I read in horror, as I'm sure you all did, about the 3-year-old who was raped by a repeat sex offender who was free on bail. This monster had recently raped a 5-year-old while her 10-year-old cousin watched in fear.
The prosecution asked for $200,000 bail in the first rape case. The judge gave a mere $10,000 bail and refused to impose any conditions, such as "stay away from children." How can anyone deny the fact that we need mandatory sentencing?
Now legislation is being filed to require dangerousness hearings to be held in cases involving sex crimes against children. This allows pretrial detention for a period of time for defendants found to be dangerous.
It sounds like something that should already be required, right? So of course it will pass in the House very quickly, right? Wrong. Let's not forget how difficult it was to get even lenient mandatory sentences of 10 years passed in Massachusetts last year.
When it comes to protecting children, you can't take anything for granted in Massachusetts. We all need to call our reps and demand tougher mandatory sentences and mandatory dangerousness hearings for sex crimes against kids.
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When it comes to our women and children, Justice is a day late and a dollar short. Shaunna, I have been in this fight for well over twenty years. Maybe just maybe, after everyone gets thru with the outrage and disbelief, then maybe we will get down to the real business of not using our kids for bait for these guys. Sex offender legislation is now just a tag line for political wanna be's..and I hate to be the one to break it to you, but its easier to fund experiments for the space shuttle than it is "enforcing" the laws that were written with the blood of our kids. I wish you the best of luck with your run, but it seems no one really wants to pay to house or feed the bad guys. In fact, you will find the Department of Corrections, Probation, Immigration and even the state department as your largest obstacles in the fight to protect our women and children. If I may be so bold, may I suggest you run on the issue of alleviating all "gain time" for violent sexual felons. These bad guys are spinning thru our justice system at at all time high only to be let back out to feed off our kids. The other aspect is "convicted illegal alien offenders" are not being deported when their is no formal extradition agreements with certain countries (there are more than you think) illegals have no skin in the game and commit almost 4 times the amount of sex crimes as a United States Citizen. Yet we keep letting them back out??? Shaunna if you want to run, then run, but run hard, swift and tough. NO GAIN TIME, NO RELEASE OF CRIMINAL ALIENS..
ReplyDeletePlease go to www.protectmasschildren.org
ReplyDeleteThey are a grassroots organization trying to build enough support to file a ballot initiative for strong mandatory sentences for sex offenders. PLEASE GO TO WWW.PROTECTMASSCHILDREN.ORG and sign on as a supporter.