The city approved the creation of child safety zones Tuesday where registered sex offenders who targeted minors won’t be allowed.
“This is a step in the right direction,” said city Councilor Frank Nicastro.
Councilors unanimously endorsed the statute, which will take effect in about two weeks.
Nicastro said he’s glad the city “is getting something that some teeth” by creating areas where children congregate that are barred to sex offenders.
The police are obligated to issue warnings to registered child sex offenders who go to municipal parks, schools, pools, beaches, ball fields and other child-friendly sites.
Offenders who refuse to move on, or return after being told to depart, will face $90 fines.
Nicastro said the savage beating and rape of a teenage girl in Brackett Park last year by a registered sex offender who was wearing an electronic bracelet at the time showcased the need for more government action.
“We have to do everything we can to protect our children,” said Nicastro, who asked the Ordinance Committee to adopt the law.
There are some cases when sex offenders can enter the new child safety zones.
They are allowed to enter polling places to vote even if voting machines are located within one of the zones.
They can also enter zones if they need to do so in order to meet conditions attached to their probation.
Finally, councilors agreed to allow sex offenders who have their own children to pick them up at school.
At any given time, there are about 100 registered sex offenders living in Bristol. It isn’t clear how many of them were convicted of a crime involving a minor.Dale Clift, an assistant city attorney, has said that the new law would require Police Chief John DiVenere to send written notice of the ordinance to everyone on the registry who lives in Bristol. Similar letters will be sent to anyone added to the registry, said city Councilor Craig Minor.The measure is modeled on one that Danbury adopted last year.
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Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com
16 comments:
Yet another ridiculous , un-enforcable , useless , feel good law thrust upon society by those desperate to get their names in the paper and divert attention from what they are doing with their other hand .
Back in the 30's Europe had an elected leader that successfully used the same tactics .
Rediculous. Let's just make feel good laws that can't be enforced just for the sake of making them.
Which officer will roam the parks and check ID's of people sitting on park benches by themselves?
Thank God for Art Ward.
And just what did Artie have to do with this?
Can someone explain to me how a written warning for the first offense and a $90 fine is going to keep an animal from raping kids?
Frank what are you doing in Hartford?
As a previuos resident of bristol I am glad that they are finally taking more steps againt sex offenders. Being the father of a child sex victim I can understand the horrors when things happen to kids.
Now for my opinion, I truly believe, and studies have shown, that once a sex offender, always a sex offender. With that being said, I would like to say that I feel that the state and fed govt needs to take a look at the current situation of our prisons.
with 1 out of 100 adults in this country locked up in jail right now and the majority of them in for NON VIOLENT drug crimes, IE, marijauana. I say lets make some room in the jails and get rid of all the innocent marijuana offenders or people who use marijuana for medicine and take up the space with all these sex offenders and other violent criminals.
Lets face it folks, who would you rather see on the streets? someone who has raped maybe your mother, sister, daughter wife or other loved ones or someone who got caught smoking a joint or two.
Lets wake up here people, lets make our streets, parks, schools, ect safe again. Keep the violent criminals and rapists off the streets, make room in the prisons for these animals and let the pothead who didnt hurt anyone but maybe the potato chips in the cabinet live his/her life in freedom.
I know that I got a lil bit off topic but if you think about it, it is not of topic at all.
Our prisons are full of people that DO NOT belong there and our streets are full of people who do not belong out here.
Its time to wake up and see whats really happening here folks.
This letter is written by a father of a son whom was molested at the age of 3, an activist in the name of medical marijauana and a job holding, tax paying citizen of the U.S.A.
...Great, thanks all for your excellent input. If negativity generated power, we'd probably be able to light up the entire city with the voltage you boneheads produce...
8:46,
Studies have not shown that. It is another media stereotype playing on people's fears. Studies have shown that predatory sex offenders will never give up their behavior. Sexual predators are few in number. Most sex offenders are not predatory.
Non predatory sex offenders are not problematic. This later group includes men like the senator from Idaho who was arrested for solicitation, the soon to be ex-governor of NY, the transvestite principal from Hamden (or wherever), the dumb kid from North Carolina (or wherever) who let an underage girl perform a sexual act on him, and assorted others. While we may feel personal disgust at what they do, they are no more a threat than anyone else.
By the way this is not opinion, this is fact.
Frank is doing the same thing in Hartford that he did in Bristol: gernerate headlines.
But, he continues to fool most of the people, so we are stuck with him.
Unless....
Want to address the sex predator issue ????
Remove the 'investigation' of sex abuse by teachers from the hands of the Board of Education and place it in the hands of the criminal justice system where it belongs .
Admittedly ... we might need to expand the prisons a bit , but , it would be worth it to get those predators out of the 'education' system .
March 13, 2008 8:46 AM
......
I'm beginning to understand some of the comments posted here .
Stay High !!!!!
Jobs a plenty in the govt. employee sector . Teachers don't need to pass a drug test . ;-)
If a republican proposed it ,it would be a great law right?
This law sounds good only in headlines. If someone is a violent sex offender I don't see a risk of a fine bothering them if they are out to hurt someone for their own pleasure. If These people lacked the respect for another human and the law before to get this status, then the risk of a minor fine doesn't seem like a big threat. The only ones it might keep away are those sex offenders that are labled due to having an innappropriate relationship with an under age girl/boy friend.
Virtually unenforceable, and equally non effective.
I have a good idea: have Lavigne patrol the parks.
He has plenty of free time.
Sounds like it really isn't working in Danbury either.
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