Alabama education officials create plan for schools to monitor juvenile sex offenders
Alabama education officials plan to create a model policy so that all public school systems are ready to monitor student sex offenders in two years. State Superintendent Eric Mackey says that each local education authority can use it as their own policy by the 2020-2021 school year. Alabama’s mandatory attendance law means that local boards of education must ensure that children younger than 16 in their districts are enrolled in some form of schooling — whether public, private, parochial schools or home-schooled, The Montgomery Advertiser reported . Mackey said that low-level sex offenders can return to the public school system once they are adjudicated. The policy is aimed at making sure those students are supervised and that other students are not harmed. The new policy is required by Annalyn’s Law, which was passed earlier this year, the Montgomery newspaper reported. Annalyn’s Law is named after a child victim who was abused by a juvenile in Alabama. As of January, there were 1,305 juvenile sex offenders on the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency sex offender registry. Juvenile sex offenders must submit an application to all school property and school-functions, according to a draft of the model policy. They must also meet with school personnel to create and implement an individualized safety plan. Also, schools will continue to share information and monitor the student through school enrollment changes and school personnel changes, the newspaper reported. Officials will offer training to school personnel on how to take appropriate action when an increase or escalation of certain behaviors is noticed. Members of the advisory committee developing the policy include the state’s Law Enforcement Agency, the Alabama Department of Education, Department of Human Resources, the Governor’s Office, the Alabama Coalition Against Rape, the Attorney General’s Office and the Southern Poverty Law Center. Republished with permission from the Associated Press.
Lawmaker introduces bill to castrate child sex offenders
A bill proposed by Rep. Steve Hurst (R-Munford) would require sex offenders over the age of 21 to pay for their own castration prior to release from the Department of Corrections. HB365 specifies that the penalty would be reserved for those who have committed sexual crimes against a minor 12 or under. According to a report from the Connecticut General Assembly, eight states already have laws requiring the surgical or chemical castration of child sex offenders: California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Montana, Oregon, Texas and Wisconsin. While opponents of such laws note that chemical castration can cause potentially life-threatening blood clots and allergic reactions, and likely stands in defiance of the U.S. Constitution’s protection from cruel and unusual punishment, a 2005 study printed in the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law found that only up to 10 percent of sex offenders commit similar crimes once being surgically castrated. While that number seems impressive, it is not much different than the rate at which all other sex offenders commit the same crime. According to the Department of Justice, only 5.3 percent of all sex offenders are rearrested within three years of their initial crime. Hurst did not reply to a request for comment on the legislation, which has no co-sponsors and is the first he has proposed this session
