Forum: General

Thread (Discussion): A warning from Iowa on sex offender laws

Dubuque County, Iowa, has 101 registered sex offenders. Concord has 102, and that's just counting the offenders in the state registry whose victims were children. The total count is much higher because child sex offenders make up only a little over a third of the roughly 3,100 registered offenders on the state's list.

The comparison with Iowa is important because the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee meets again today to prepare to hand Gov. John Lynch's sexual predators act over to the Senate. Many of the changes called for in the omnibus act would, or at least could, protect public safety. But some are simply punitive and of dubious value.

And one, which would give communities the power to ban sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of a school, day-care center or park, would do more harm than good.

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