Although I am glad to see that this dirtbag is being put away (hopefully, he'll get death as a bed is way to much to give scum like him), I can't help but to feel that the system has failed in so many ways as to allow a known predator to roam free and do what he did. Had the system not had failed in the beginning, Jessica would be alive and this scumbag would had never been set free.
I recieved this from Chris Largen the other day and I am not at the least surprise. It is the attitude of certian politicians that allowed this to happen.
If you are not familiar with Chris Largen, he is the founder of Building-Block. A victim and survivor of childhood sex abuse, a nationally known writer, and a champion of childrens rights issues.
http://www.building-block.org/ Google his name. He is extremely well known and he makes things happen. He is a great guy and needs everyones support.
What follows just blows me away that some politicians would put saving a few dollars before saving the lives and childhoods of children.
I am outraged. If you're not, I can only wonder why not.
From Chris;
While my friend Mark Lunsford attends the trial of his daughter Jessica’s accused murderer (in 2005 she was abducted, repeatedly raped, and BURIED ALIVE in her next door neighbor’s yard, wrapped in trash bags), Texas legislators are busy arguing whether or not there is enough prison beds to lock away convicted child rapists.
The Texas legislature has no problem passing expensive (and mandatory) child venereal disease vaccines, intrusive anti-smoking legislation, and pay raises for busybody bureaucrats. They have plenty of criminal justice resources to jail graffiti vandals and nonviolent marijuana offenders. So why are some in the Texas legislature hesitant when it comes to CHILD PREDATORS? They sit up there masturbating in their taxpayer-funded air-conditioned hive units and bemoan the fact that they just don’t have enough prison space to lock away EVERYBODY.
This is the kind of news that makes me want to vomit right on the desks of every single legislator who won’t put their money where their balls are and TAKE WHATEVER STEPS are necessary and constitutionally viable to protect the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of our children. I suppose that when some fully erect psychopath anally rapes a legislator’s child, we can all just be thankful that our oh-so-benevolent dictators prioritized POTHEADS and PILFERERS over PEDOPHILES.
If I seem outraged, you can bet I am. Please take a moment to FORWARD THIS OUT, and contact the Texas legislature to let them know the “not enough prison beds” argument WON’T WASH! Let them know that ANY politician opposing Jessica's Law won't make it to the next term! Citizen's Opinion Hotline: 1-800-252-9600
Read it and gag, folks…
Critics say predator law cost estimates too low
12:21 AM CST on Monday, March 5, 2007
By EMILY RAMSHAW / The Dallas Morning News
eramshaw@dallasnews.com
AUSTIN – Under the politically popular sex offender penalties known as "Jessica's Laws," California will spend nearly $130 million next year tracking child predators. Florida will shell out close to $12 million. Louisiana, the first state to sentence a child sex predator to death, will spend $1 million.
Jessica Lunsford's death caused Florida to toughen laws.
But the version of Jessica's Law up for a vote in the Texas House Monday will cost Texans next to nothing for at least five years, according to financial reports prepared by legislative budget analysts.
Critics say that's impossible. Rep. Debbie Riddle's bill – which authorizes the death penalty or life without parole for repeat child sex offenders, increases sentences for certain first-time child sex offenders and prohibits early release from prison or parole for violent child sex offenders – would require more money for prison beds and corrections guards, they argue.
And a Dallas Morning News analysis of states with Jessica's Laws similar to those Texas is considering found that almost all of them had to set aside millions of dollars immediately to follow through on their legislation.
But proponents of the bill and the fiscal analysts who crafted the estimate note that the statute won't apply to many offenders; it's written to catch "the worst of the worst," and only those inmates will be serving lifetime prison sentences. Plus, a major expansion of global positioning systems, a costly tracking component of most states' Jessica's Laws, isn't included in the current House bill.
"All I can tell you is, the fiscal note on this has come back that it basically doesn't have an impact," said Ms. Riddle, R-Tomball, referring to the analysis conducted by the Legislative Budget Board. "At this point I haven't seen any evidence to the contrary."
That estimate "is laughable," said Steve Hall, whose StandDown Texas Project advocates a moratorium on the death penalty.
"When you look at Texas, with a larger population than most of these states, with severe penalties for sex offenders, it is inconceivable that you're not going to see increased costs in this state," he said. "It certainly makes you wonder if they were too rushed to do a thorough job or if politics intruded."
The original Jessica's Laws – which generally impose 25-year mandatory minimum sentences for child sex predators, require lifetime electronic monitoring and create 2,000-foot safety zones around parks and schools – passed in Florida in 2005 after the sexual assault and slaying of 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford. The man on trial in the case is a convicted sex offender.
So far, more than 20 states have implemented versions of the laws, and Florida, Montana, Louisiana, Oklahoma and South Carolina have given prosecutors the go-ahead to seek the death penalty for repeat child sex predators. It's unclear whether the punishment is constitutional; the U.S. Supreme Court has said that only crimes resulting in death can bring execution, though advocates say the court might rule differently in a case where the victim is a child.
Legal concerns
Last week, Texas lawmakers put the brakes on the fast-moving House bill given emergency priority by Gov. Rick Perry, in part because of those legal concerns. Ms. Riddle said she'll present amendments today to clarify the death penalty provision and create a new offense of "continuous sexual abuse of a child," one that would come with a mandatory 25-year minimum sentence.
Officials with the Legislative Budget Board said they couldn't comment on the differences between the estimated cost of Jessica's Law in Texas and its cost in other states. They pointed to the text of their report, which indicates there will be "no significant fiscal implication to the state" for the first five years after the bill's passage.
After that, the report says, the law still will not be costly because it will only affect a "small percentage of persons convicted of sexually violent offenses." The provision in Ms. Riddle's bill that increases penalties for first-time child sex offenders will have the greatest effect, the analysts wrote – requiring another 489 prison beds by 2027. Because that's more than five years out, they don't attach a dollar figure to the fiscal note.
"We were actually surprised and encouraged it was that low," Jon English, Ms. Riddle's chief of staff, said of the prison bed estimate.
The Senate version of the bill, which includes a 25-year minimum sentence for first-time violent child molesters and some expansion of GPS monitoring, hasn't reached the full Senate, so its financial analysis has not yet been released.
Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, the chief champion for the Senate version, has estimated that lifetime GPS monitoring would cost about $14 a day – just over $5,000 a year per offender. And Don Forse, chief of staff for Sen. Bob Deuell, the Greenville Republican who filed the Senate bill, said he "wouldn't anticipate it being much different from the House version as far as the fiscal implication goes."
In other states with similar Jessica's Laws, however, the cost has been more immediate.
California's budget includes close to $130 million next fiscal year to implement Jessica's Law, which includes GPS monitoring. The Florida Legislature has budgeted $11.9 million annually, money to fund additional prison beds, corrections officials and GPS monitoring devices.
And corrections officials in Wisconsin determined that their Jessica's Laws – which impose stiff mandatory minimum sentences for violent predators – would require nine new prisons over 25 years, at a cost of more than $400 million. Nonetheless, the bill was approved.
A Tennessee version that included the death penalty and failed last year would have cost the state an extra $14 million a year. That bill has been reintroduced this year without a capital punishment provision.
Montana, which already has a death penalty provision but is considering longer sentences and GPS tracking, estimates its costs will increase by about $3 million annually.
These types of costs are logical, corrections experts say.
Longer sentences
Longer sentences mean that PRISONS ALREADY JAMPACKED will need more beds and have higher operating costs, and be responsible for medical care for inmates aging in the system.
Currently, it costs $14,600 a year to incarcerate an inmate in Texas; a 25-year minimum sentence here would cost close to $365,000. More than 10,000 inmates are now serving sentences for violent sexual assault against a child, and hundreds more have been given probation or deferred adjudication. Texas' prison system is already at capacity, so the state would have to either FREE OTHER OFFENDERS (like those big bad nonviolent marijuana offenders) or build new units.
Meanwhile, corrections experts say, the costs of trials and appeals in death sentence and life imprisonment cases are staggering, sometimes reaching $1 million per case. Executions themselves can cost upward of $15,000.
"Lawmakers say, 'We're just changing the law – enacting a measure doesn't cost us anything,' " said Tim Bray, a criminologist with the University of Texas at Dallas. "But it's the impact that costs us money. All of the money is tied up in the increased cost of incarceration."
Staff writer Amy Rosen contributed to this report.
"...And once you're gone, you can't come back
When you're out of the blue and into the black."
Neil Young
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I recieved this from Chris Largen the other day and I am not at the least surprise. It is the attitude of certian politicians that allowed this to happen.
If you are not familiar with Chris Largen, he is the founder of Building-Block. A victim and survivor of childhood sex abuse, a nationally known writer, and a champion of childrens rights issues.
http://www.building-block.org/
Google his name. He is extremely well known and he makes things happen. He is a great guy and needs everyones support.
What follows just blows me away that some politicians would put saving a few dollars before saving the lives and childhoods of children.
I am outraged. If you're not, I can only wonder why not.
From Chris;
While my friend Mark Lunsford attends the trial of his daughter Jessica’s accused murderer (in 2005 she was abducted, repeatedly raped, and BURIED ALIVE in her next door neighbor’s yard, wrapped in trash bags), Texas legislators are busy arguing whether or not there is enough prison beds to lock away convicted child rapists.
The Texas legislature has no problem passing expensive (and mandatory) child venereal disease vaccines, intrusive anti-smoking legislation, and pay raises for busybody bureaucrats. They have plenty of criminal justice resources to jail graffiti vandals and nonviolent marijuana offenders. So why are some in the Texas legislature hesitant when it comes to CHILD PREDATORS? They sit up there masturbating in their taxpayer-funded air-conditioned hive units and bemoan the fact that they just don’t have enough prison space to lock away EVERYBODY.
This is the kind of news that makes me want to vomit right on the desks of every single legislator who won’t put their money where their balls are and TAKE WHATEVER STEPS are necessary and constitutionally viable to protect the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of our children. I suppose that when some fully erect psychopath anally rapes a legislator’s child, we can all just be thankful that our oh-so-benevolent dictators prioritized POTHEADS and PILFERERS over PEDOPHILES.
If I seem outraged, you can bet I am. Please take a moment to FORWARD THIS OUT, and contact the Texas legislature to let them know the “not enough prison beds” argument WON’T WASH! Let them know that ANY politician opposing Jessica's Law won't make it to the next term! Citizen's Opinion Hotline: 1-800-252-9600
Read it and gag, folks…
Critics say predator law cost estimates too low
12:21 AM CST on Monday, March 5, 2007
By EMILY RAMSHAW / The Dallas Morning News
eramshaw@dallasnews.com
AUSTIN – Under the politically popular sex offender penalties known as "Jessica's Laws," California will spend nearly $130 million next year tracking child predators. Florida will shell out close to $12 million. Louisiana, the first state to sentence a child sex predator to death, will spend $1 million.
Jessica Lunsford's death caused Florida to toughen laws.
But the version of Jessica's Law up for a vote in the Texas House Monday will cost Texans next to nothing for at least five years, according to financial reports prepared by legislative budget analysts.
Critics say that's impossible. Rep. Debbie Riddle's bill – which authorizes the death penalty or life without parole for repeat child sex offenders, increases sentences for certain first-time child sex offenders and prohibits early release from prison or parole for violent child sex offenders – would require more money for prison beds and corrections guards, they argue.
And a Dallas Morning News analysis of states with Jessica's Laws similar to those Texas is considering found that almost all of them had to set aside millions of dollars immediately to follow through on their legislation.
But proponents of the bill and the fiscal analysts who crafted the estimate note that the statute won't apply to many offenders; it's written to catch "the worst of the worst," and only those inmates will be serving lifetime prison sentences. Plus, a major expansion of global positioning systems, a costly tracking component of most states' Jessica's Laws, isn't included in the current House bill.
"All I can tell you is, the fiscal note on this has come back that it basically doesn't have an impact," said Ms. Riddle, R-Tomball, referring to the analysis conducted by the Legislative Budget Board. "At this point I haven't seen any evidence to the contrary."
That estimate "is laughable," said Steve Hall, whose StandDown Texas Project advocates a moratorium on the death penalty.
"When you look at Texas, with a larger population than most of these states, with severe penalties for sex offenders, it is inconceivable that you're not going to see increased costs in this state," he said. "It certainly makes you wonder if they were too rushed to do a thorough job or if politics intruded."
The original Jessica's Laws – which generally impose 25-year mandatory minimum sentences for child sex predators, require lifetime electronic monitoring and create 2,000-foot safety zones around parks and schools – passed in Florida in 2005 after the sexual assault and slaying of 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford. The man on trial in the case is a convicted sex offender.
So far, more than 20 states have implemented versions of the laws, and Florida, Montana, Louisiana, Oklahoma and South Carolina have given prosecutors the go-ahead to seek the death penalty for repeat child sex predators. It's unclear whether the punishment is constitutional; the U.S. Supreme Court has said that only crimes resulting in death can bring execution, though advocates say the court might rule differently in a case where the victim is a child.
Legal concerns
Last week, Texas lawmakers put the brakes on the fast-moving House bill given emergency priority by Gov. Rick Perry, in part because of those legal concerns. Ms. Riddle said she'll present amendments today to clarify the death penalty provision and create a new offense of "continuous sexual abuse of a child," one that would come with a mandatory 25-year minimum sentence.
Officials with the Legislative Budget Board said they couldn't comment on the differences between the estimated cost of Jessica's Law in Texas and its cost in other states. They pointed to the text of their report, which indicates there will be "no significant fiscal implication to the state" for the first five years after the bill's passage.
After that, the report says, the law still will not be costly because it will only affect a "small percentage of persons convicted of sexually violent offenses." The provision in Ms. Riddle's bill that increases penalties for first-time child sex offenders will have the greatest effect, the analysts wrote – requiring another 489 prison beds by 2027. Because that's more than five years out, they don't attach a dollar figure to the fiscal note.
"We were actually surprised and encouraged it was that low," Jon English, Ms. Riddle's chief of staff, said of the prison bed estimate.
The Senate version of the bill, which includes a 25-year minimum sentence for first-time violent child molesters and some expansion of GPS monitoring, hasn't reached the full Senate, so its financial analysis has not yet been released.
Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, the chief champion for the Senate version, has estimated that lifetime GPS monitoring would cost about $14 a day – just over $5,000 a year per offender. And Don Forse, chief of staff for Sen. Bob Deuell, the Greenville Republican who filed the Senate bill, said he "wouldn't anticipate it being much different from the House version as far as the fiscal implication goes."
In other states with similar Jessica's Laws, however, the cost has been more immediate.
California's budget includes close to $130 million next fiscal year to implement Jessica's Law, which includes GPS monitoring. The Florida Legislature has budgeted $11.9 million annually, money to fund additional prison beds, corrections officials and GPS monitoring devices.
And corrections officials in Wisconsin determined that their Jessica's Laws – which impose stiff mandatory minimum sentences for violent predators – would require nine new prisons over 25 years, at a cost of more than $400 million. Nonetheless, the bill was approved.
A Tennessee version that included the death penalty and failed last year would have cost the state an extra $14 million a year. That bill has been reintroduced this year without a capital punishment provision.
Montana, which already has a death penalty provision but is considering longer sentences and GPS tracking, estimates its costs will increase by about $3 million annually.
These types of costs are logical, corrections experts say.
Longer sentences
Longer sentences mean that PRISONS ALREADY JAMPACKED will need more beds and have higher operating costs, and be responsible for medical care for inmates aging in the system.
Currently, it costs $14,600 a year to incarcerate an inmate in Texas; a 25-year minimum sentence here would cost close to $365,000. More than 10,000 inmates are now serving sentences for violent sexual assault against a child, and hundreds more have been given probation or deferred adjudication. Texas' prison system is already at capacity, so the state would have to either FREE OTHER OFFENDERS (like those big bad nonviolent marijuana offenders) or build new units.
Meanwhile, corrections experts say, the costs of trials and appeals in death sentence and life imprisonment cases are staggering, sometimes reaching $1 million per case. Executions themselves can cost upward of $15,000.
"Lawmakers say, 'We're just changing the law – enacting a measure doesn't cost us anything,' " said Tim Bray, a criminologist with the University of Texas at Dallas. "But it's the impact that costs us money. All of the money is tied up in the increased cost of incarceration."
Staff writer Amy Rosen contributed to this report.
When you're out of the blue and into the black."
Neil Young
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