AUSTRALIA'S 'JESSICA'S LAW'

Thanks to my friend Dorina Lisson for the heads-up on this report.

Our Jessica’s Laws are named after Jessica Lunsford, a 9-year-old Florida girl who was raped and murdered in 2005. Australia’s Jessica’s Law is named after Jessica [last name not revealed] who was kidnapped and repeatedly raped for 29 hours by a scumbag with three previous rape convictions. Both require the registration of sex offenders upon their release from prison.

Our registration laws are utterly nonsensical. A "weenie waver" is a sex offender while some jerk taking a leak in public is not. Yet, when the guy taking a piss is convicted of indecent exposure, he is required to register as a sex offender. When a 20 year-old is convicted of having consensual sex with a 17 year-old, he is also required to register. The federal Adam Walsh Act, passed by Congress in 2006, even mandates that any male juvenile who had consensual sex with a female juvenile must be included in the national sex offender registry.

Some of our Jessica’s Laws have made sex offenders homeless. For example, sex offenders in Miami and other cities are prohibited from residing within 2,500 feet of any place where children might gather, thereby making it impossible for them to reside anywhere within those cities.

Australia’s Jessica’s Law seems to work the opposite way. That must be because Australia is on the bottom of the world.

Dorina is quite clear on how she feels about the application of her country’s Jessica’s Law by pointing out, “When the Law is an Ass!!!”

‘JESSICA’S LAW’ PROTECTING RAPISTS AND PAEDOPHILES
LAWS intended to protect victims are instead being used to shield dozens of Victoria's worst sex offenders

By Elissa Hunt and Geoff Wilkinson

Herald Sun
July 5, 2011

Rapists' and paedophiles' identities and whereabouts are routinely being shrouded in secrecy as courts decide if they should be freed.

More than half of 62 offenders under post-sentence supervision orders are living anonymously among us rather than in a purpose-built compound outside Ararat Jail.

The names of 28 of 30 put under supervision orders by the County Court in the past 18 months have been suppressed - supposedly in the public interest.

The rape victim whose horrific ordeal prompted the creation of the Serious Sex Offenders (Detention and Supervision) Act said yesterday it protected the wrong people.

Jessica, a young Ballarat mother, was abducted at knifepoint, held captive for 29 hours, and repeatedly raped by a serial offender with three previous rape convictions.

She told the Herald Sun she felt let down by how courts were using "Jessica's Law" to conceal offenders' identities.

Victoria's Serious Sex Offenders (Detention and Supervision) Act 2009 allows a court to order high-risk offenders be detained for up to three years after their jail sentence ends, or be strictly supervised for up to 15 years. An amendment, included without public consultation, made all evidence in such cases secret.

Laws that took effect last year ban reporting of anything said in supervision hearings.

"I don't understand how exactly that's supposed to protect victims," Jessica said.

Seven sex offenders under supervision orders have returned to court in the past 12 months for breaching conditions of those orders.

One of the state's most infamous paedophiles could soon be freed without supervision. But the Herald Sun will be unable to report the reasons for any court decision, or who he is or where he will be living.

A child protection group said silence and secrecy were "a paedophile's best friend and a child's worst enemy".

Bravehearts executive director Hetty Johnston said it was nonsense to suggest suppression was needed to protect offenders or victims.

"That legislation does nothing except put children at risk," she said.

Under the old laws, the Herald Sun was able to report that experts wanted notorious paedophile Brian Keith Jones, "Mr Baldy", to roam free to see if he'd attack again - even though he was considered a 54 per cent chance to reoffend within 15 years. Under the new Act, such information could not have been published.

A month before the law changed, a Supreme Court judge ruled it was in the public interest that serious sex offender cases be fully reported, despite a psychiatrist's evidence that publicity might affect a sex offender's treatment.

The former government argued the secrecy was to stop victims being named, but publication of victims' identities has been prohibited since 1958.

Before last year's election, current Corrections Minister Andrew McIntosh said he was "appalled" by the laws.

But last week, his spokesman told the Herald Sun it was "a matter for the court".