Louisiana Governor proposes taking sex offender mania to new heights

It is both noteworthy and worrisome that Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, who is viewed by everyone as a rising star in the Republican party, has decided to propose legislation that would take the manic panic about sex offenders to new heights.  This local story provides the basic details:

If a day care owner knowingly allows a registered sex offender to come onto the facility’s property, that owner could be charged with a crime and face prison time, according to a proposed law by Gov. Bobby Jindal.

The proposal was among several pieces of suggested sex crime legislation Jindal announced Thursday at the Caddo Parish Correctional Center. “This will resonate with the people here,” Jindal said. His words came about a month after a local day care owner’s son, a registered sex offender, was arrested after being accused of sex crimes with children at the facility.

Rodney Chism, son of Katherine Robbins, owner of the Smart Start Learning Center Express in Caddo Parish, was arrested in December on two counts of juvenile molestation. Robbins, who allegedly knew her son was a sex offender, could only be charged with perjury because there are no existing laws criminalizing such scenarios. The day care center was closed after authorities with the state Department of Social Services said Robbins had not performed adequate background checks on her employees.

Other proposals listed by the governor would strengthen many existing sex offender laws, such as making some of the most violent sex offenders submit to psychiatric evaluation after their prison and parole terms end. If a psychiatric evaluator determined the offender was likely to commit a crime again, the change would mean a district attorney could request indefinite, forced evaluation of that person until he or she was deemed to be no longer a threat.

This story provides yet another example of the one-way ratchet of criminal laws and the potential harm of legislative reactions to one awful crime.  Unless very carefully crafted and limited, a law making it a felony for a day care owner to even allow any registered sex offender to come onto the facility’s property could (and likely would) have a lot of unforeseen consequences for both day care operators and families.  Especially since residency restrictions, and GPS tracking, and laws criminalizing a failure to register as a sex offender have had a variety of unexpected and negative consequences, I hope Bobby Jindal and his team have really thought through all the potential ramifications of what he is proposing here.