to repeat their crimes, we require them to register with the state so neighbors and local law enforcement know where they are.
Let's call it what it is: keeping track of potentially dangerous sexual deviants.
Rep. Paul Ray, R-Clinton, aims to make it easier to distinguish between the various shades of sex offenders, as it were. He plans to introduce legislation in 2008 that would rate sex offenders according to the seriousness of their offenses.
"Right now," Ray told our reporter Jesse Fruhwirth, "you look and all you see is he is a sex offender, even if his offense was he was 19 and he had a 17-year-old girlfriend." Ray wants people to access the state's online sex-offender registry and be able to distinguish between the aforementioned teens, and child molesters, rapists and perpetrators of other assorted crimes.
The move to categorize -- or rate -- Utah's sex offenders is the result of a federal law: the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006. The federal statute will also lengthen the time some offenders will remain on the state's registry.
We see no valid argument against such revised classifications. According to Fruhwirth's news story, as of Friday there were 817 sex offenders registered in the Top of Utah's 24 ZIP codes.
If you're curious -- and everyone should be -- log onto the state's Web site (www.cr.ex.state.ut.us/community/sexoffenders/) to see what sex offenders live near you. Our guess is that you'll be surprised, because they're everywhere.
This is the kind of information you should have -- especially if you have children.
One curious thing, however, was Ray's concern regarding possible notification of neighbors when a sex offender takes up residence nearby. He's worried the presence of a "serious" sex offender may drive down property values of homes in the neighborhood. He didn't say real estate values should trump the right of people to know who's living near them, but that it might affect the way people are notified when a sex offender moves in. Distributing fliers to each home in the area might give way to more discreet phone calls.
We hope that if legislators decide to make notification a part of Ray's bill, they will choose whatever is more effective when it comes to protecting society, and that real estate values are low on the priority list.
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