Law seeks to protect children from Sex Offenders − 20 years later, the jury is still out
Before his sentencing in March 2025, a convicted child rapist asked for a judgment that would have set him free in 2027. The Kansas resident received 25 years with no chance of parole.
The reason? Jessica’s Law, which Kansas lawmakers passed in 2006.
Kansas was one of the first states to follow Florida’s initial enactment of Jessica’s Law 20 years ago in response to the rape and murder of 9-year-old Jessica “Jessie” Lunsford in Homosassa, Florida. Forty-four other states have followed, altering how America polices, punishes and paroles pedophiles.
Twenty years after Florida introduced the law, the jury is still out on whether America’s children are safer as a result.
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How they want to get rid of the homeless problem….Kill all of them?
California Mayor Wants to “Purge” the Homeless: “Give Them All the Fentanyl They Want”
R. Rex Parris, mayor of Lancaster, California, is facing a recall effort after expressing support for a “purge” of homeless people and saying he wants to give them free fentanyl.
“What I want to do is give them free fentanyl,” Parris said during a recent city council meeting. “That’s what I want to do. I want to give them all the fentanyl they want.”
He also said, “Quite frankly, I wish that the president would give us a purge. Because we do need to purge these people.”
We’re as concerned about America’s homelessness crisis as anyone. No child should have to get hissed at by laced-up drug addicts or walk through a homeless encampment on their way to the bus stop. The fact that untold numbers of students face that reality is the result of jarring leadership failures. With that being said, is killing the homeless really the best solution?
Residency laws don’t cure the real problem….
California “Teacher of the Year” Turns Out to Be a Sex Criminal
A judge sentenced former elementary school teacher Jacqueline Ma to 30 years in prison on Friday. Ma in February pleaded to two counts each of forcible lewd acts on a child and possession of matter depicting a minor engaging in sexual conduct.
Police began investigating Ma, who received San Diego County “Teacher of the Year” honors in 2022, after the mother of a 12-year-old boy she’d been grooming contacted authorities upon finding love letters and suggestive text messages she’d written to the child. Prosecutors say the grooming occurred over a 10-month period and that Ma sexually assaulted another child, an 11-year-old, in 2022.
She must serve the full 30 years before becoming eligible for parole.
The jury is not out over the LA. It’s been 20 years and has had nothing but negative consequences. I’d say that a pretty clear answer that it doesn’t work.
This journalist talks of all his research yet does not know the definition of pedophile and does not know about all the research out there already that states the “impact” of the law.
Obviously you know the definition
I hope SOs live all around you 😂
Your so proud carrying such Title
If we are so bad why do you spend your time here trolling and obsessing over us.
Go back to bed dad! Sorry guys he gets like this when the nurse hasn’t changed his bed pan.
Don’t have one. Live in the woods
Joker ahh??
I couldn’t resist writing the author of this completely misinformed article:
Professor Dvir,
I am responding to your article on Mr. Lunsford and the effectiveness of Jessica’s Law.
Actually the jury is in. All you have to do is Google “Are sex offender laws effective” and you will find the mountain of research that overwhelming says they are not. Perhaps you have misconstrued the fact that because you can’t find any research stating that laws like Jessica’s Law are effective that there must not be any research. On the contrary from doctoral dissertations to multiple research projects done by Dr. Jill Levinson at Florida Atlantic University or Dr. Catherine Carpenter at SW Law School the jury, at least from academia and the law community, is definitely in.
The problem is this has never been about “protecting children.” This is all about revenge and punishment. Lawmakers, in their dialogue with the press and the public, really like that and since this is about punishment, Constitutional Law comes into play. But even that hasn’t been powerful enough to bring this scheme to an end and actually the number of children harmed by these laws (Sex Offenders have families) is way more than they ever could protect.
Equal protection under the law, correct? Rights are not afforded to some defendants but denied to others. Let’s use a less emotional example. People get DUI’s everyday. Regular people like you and me who happen to get caught driving home from a cocktail party after 3 drinks is pulled over by a zealous police officer and you are taken to jail for driving under the influence. Ok, that sucks and it’s going to affect your life is some negative ways. But then you find out that a few years ago in your state they passed “Danny ’s Law.” Danny was 14 years old and while riding his bicycle home from school one day was struck and killed by a driver who was drunk. The public was outraged because the driver just received a ticket, classes and a license suspension of 3 months, they wrote a harsh law with full public support. Danny’s Law now says that even for your first DUI you will now go to jail for a year and have your license revoked for 10 years. Then five years after your conviction they write another law which says for all you people who have had a DUI in the last 20 years we want you to be on a public list, a registry that notifies people in the neighbor of “Drunk Drivers.” You are on this list for life and to everyone who knows you or who will know you, you are now labeled a Drunk Driver for life.
But you didn’t kill anybody, you say, or you are now sober and haven’t had a drink in 5 years. Sorry, it doesn’t matter because we are trying to protect children from being murdered by drunk drivers and therefore your rights no longer matter. See how quickly this gets far and away from being legal, fair or effective? That is exactly what is happening with not just Jessica’s Law but all Sex Offender laws.
Why don’t they work? Because laws written as a knee jerk reaction to horrific crimes like what happened to Jessica or Megan or Jimmy or Jacob are not the usual kind of child abuse crimes that occur. Child abuse happens almost always in the home or with a person the child knows. Another reason they don’t work? Sex Offenders have cars and can move about freely. If we want to protect children from certain people we have to put those people behind bars – an effective, proven method of how we protect society from dangerous people. I’m all for punishment but for using the most serious punishment for the most serious of offenses. We don’t do that with sex offenders. We punish all of them in the same way, letting them all out with restrictions and gps devices that don’t stop a monster from being a monster and in the process Courts are breaking the law and disobeying the Constitution.
States are motivated and are given federal dollars according to the number of sex offenders they put on the registry every year. So there is no motivation to change, sharpen or focus the law to affect only the most dangerous people. If they do that, the numbers are gone because see, again, what happened to Jessica is yes, horrific, but is so rare and does not represent the crimes that sex offenders are committing. And btw, not all sex offenders are pedophiles. You said that more than once in your article and that is just a completely false statement. That statement represents how uneducated the public is about what is going on with sex offender laws as a whole.
Tell Mr. Lunsford this: bad people belong in prison. Sex Offender laws make us feel good because of how effective they are at punishment. We get to rip all of their rights away, slap them with a lifelong Scarlet Letter of the worst kind, force them into homelessness, unemployment and then get to add on more and more punishment after serving their sentence. That kind of punishment feels really good to us. Problem is, the jury is in: not only are they unconstitutional, they simply don’t protect children.
Thanks for you time,
Rich Seago
Florida Action Committee
Orlando, FL
You should send this letter to the news media, interesting read. Well said.
Well written my man! That was a great read 👍
Another man arrested and accused of kidnapping a child. His lawyer showed the video that should clear him. But he still sits in jail.
I read all the information and evidence, and I feel for this man who was falsely accused.
https://www.aol.com/news/jail-43-days-accused-trying-150050841.html
It wasn’t JUST Jessice Lunsford, it was also the murders of Calie Brucia and Sarah Lunde, as well as Jetseta Gage in Iowa, that fueled a wave of stricter sanctions gaining steam in 2005. Iowa has passed residency restrictions in 2002 but was held up by the courts until Doe v. Miller ruled in favor of the state of Iowa. Iowa started enforcing their residency restrictions. Florida already passed 1000 ft restrictions in 2004, but municipalities started passing local restrictions starting with Davie FL in May 2005 (or at least that’s the oldest one I’ve seen), and by the end of 2005, 92 ordinances had passed in 17 counties.
Lunsford was too greedy for his own good and alienated himself from other victim advocates by his flagrant greed and partying with donation funds.
At any rate, folks that still use the dirty bird site should rake this “journalist” over the coals for gratuitous use of the P word in the article.
CherokeeJ
The Jury will always be “OUT” when a SCOTUS decision is based on a Grocery Store Tabloid: PSYCH TODAY; not my PSYCHE
and then ‘they’ violate Ex Post Facto per the US Constitution!
-incidentally, a convicted murderer here was released on $100 bond after he beat his girlfriend;
-if he was a convicted PFR, he would not be given a bond!
What’s pfr?
Amber
PFR is a “Person forced to register”.
That’s 👎 bad
Person Forced to Register
Some people are put on a Hit list, ‘people who are forced to register’-without Due Process of Law and other Violations of One’s Constitutional Rights…..It is Now a $20 Billion( this figure is an approximation; it is at least a $10 Billion industry….)
…that Hit List is about One Million People…..DOJ approximates that over 90K Kids are on this Hit List
This is horrible
Workin on it….
I’m from Holland and we dont have that