Hearings begin on toughening sex crimes

Associated Press - August 7, 2008 3:35 PM ET

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) - The probation officer who supervised the man accused of abducting 12-year-old Brooke Bennett says he felt compelled to recommend the release of Michael Jacques from probation on an earlier conviction.

Richard Kearney told the Senate Judiciary Committee that Jacques had completed his prison term, sex offender treatment and other requirements of probation for the 1992 aggravated assault conviction.

That testimony came as the legislative committee opened a series of hearings on how the state can toughen its sex offender laws following the girl's abduction and death.

The committee is investigating what went wrong in the Jacques case and what the state can do to better protect its children.

What went wrong with Jacques? It isn't like someone can magically understand this man's thoughts. He is one of the 5% minority who will always re-offend. This isn't rocket science, and I certainly do hope that the government will drop its little act and own up to that. It is fairly evident that neither the government agencies or the news medias read any of the accredited reports out there. The experts in this field state that there will always be persons that re-offend. The percentage is small, however there are some that are just plain bad and cannot be taught to control, or do not want to control themselves. Nothing can be done about this, as you cannot read someone's heart when they go through the system and finish therapy.

This is the failing of the entire sex offender branding system. If the authorities would stop telling people that all will re-offend, and that all are equally bad, they would be able to be selective on those that have the 'markers' for future deviant behaviors. It isn't hard. Some can be identified through psych evaluations, and they are the ones that should be watched. If the government had done their job and used the registry as it was originally intended to be used, their list would be much smaller. The masses of sexual offenders are not what is being pushed on the public, the numbers are mis-reported and as such the system created the Brooke Bennett kidnapping and murder. Not taking anything away from the Uncle or the Father, who both actually committed the crime. No, the system made it possible, flooded with so many low or no risk offenders that law enforcement cannot hope to watch everyone, and cannot identify the real threats as they can slip in and out of the SO population. Take the kids off the registry, take the first time offenders that have shown positive treatment successes, and that will leave you with a much smaller group to work with and weed through until you get down to the hard core offenders that will never change. If Congress, and the states would follow through on what they say there would be fewer on the registry true, but they would be the ones that you WANT on the registry. The true baddest of the bad, that one 3.2 to 5% of the offenders that will reoffend. It is true that some that will re-offend might not be on the registry, however this is the same as a parolee for murder, or theft as well. Some people will never change. That is a failure of man individually not on a whole group of persons.