GotZoom
Senior Member
Smart County.
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All 67 registered sex offenders living in Forsyth County must change residences by July 1 as a new state law goes into effect, and they may find there is nowhere in the county they can live that is in compliance with strict new requirements.
The new law forbids registered sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of a school bus stop, public pool, community park or church. As a result, nearly every residential area of the county is off-limits for sex offenders, officials confirmed. There are at least 1,200 school bus stops in Forsyth County, school officials said.
Sheriff's and probation officials say they have been swamped with calls from sex offenders about the change in the law.
"We've got some that say they've got places they can go," said Forsyth Sheriff's Investigator Ken Haney, who along with county probation officer Tyler Sexton is charged with keeping tabs on the county's registered sex offenders. "The majority of them are a little upset. There's a lot of them saying they've got nowhere to go."
Authorities are hand-delivering letters next week notifying offenders of the change and giving them until July 1 to move. After that, they are subject to arrest.
"We're going to enforce the law come July 1 if they're not in compliance," sheriff's Lt. Col. Gene Moss said.
Legal challenges to the constitutionality of the law already are being predicted.
Oliver Hunter, deputy general counsel for the Georgia Sheriffs Association, said some of the less-clear aspects of the law, including how long an offender has to move, might not be clarified for a while.
"We're going to see some lawsuits come down the pike," Hunter said. "Until the courts have a crack at it, we're not going to have any finality to it."
Some sheriffs are worried that the law will effectively drive sex offenders out of urban, metro areas and into rural locations where they can stay within the requirements.
And rural sheriffs are less prepared for the task of keeping up with sex offenders and where they live, Hunter said.
"It's going to require more manpower and resources," he said. "The metro areas are for the most part well-staffed. If anyone would comply, it would be in the metro areas rather than the rural areas."
One major fear, Hunter said, is that the new law will simply drive sex offenders underground.
"They're going to move and not register at all," Hunter said. "I can't say it's going to run them out of Georgia -- we're just not going to be able to find them."
Lt. Matt Allen of the Forsyth County Sheriff's Office notes that those who fail to register under the new law face a stiff penalty. Any sex offender who doesn't register each year within three days of his or her birthday faces 10 to 30 years in prison if convicted.
Forsyth Schools Transportation Director Garry Puetz said his department is providing the sheriff's office with the location of each bus stop and will notify authorities as new bus stops are added during the school year.
"We'll be working very closely with them to share information," Puetz said.
Officials are developing a computer program that will show the location of each bus stop and calculate its proximity to individual homes, Allen said.
Eventually, sheriff's officials should be able to tell a sex offender if a new residence he wants to move into is within 1,000 feet of a bus stop.
But for now, "it's the responsibility of the sex offender to find out if where they live is in compliance," Haney said. Sheriff's officials will check after an offender has moved in to ensure it isn't within 1,000 feet of bus stops or other areas where children congregate.
State Rep. Jack Murphy (R-Cumming), a co-sponsor of the new law, said he's gotten a handful of e-mails from relatives of sex offenders complaining about the onerous new requirements.
"I realized it was going to cause them a lot of problems in trying to get in compliance, but we wanted a stringent law passed," Murphy said. "We knew it was going to be tough. But (sex offenders) need to realize that if they hadn't commited the acts they did, they wouldn't be in this trouble."
Murphy, who said the law will withstand legal challenges, said it "draws a line in the sand."
"We wanted to send the message to sex offenders that if you come to Georgia, you're coming to a state that has one of the toughest laws in the United States."
http://www.forsythnews.com/news/stories/20060618/localnews/103911.shtml
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All 67 registered sex offenders living in Forsyth County must change residences by July 1 as a new state law goes into effect, and they may find there is nowhere in the county they can live that is in compliance with strict new requirements.
The new law forbids registered sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of a school bus stop, public pool, community park or church. As a result, nearly every residential area of the county is off-limits for sex offenders, officials confirmed. There are at least 1,200 school bus stops in Forsyth County, school officials said.
Sheriff's and probation officials say they have been swamped with calls from sex offenders about the change in the law.
"We've got some that say they've got places they can go," said Forsyth Sheriff's Investigator Ken Haney, who along with county probation officer Tyler Sexton is charged with keeping tabs on the county's registered sex offenders. "The majority of them are a little upset. There's a lot of them saying they've got nowhere to go."
Authorities are hand-delivering letters next week notifying offenders of the change and giving them until July 1 to move. After that, they are subject to arrest.
"We're going to enforce the law come July 1 if they're not in compliance," sheriff's Lt. Col. Gene Moss said.
Legal challenges to the constitutionality of the law already are being predicted.
Oliver Hunter, deputy general counsel for the Georgia Sheriffs Association, said some of the less-clear aspects of the law, including how long an offender has to move, might not be clarified for a while.
"We're going to see some lawsuits come down the pike," Hunter said. "Until the courts have a crack at it, we're not going to have any finality to it."
Some sheriffs are worried that the law will effectively drive sex offenders out of urban, metro areas and into rural locations where they can stay within the requirements.
And rural sheriffs are less prepared for the task of keeping up with sex offenders and where they live, Hunter said.
"It's going to require more manpower and resources," he said. "The metro areas are for the most part well-staffed. If anyone would comply, it would be in the metro areas rather than the rural areas."
One major fear, Hunter said, is that the new law will simply drive sex offenders underground.
"They're going to move and not register at all," Hunter said. "I can't say it's going to run them out of Georgia -- we're just not going to be able to find them."
Lt. Matt Allen of the Forsyth County Sheriff's Office notes that those who fail to register under the new law face a stiff penalty. Any sex offender who doesn't register each year within three days of his or her birthday faces 10 to 30 years in prison if convicted.
Forsyth Schools Transportation Director Garry Puetz said his department is providing the sheriff's office with the location of each bus stop and will notify authorities as new bus stops are added during the school year.
"We'll be working very closely with them to share information," Puetz said.
Officials are developing a computer program that will show the location of each bus stop and calculate its proximity to individual homes, Allen said.
Eventually, sheriff's officials should be able to tell a sex offender if a new residence he wants to move into is within 1,000 feet of a bus stop.
But for now, "it's the responsibility of the sex offender to find out if where they live is in compliance," Haney said. Sheriff's officials will check after an offender has moved in to ensure it isn't within 1,000 feet of bus stops or other areas where children congregate.
State Rep. Jack Murphy (R-Cumming), a co-sponsor of the new law, said he's gotten a handful of e-mails from relatives of sex offenders complaining about the onerous new requirements.
"I realized it was going to cause them a lot of problems in trying to get in compliance, but we wanted a stringent law passed," Murphy said. "We knew it was going to be tough. But (sex offenders) need to realize that if they hadn't commited the acts they did, they wouldn't be in this trouble."
Murphy, who said the law will withstand legal challenges, said it "draws a line in the sand."
"We wanted to send the message to sex offenders that if you come to Georgia, you're coming to a state that has one of the toughest laws in the United States."
http://www.forsythnews.com/news/stories/20060618/localnews/103911.shtml
I won't, but that is why.
