Danger that lurks is deadliest of all. Nothing is eerier than
the notion that the shadows are concealing a predator who is
measuring you for a shroud. More fearful still when children are
his prey.
Which brings us to one of society’s sorest vexations, sexual
predators. This subject has lately been a malign and pressing
presence in the press. First Jessica Lunsford went missing in
Citrus County, Florida. After a few days, she was found dead. The
man arrested for abducting and killing her was a convicted sex
offender who had lived nearby. Just a few days later, this
identical series of events was repeated in Hillsborough County,
Florida, in the case of Sarah Lunde; again, the killer was a
registered offender. Lunde was thirteen, Lunsford just nine,
precious lives devoured by rapacious evil.
Finally, in Marion County, Florida, with greater outrage and
awareness being fueled by these grim events, residents posted signs
around the neighborhood of Clovis Claxton’s home warning that he
was a convicted child molester. He was a partially disabled man who
had been jailed for forcing himself on the six-year-old daughter of
his caretaker. A few days after expressing his distress that he was
being humiliated in this way, Claxton committed suicide.
A debate has sprung up around the Claxton case. Was the communal
response appropriate? Did it drive him to his death? The gentleman
who initiated the campaign to publicize Claxton’s history showed no
signs of contrition when he gave a reporter this quotable quote:
“The bottom line is that yesterday there were 530 sex offenders in
Marion County and today there are 529.”
“Megan’s Law” legislation signed by President Clinton in 1996
requires states to create registries available to the public with
the names and last-known addresses of convicted molesters. It also
allows them discretion in creating more direct notification
procedures. Some states, or counties within states, go as far as
sending a community-wide mailing to inform the citizenry when a sex
offender buys or rents in their area.
(An anomaly born of this practice occurred a few months ago in
Springfield, Arkansas, when Randall Collins bought a house in a
development. After the sheriff notified neighbors that Collins was
convicted of molesting young girls, the developer could no longer
find customers for his homes. He asked Collins to sell his house
back and Collins demanded a quarter-million-dollar payoff to leave.
The case is being litigated.)
The constitutionality of Megan’s Law has been upheld in a number
of court decisions. Yet voices are being raised attacking the
poster campaign against Claxton as excessive or inappropriate. They
argue that the public registry is readily available. In fact, the
State of Florida has the entire list on its free website,
conveniently divided by county. Why subject a person to public
excoriation?
My own view is precisely the opposite. I have never been
convinced that it is constitutional for the government to actively
notify people about a person’s criminal history. Unless he is
currently on probation or parole, there should be no governmental
right to presume that one person poses more of a danger than
another. The registry is legitimate, because it is simply a record
of past crimes. Active notification for citizens to beware,
projecting a hazard based on a past crime, strikes me as
intrinsically illegitimate. Still, as a father, I’m not complaining
too loudly about this misuse of government to help me better
protect my children.
By contrast, when private individuals or organizations on their
own initiative alert their friends and neighbors, that is the
absolutely correct way for such exchanges of information to be
transacted. This is the right of association practiced in its
finest form. People pooling their energies and resources to help
protect each other. We are touched when all the neighbors volunteer
to join search parties scouring the woods for missing children; why
not encourage their participation in a mutual help society to
prevent such tragedy?
In closing, we should cite the praiseworthy model for such
precaution instituted by the Chicago Jewish community, with all
local Rabbis cooperating. Any convicted child molester (legally I
must say “convicted,” but there is more than one way to achieve
conviction) may not attend synagogue or any Jewish communal
activity alone. He or she is assigned a monitor. If the person
needs the bathroom, the monitor enters and waits outside the booth.
No contact with any children is allowed. If the person violates any
of these rules, they are barred entirely. If they try to leave
town, every effort is made to discover their new address and notify
the Jewish community in that city.
Today will be a good day, tomorrow even better. But keep a
watchful eye. Terror still skulks in darkling corners.
