THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, May 23, 1996 TAG: 9605230002
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A18 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: 39 lines
The American system of justice traditionally has allowed wrongdoers to pay their debt to society and start life over again with a clean slate.
It's true that felons lose some of their civil rights after conviction - to vote and own firearms, for example - but even those can be restored with a court order.
But Megan's Law, signed last week by President Clinton, changes the rules. Sex offenders - who have some of the highest recidivist rates in the penal system - will no longer be free to disappear into society and begin life anew after their prison sentences are served. Law-enforcement officers are now required to inform residents when a convicted sex offender is in their midst.
The 1994 federal crime bill allowed law-enforcement officers to inform a neighborhood about the presence of a convicted offender. Now they must.
Neighborhood notification has been problematical in some areas where versions of Megan's Law have already passed. In one case, the convict's home was torched. In another, a man has moved from town to town, driven out of each by hostile neighbors.
Supporters of Megan's Law say this is a small price to pay for warning families when a sexual predator is living next door.
If Megan Kankas' parents had known that the man who moved into their Hamilton Township, N.J., neighborhood about two years ago was a twice-convicted child molester, they might have warned their 7-year-old daughter, taken other precautions or moved away.
But they didn't know. And when this man allegedly asked little Megan if she wanted to see his new puppy, she responded as most children would.
Megan Kanka was raped and murdered.
After signing Megan's Law, President Clinton declared that ``Today, America circles the wagons around our children.''
It remains to be seen if Megan's Law will pass constitutional challenges which surely will arise. But for the time being, children will have a fighting chance against sexual predators lurking in the neighborhood. by CNB