Georgia mayor: Sex offenders to be kept in council chambers on Halloween night
Sex offenders in one Georgia city will spend Halloween being watched by police officers.
About 25 to 30 registered sex offenders in Groveton will be rounded up and housed inside council chambers while children are trick-or-treating, the city’s mayor said in a Facebook post. Groveton is about 135 miles east of Atlanta.
Mayor Gary Jones said the plan will “ensure the safety of our children.” The policy applies only to sex offenders on probation.
They will be overseen by four probation officers and one Grovetown officer, the mayor said.
The plan has been met with mixed reaction on social media.
Some support the decision, saying the plan will keep children safe.
“Finally a mayor that cares about his community,” one Facebook user wrote under Jones’ post. “Proud to have him as mayor. You’ll always have my vote.”
Others are against the idea, with some suggesting the plan is not legal.
“This is terrible,” another Facebook user wrote. “I am absolutely against any kind of sex abuse to children or anyone, but these ‘offenders’ have paid their debt to society. I pray they are walking as they should, but to place them in a building as a criminal is wrong. They were already judged, found guilty. Let them stay at home, let them follow the rules of their punishment.”
One commenter asked Jones if there have been incidents in the past prompting the city to do this.
Jones, who describes himself as a retired law enforcement professional and former police chief, replied, “There have been no incidents and this is being ran by the GA Community Services Probationary Dept. We are assisting and providing the facility. They have the authority to do this under Special Conditions.”
In a follow-up post, Jones wrote that he is “not personally going to pick up, round up, call or [go] to any sex offender’s home. … This is legal….. good grief!”
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Many communities have instituted laws confining registered sex offenders to their homes Halloween night. Legal challenges to those rules haven’t been very successful either. But I have noticed that reporters are questioning the necessity of such laws more often than they used to. That’s encouraging.
This is illegal and if they try to enforce it I can see law suits coming out of it.
It constitutes ‘false imprisonment’ and ‘false arrest’ and is unlawful.
Not when your on probation. They can lock you up for the night if they so choose.
Link the statute that allows this please.
SC, I have scoured Georgia statutes and not found a specific law that governs what they are doing. Gee, maybe it’s because the Suspension Clause of the United States Constitution specifically included the English common law procedure in Article One, Section 9, clause 2, which demands that “The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.”
Sorry, not buying even that. I know it was said with sarcasm but even that stretch of imagination wouldn’t justify a move like that.
I asked the poster to link something, anything, to back up his comment but apparently he was unable to do so.
It bothers me that posters would believe things of this nature to be true.
As another post touched on, ONLY the judge may impose new conditions of probation and that is only upon a proven violation.
All of this is difficult to address if we don’t have access to any of the affected offenders’ judgement orders. Either something in them allows GA probation to do this, or they are exceeding their authority and breaking the law. It’s hard to know. What we do know is that the mayor has little to take credit for other than setting aside council chambers as a jail.
I don’t know the details in other parts of the country, but in Michigan where I live, when you are placed under parole or probation supervision, you HAVE to sign a paper promising to abide by all of the rules, one of which is the catch-all provision that gives the probation officer the authority to place any reasonable restrictions on you that he feels are necessary. You have the right to appeal it. You have the right to refuse to sign, and go to jail instead. But (in Michigan at least) the courts leave the details and conditions of parole and probation in the hands of the probation department. The complete details are not spelled out in the statutes because every case is a little different. MANY laws are carried out like that. When you sign the paper, it forms a binding contract. It’s undoubtedly why the Halloween rule we are discussing is only being applied to sex offenders on probation, and why probation agents are overseeing them that night.
I hope those who are held “in custody” and therefore meet the requirements to petition for writs of habeas corpus will do so and/or seek injunctive and declatory relief from the appropriate courts. Letting their cases run through the courts may be the only way to stop this unconsciounable misconduct.
Is this legal? Aclu looking at this? Relocating from your home to confinement doesnt seem legal. Youre pretty much compelled to be there not by law but by law enforcement.
“Youre pretty much compelled to be there not by law but by law enforcement.”
Nope. Your compelled to be there by your PROBATION Officer. They own you until you are released. Better than prison yes?
Probation is law enforcement. They are a member of the executive branch of government, whether they are federal or state probation officers. But when they overstep or exceed their authority with unlawful orders then they are putting themselves in a position of being scrutinized by the judicial and legislative branches. They cannot act as judge, jury and executioner.
Bit theres no violation to trigger this type of response. This is a penalty. Rounding up on some assertion that they may do something wrong. Taking away their freedom for that moment without cause does not seem within any legal parameter: youre taking away their freedom and their release for that time without cause.
At the federal level, they are part of the judicial branch. Not sure about states of GA, FL.
Jacob is correct, federal probation officers are part of the judicial branch. But that doesn’t make them judges who can issue orders of imprisonment for Halloween. My husband has been on federal probation for ten years on a simple possession of child porn case. Not once has the Federal probation office rounded him up for Halloween night. They do suggest that he remain home and check on him under the auspice of keeping him safe from vigilantes or false accusations http://www.uscourts.gov/services-forms/probation-and-pretrial-services/probation-and-pretrial-services-mission
” They do suggest that he remain home and check on him under the auspice of keeping him safe from vigilantes or false accusations ”
Same thing with State probation – at least here in Florida and the county I reside, and in my 4 years / 4 halloweens with the probation officers assigned to me and their supervisors, nobody rounded up nobody like if we were wild beasts that escaped from some zoo. They did suggest to turn off my lights and even “not ” to post any signs that say ” no candies here ” for the purpose of avoiding any trouble such as you mentioned of vigilantes or false accusations.
In response to CMC, only a judge can set terms and conditions of probation that you must comply with during a probationary period. Probation officers must follow a judge’s orders just as a probationer must.
If you violate any of the conditions of your probation, your probation can be modified, revoked or terminated at the judge’s discretion. If the court finds that you violated the terms and conditions he or she set for your probation, then the court may sentence you to a jail or prison sentence up to the maximum penalty allowed by law.
So, it is up to a judge to make such findings NOT a probation officer. In other words, probation officers do not own you and they do not have the authority to imprison a probationer without due process.
So the mayor is announcing a state probation practice in his city that is meant “to ensure the safety of our children.”
Because we know that, while those offenders are being imprisoned in council chambers, those offenders’ children will be taken care of by someone, and perfectly safe. Right?
Or are those not the children we have in mind to protect?
Or are all the offenders assumed to be loners who have no children in their care?
“If it just saves one child,” as they say.
Not making this political but just citing a fact: the US military has slaughtered and continues to murder innocent children in other countries all in the name of the so-called ‘global war on terror’ and the fake media in this country doesn’t even make a whimper. Yet, let one American child go missing or be murdered, and you never hear the end of it. They hypocrisy is absolutely horrific on ever level!
Another smart person that’s had his mind opened^ bravo for those words.
Careful now, we know NSA wouldn’t like people getting too smart.
“A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic,” said one of history’s worst despots. That is why in Saudi we are focusing more closely on the horrific death of a single journalist over the thousands of horrific deaths in Yemen.
SO and other legislation works similarly. Most major SO laws are individual-tragedy driven, not statistics-driven.
Although if something were to happen to any child while their parent was imprisoned in council chambers on Halloween night, that, too would be a tragedy.
If they were really interested in children they’d be doing more to help the 7000 refugees from Central America mostly Honduras and El Salvador that out of desperation are trying to go somewhere where they can feed there families. After 4yrs of drought there they are starving to death. OKay Melanie looks like your going to have to step in and straighten out Donald again .
A reminder that there are always worse things than being an RSO or family member of one ,and we should not allow our experience to cause us to lose empathy for others’ suffering, even if some of thesem are MS-13 gang members from the Middle East or whatever.