Changing Jessica’s Law creates controversy

The State Department of Corrections is changing the law, known as Jessica’s Law, so that only pedophiles and convicted child molesters are now restricted where they live. This decision comes after the State Supreme Court ruled that the law was unconstitutional, because it created a blanket restriction over criminals who were not even child molesters.

“It’s frustrating,” said Lauren Dasilva, the Deputy Chief of the Monterey County Rape Crisis Center.

Until now, Jessica’s Law prohibited all sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of parks and schools, where children are present. But this restriction also applied to people convicted of lesser crimes, such as date rape or dating a minor, not just child molesters and pedophiles.

“To have the end result say, ‘actually it wasn’t this that happened to you it was this.’ Though that’s not the message of the courts, it’s the message often survivors receive. That instead of rape, it was actually statutory rape or unlawful sex,” said Dasilva.

Supporters of the decision say it allows authorities to protect children from people they really need protection from. But many child advocates are concerned that this will allow dangerous predators to have more access to children.

Ignacio Hernandez with California Attorneys for Criminal Justice supports the change, “What this ruling and this decision simply says is the worst of the worst will be covered and everyone else will go by a case-by-case analysis. It will allows for the determination of who’s really a threat to public safety will have to live by these rules and those that don’t pose a risk to public safety will have to follow other rules. That’s really all it does.”

“Well certainly we want to try to keep people safe in their neighborhoods,” says Dr. Richard Pan and Sacramento lawmaker. “That’s one of the top priorities of the legislature and myself, we need to also be sure we work with the courts to both make sure that we keep people safe and people have their rights.”

The Department of Corrections spokesman says that the law made it almost impossible for sex offenders to find homes, leaving many of them homeless. So the law resulted in an exponential increase of homeless sex offenders living on the streets.

“It’s virtually impossible to follow just the sheer number of folks that are under the registry right now, so the idea is to focus those resources on the ones that really pose a risk,” says Hernandez. “If someone doesn’t pose a risk, there are other ways to monitor them but we don’t have to have the 24-7, monitoring, the ankle bracelets, and residency restrictions across the board.”

It will take about 60 days for the Department of Corrections to review the files of thousands of sex offender parolees to decide who the restrictions still apply to.