WHAT'S YOUR CHILD WORTH?
No, I'm not making an offer, I'm simply allowing parents advance notice that it may be time to establish a ballpark number for your child's value. In today's NH Sunday News, Union Leader, an AP article by Norma Love calls into question the enormous financial costs of the NH Sexual Predator Act. This law, which went into effect in January, carries much more stringent penalties for those who would molest children under the age of 13. It also provides for psychological evaluations, if requested, for convicted predators about to be released. Pending the outcome of that evaluation, dangerous sexual predators can be further incarcerated at a psychiatric institution. For those who follow State politics, you know that it was a hard fought battle, with much back and forth and compromise, to get this law on the books. The effort had strong public support because clear-thinking people know we have a problem here with seemingly more and more people, mostly men, preying on young children. Fueled mostly by the internet, there is no logical reason to believe the problem will fix itself.
It will come as no surprise that during the littany of meetings and discussions over this legislation that it was mostly lawyers associations that opposed it, particularly mandatory prison terms. Similarly, it should be no surprise that now it is the same players coming forth to carp about the expense of putting this law into use. Public defender Mark Larsen, head of a new group that defends predators, and Michael Iacopino, president of the NH Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, also are arguing that the new law constitutes "Double Jeopardy", that is, paying twice for your crime. Again, regular folks see it differently. If you've served your time and yet you're deemed to be still a danger, likely to offend again after release, than we'll find another way to keep you off the streets. Who has a problem with that? Remember, we are talking about people like John Couey, the Florida man who stole a nine year old from her home, just absconded with her, raped and tortured her for days, then buried her alive. If you are unable to hold that thought in your head while simultaneously considering whether you want a guy like that back on the streets...ever, then don't bother reading further.
It is infuriating to me that after legislation is hammered out, after it has garnered and sustained public support, and before it has even been put to the test in the real world, the same gang of nail-biters come out to question it. It costs too much. It's unconstituional. No, gentleman. I'll tell you what's costing us too much. Sitting idle while the lowest form of human beings make money with child pornography on the internet. Retail rape of children, for sale on video, breeding more and more of these child predators from an ever expanding festering pool of the worst imaginable kind of violence. I only wish Mr. Iacopino were as concerned about the constituional rights of the children depicted in those pictures, and the countless children whose lives are forever ruined, or ended, by this industry. And it is an industry that this country should be ashamed of. It is an ongoing wonder to me, and many others, how the proliferation of this vile subculture is allowed to prosper, unabated. Why? As you can see, many of us are still much, much more concerned with the rights of the criminals themselves.
Governor Lynch, who championed this law, was correct in his response: "My first priority is to protect children. The cost to children is immeasurable." Thank you, Governor, and that is exactly how most of us see it. There is no doubt that this law will cost money. Already, Hillsborough County Attorney Marguerite Wageling's office has felt the burden, with hundreds of hours spent researching through, "literally boxes and boxes" of files. I believe she was an advocate for this legislation and understands that it will cost money. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Lou D'Allesandro put it succinctly, saying that this isn't the first time the state legislated something that needed work afterward. "Sometimes you don't take into account what the ramifications are, then you make adjustments. That's where we are now, in that period of adjustments." He went on to say that public support for the law is clear. "Society's answer to this is to lock them up and throw away the key. That's the pervasive attitude. Regardless of cost, I would say that's what society wants."
Well, yes, Lou, that's pretty much what we want. Call us all crazy, but anyone who would bury a nine year old alive, as in the case of Jessica Lundsford, or chew off a child's upper lip as in the recent Boston case, or encase a seven year old in concrete and toss him in a Maine river, as in the case of Jeffrey Curley...yes, we want those people out of society. Forever. Period. If money's the problem, I will begin a citizens group to collect an annual stipend from parents around the state, maybe five hundred dollars a year, to cover the cost of keeping these people behind bars. I don't believe I would have any problem getting folks to donate to that cause.
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