Should Sex Offenders Be Barred from Church?
By Bonnie Rochman
North Carolina is a proud member of the so-called
Bible Belt of states that take their religion seriously.
So some eyebrows were raised when James Nichols
was arrested for attending church.
His offense? Nichols, a convicted sex offender,
had chosen to worship at a church that has a nursery
where kids play while their parents pray. Now Nichols, 31,
who only recently got out of prison, is fighting back,
challenging the legality of a new law that took effect
in December prohibiting registered sex offenders from
coming within 300 ft. — nearly a football field's length —
of any facility devoted to the use, care or supervision
of minors.
As more states have adopted laws regulating where sex
offenders can go, it was only a matter of time before
the noble goal of protecting children butted heads
with the sacrosanct First Amendment right to worship
where and when you choose. Which takes precedence?
"This law makes it illegal to do things that are not wrong,
like go to church," says Glen Gerding, Nichols' attorney.
"When does the state stop interfering with a
church's business? Will pastors be charged as an
accessory for letting a known sex offender
sit in a front-row pew and worship?"
Most states restrict sex offenders' movements
in some way; North Carolina's law is hardly
the strictest. In Georgia, registered sex offenders
can't live or work within 1,000 ft. of places
including schools, churches and child-care centers.
Courts there have waded into questions of religion,
ruling in favor of the right of offenders to partake
in activities including volunteering in a church kitchen,
attending adult Sunday School and singing in a church choir.
On behalf of Georgia's 16,000 registered sex offenders,
the Atlanta-based Southern Center for Human Rights
has sued the state over its residency and employment
restrictions, including the ban on faith-based
volunteering. "There are serious constitutional
problems in banning someone from going to church,
not to mention this runs counter to the church's
mission of inclusion, hospitality and redemption,"
says Sara Totonchi, the center's associate director.
As soon as North Carolina's law went into effect in
December, Katy Parker, legal director for the state's
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) chapter,
started fielding calls. Offenders wanted to know
if the law prevented them from going to church;
pastors worried it would keep worshippers away.
Parker says the law was so vague that she couldn't
offer advice, but she did put out the word to
defense attorneys that should they wind up
representing someone accused of breaking the law,
the ACLU wanted to hear about it. Nichols' March
apprehension is one of two religion-based arrests
that Parker is aware of.
"It's unbelievable that the N.C. state legislature and
the people of North Carolina would not want
someone to go to church for spiritual reasons
and for rehabilitative reasons," says Parker.
But others think the ACLU is missing the point.
The premise of the law is sound, says Laurence Tribe,
a constitutional-law expert at Harvard. "If the moment
you enter a church you don a cloak of immunity
from the rule of law, then churches would become
sanctuaries for crime," says Tribe.
Nichols, who was convicted of indecent liberties
with a teenage girl (he was 20 at the time)
and attempted second-degree rape, had prayed
at Moncure Baptist Church in Moncure, N.C.,
where he was living, for several months before
the police paid attention. Oddly enough,
Nichols inadvertently outed himself, calling
the cops about a fellow congregant — another offender —
whom he witnessed fondling a 12-year-old girl.
"I thought I was doing the right thing, and
they hit me with charges," he says.
But he wasn't about to give up on God.
Nichols credits religion with keeping him out
of trouble. He had attended church sporadically
before he went to prison; now he goes twice a day
and three times on Sundays. "Church helps me
to not live my old ways," says Nichols, who
currently attends New Life Mission Church in
Fayetteville, N.C., a hard-knock place that
caters to ex-cons, former drug dealers and alcoholics.
Pastor Grace Kim welcomed Nichols to her church,
which has no nursery on site and no children
who attend the twice-daily services. "We want
to try to give everyone a chance to rehabilitate,
no matter their background."
Only time — and judges' decisions — will determine
whether the new law bars offenders from attending
any church (where children might attend) or
just those with child-care facilities. What is
clear is that those who hammered out the
small print of the legislation are sticking by it.
David Hoyle, the state senator who sponsored the bill,
says it took two years to pass, partly because
legal advisers took care to word it to withstand
legal challenges.
The law is named for Jessica Lunsford, the Florida
girl who was kidnapped and killed in 2005 by
a convicted sex offender. Lunsford was born in
Hoyle's district and attended school in the
tiny town of Dallas, where Hoyle lives. He still talks
to her father regularly; her cousin will serve as a
senate page for Hoyle next year.
"I got e-mails calling me the anti-Christ and saying
I'm going to hell, but we want to make the law
just as strong as we can," says Hoyle. "We feel
it is a good law. When a person takes advantage
of a child, I don't worry about their
constitutional rights."
Read "A Move to Register Sex Offenders Globally."
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1929736,00.html
Posts
2 comments:
Insane registry laws and restrictions did not prevent the perverts, Philip Garrido AND HIS WIFE from doing what they did! The registry laws, and especially the residency / work place restrictions, have done far more harm than good. Forget about all the cases of vigilantism and suicide; forget about the fact that while these laws are proposed to protect the children, they include children, while a huge percentage of those on the list committed crimes that had nothing to do with children; forget about the fact that study after study has proven these laws not only are ineffective, but have actually made matters worse. Forget about the fact that upon release from custody, sex offenders have one of the lowest recidivism rates, not the highest. In fact those who receive counseling and treatment have outstanding records versus those convicted of other violent crimes! The fact is the registry and any restrictions should be limited to those who are proven child molesters and pedophiles; that Law Enforcement could handle and monitor effectively. Do you seriously believe a committed pedophile cannot walk or drive 500, 1000, 2500, 5000 feet or more? Jaycee Lee Dugard was abducted miles from where Philip Garrido lived!
I am sure we will see comments from hysterical, uninformed individual(s) who will suggest that all those on the registry should be locked up for life or worse and say there is no rehabilitation for these people. And for a few they are right, we need to focus on those! Once a person has done their time that should be it. That is the foundation of this great country and its legal system. Don’t like it, move to China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, or wherever individual rights are ignored. If a person is a pedophile, lock them up for a long time and provide treatment. Treatment not working, keep them locked up. Many families are being destroyed for political expediency; children of those on the registry are being abused and ostracized at school. Whole families are forced into isolation and restricted from the work place. If the registry is to truly protect the children, then let’s focus on the pedophiles and child molesters’. Get rid of the residency/work place restrictions, focus on the loitering laws. Let the rest on the registry re-assimilate into society after they have done their time, become solid, productive citizens; part of the solution not the problem. The facts, (and the Garrido case) as well as virtually all of the research, and study after study have proven what we are doing now, mostly for political expediency and to appease hysterical uninformed parents is not working and is in fact making matters worse!
Fear and loathing in the USA; Sex Offender laws, the toxic mix of hysteria, ignorance and Old Testament religious fundamentalism. This nation is quickly abandoning nobility and embracing retribution, exchanging freedom for a tenuous and false sense of security. All being lead blindly by politicians pandering to the hysterical and uninformed through the sensationalist media just to get elected? Intriguing, especially since Jesus said: “But I tell you that it will be more bearable for Sodom on the Day of Judgment than for you.”
I can appreciate people’s fears. However, the facts differ from “media-reality.” The world is not a CSI episode.
(1) According the national center for missing and exploited children, the majority of child abductions are a family member or someone the child knows.
(2) According to US Dept. of Justice statistics, only 5% of sex offenders released in 1994 returned to prison for a new sex crime. This statistic seems pretty consistent for the general category of all sex offenders before the 1994 period and since. While there are specific groups of sex offenders who are legally defined as “predators,” and who represent a significant danger, this is not reflected in current sex offender registries–where politics has defined risk level rather than objective science.
(3) According to the California Attorney General’s office, “90% of child victims know their offender, with almost half of the offenders being a family member. Of sexual assaults against people age 12 and up, approximately 80% of the victims know the offender.” (Citing “Facts About Sex Offenders,” http://www.meganslaw.ca.gov/facts.aspx?lang=ENGLISH).
Post a Comment