Redemption?
Here is an interesting little dilemma for all of you "big government" and "small government" folks. This is a real world situation that came up in the Savage lands this past week.
"Following news this week that a registered Level III sex offender was moving to Prior Lake, residents and city officials alike expressed concern about the state’s community-notification law.
“I was very disappointed that we received formal notification Monday when the person was moving into the city on Wednesday,” Mayor Jack Haugen said this week.
Police said they learned from the state Department of Corrections (DOC) on Monday that James Nicholas Dahlager, 26, had registered a new address in the 14000 block of Grayling Circle in Prior Lake and was moving in on Wednesday. That gave the city little time to notify neighbors before Dahlager’s actual move-in date. "
I was talking to our local state Representative (Mike Beard 35A) about the situation earlier this week. He said that the DOC didn't know about the move until late on the Friday before the city got notified. It does seem to me to be a colossal break down in communication. Whether it was the ex-convict who did not promptly notify the DOC or what - we just don't know.
Needless to say, there were many residents of this city who were not happy that a Level III sex offender was moving into their community and they did not appreciate the short notification that they got. You certainly can not blame them for that. Some wondered, in light of Dru Sjodin's murder, why a Level III sex offender (the kind most likely to re-offend) was even being allowed out of jail at all.
"But (Mayor Jack) Haugen acknowledged that state law does not allow police or government to dictate where a sex offender can and cannot live.
“We cannot pass an ordinance that would be in violation of state law,” he said.
Beard agreed.
“We really can’t have cities doing that,” he said. “We’re dealing with human beings who have sinned grievously and have paid their society-imposed sentence. They’ve got to be able to come back into society and get a job and put their lives back together.”
Still, Beard said he understand that crimes against children “touch a raw nerve.... Beard said society can’t live like the characters in the Tom Cruise movie “Minority Report,” in which potential criminals are caught for crimes before they commit them.
“That’s sci-fi, but we deal in reality here,” Beard said. “We can’t arrest or hold people in jail because we think they might break the law. That’s an Orwellian society we don’t want to live in.”
And therein lies the rub...how do you balance the rights of the innocent with the rights of the ex-convict? Rep. Beard hits on the fact that we are dealing with people who have committed crimes and served their time. Our society is (in part) based on the principle of redemption and giving people a "second chance". However, in extending that second chance, we are putting our most vulnerable at risk.
A balance must be reached, but at what cost that balance? It is a question that we need to answer fairly soon.
"Following news this week that a registered Level III sex offender was moving to Prior Lake, residents and city officials alike expressed concern about the state’s community-notification law.
“I was very disappointed that we received formal notification Monday when the person was moving into the city on Wednesday,” Mayor Jack Haugen said this week.
Police said they learned from the state Department of Corrections (DOC) on Monday that James Nicholas Dahlager, 26, had registered a new address in the 14000 block of Grayling Circle in Prior Lake and was moving in on Wednesday. That gave the city little time to notify neighbors before Dahlager’s actual move-in date. "
I was talking to our local state Representative (Mike Beard 35A) about the situation earlier this week. He said that the DOC didn't know about the move until late on the Friday before the city got notified. It does seem to me to be a colossal break down in communication. Whether it was the ex-convict who did not promptly notify the DOC or what - we just don't know.
Needless to say, there were many residents of this city who were not happy that a Level III sex offender was moving into their community and they did not appreciate the short notification that they got. You certainly can not blame them for that. Some wondered, in light of Dru Sjodin's murder, why a Level III sex offender (the kind most likely to re-offend) was even being allowed out of jail at all.
"But (Mayor Jack) Haugen acknowledged that state law does not allow police or government to dictate where a sex offender can and cannot live.
“We cannot pass an ordinance that would be in violation of state law,” he said.
Beard agreed.
“We really can’t have cities doing that,” he said. “We’re dealing with human beings who have sinned grievously and have paid their society-imposed sentence. They’ve got to be able to come back into society and get a job and put their lives back together.”
Still, Beard said he understand that crimes against children “touch a raw nerve.... Beard said society can’t live like the characters in the Tom Cruise movie “Minority Report,” in which potential criminals are caught for crimes before they commit them.
“That’s sci-fi, but we deal in reality here,” Beard said. “We can’t arrest or hold people in jail because we think they might break the law. That’s an Orwellian society we don’t want to live in.”
And therein lies the rub...how do you balance the rights of the innocent with the rights of the ex-convict? Rep. Beard hits on the fact that we are dealing with people who have committed crimes and served their time. Our society is (in part) based on the principle of redemption and giving people a "second chance". However, in extending that second chance, we are putting our most vulnerable at risk.
A balance must be reached, but at what cost that balance? It is a question that we need to answer fairly soon.
Labels: Balancing Rights, Redemption
posted by The Lady Logician at
7:00 AM
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