browardbeat.com : Commission Puts Sex Offender On County Board.
(See earlier story: http://constitutionalfights.wordpress.com/2009/05/04/sex-offender-wanted-to-serve-on-task-force/)
The offender is part of a task force that will make recommendations about laws governing where sex offenders can live.
A number of lawmakers in Tallahassee shook their heads in disbelief when they learned Broward County would appoint a registered sex offender to a board. The task force will contain one sex offender, two cops, home owners association and American Civil Liberties Union representatives, two members of the Broward League of Cities and representatives of a college and the state Department of Corrections.
Some of the people labeled sex offenders are not a wild-eyed predators that Kair and everybody else rightfully fears. Those offenders should be controlled. But others are stigmatized for life because of youthful indiscretions, usually made when they are drunk. They get caught for urinating in public or being in an Internet sex chat rooms. Somewhat victimless crimes.
The offender appointed to the task force appeared at the commission meeting.
He said he had recovered. His victim appeared with him, according to Mayor Stacy Ritter.
Do people like this – who paid their debt to society — deserve input into laws governing their life? You bet. “They are people too,” says Ritter.
We all agree. And we encourage other counties to do the same in including ex sex offenders on commissisons which formulate practical sex offender laws
