Saturday, July 22, 2006

Megan's Law parents meet Brit minister

A Home Office minister is to meet the parents of seven-year-old Megan Kanka, whose murder in the US by a convicted sex offender inspired Megan's Law.

Megan's Law gives US parents access to information on child sex offenders living in their area.

Gerry Sutcliffe will visit Megan's home town of Hamilton, New Jersey, as part of his investigation into whether a form of the law could work in the UK.

Critics have said such a move would be pandering to media pressure.

Mr Sutcliffe began his US visit earlier this week, talking to lawmakers and experts about how to deal with child sex offenders and how much information the public is entitled to know.

His trip was announced by Home Secretary John Reid in June.

At the time, Mr Reid said there were "genuine difficulties" in allowing the public to have more information about the whereabouts of paedophiles.

Mr Sutcliffe is to meet Maureen and Richard Kanka on Saturday.

The idea of Megan's Law had been ruled out by the government when Jack Straw was home secretary but Mr Sutcliffe said the visit was not a case of making policy "in response to the tabloids" but was about being "practical".

"There have been serious high-profile further offending, public confidence has been lost," he said.

"The truth is that whilst we've got to make sure that sex-offenders are monitored properly by the professionals, the public do have a right to understanding what's happening in their communities."

However, a local lawyer who represents large numbers of offenders said the law stoked tabloid hysteria over a multi-faceted crime where strangers living in the neighbourhood were rarely the perpetrators.

It would be wrong for Britain to adopt similar legislation, he said.

In the UK, the News of the World ran a lengthy campaign to introduce a similar law, named Sarah's Law, after Sarah Payne who was kidnapped and murdered by paedophile Roy Whiting in 2000.

There have been concerns raised that releasing paedophiles' information could divert attention from other dangerous people, as some children are more at risk from people they know than from strangers.

There are also fears that incidents of vigilantism by people who discovered the whereabouts of sex offenders could increase.

The Office of the Children's Commissioner said introducing a similar law could harm children as it would drive offenders "underground".

Nope. The Brits will NEVER pass something akin to Megan's Law without attaching a hate-crime addendum to it. And really now, can you imagine them vigorously prosecuting their new immigrants for attacking children? Then making their identities known?

Coddling pedophiles is merely additional proof that they've surrendered and await the inevitable. Most of the time, a country doesn't need new laws as much as the enforcement of existing ones, but when it comes to protecting children from deviants the book gets tossed out the window in favor of a bigger book.

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