Tougher penalties / LJWorld.com

Archive for Saturday, May 21, 2005

May 21, 2005

To the editor:

To protect our children is to protect our future. It is time to stand up for our children. We need to vote to change the laws on pedophiles and sexual predators. I believe in all the protections that are written into our laws, due process being one of the most important.

I believe in these laws for everyone except the vile person that makes a choice to harm a child. These mentally impaired, incurable beings should lose all their rights, including due process. Strike two and you are gone for good, never to be allowed back into society to harm an innocent child.

Kansas is lucky to at least have civil commitment laws; they just aren't tough enough or extended enough.

We need to band together like other large groups. Like The NRA or MADD, and stand up with our votes. Congress would roll and do tricks if our voice were loud and long for our kids, as some of the large and influential groups that get things done. Change the laws NOW. State by state or a federal bill that would withhold funding from any state that refuses to change its laws. Stop grouping all sex offenders in the same category. Pedophile sexual predators are in a class of their own, the lowest one in existence.

In the meantime, enforce the laws we already have, like Megan's Law, the way it was really written. Form task groups within our law enforcement, to tend with only sex registration violations. Enforce the written or door-to-door notification that a sex offender has moved into your neighborhood. It can be done. Texas is doing it. Kansas come up with the money to save our KIDS!

Charlotte Hastings,

Lawrence