(2 of 2)
One of the bills under debate in Trenton echoes a "sexual predators" provision in the crime bill approved by Congress last week, which requires certain offenders to check in with police every 90 days for the rest of their lives. The New Jersey proposal would require police to notify neighbors, schools, churches, youth groups and the media within 45 days of an ex- offender's moving into a neighborhood. Governor Christine Whitman, who wants community notification only when an inmate is "really at risk of committing these kinds of offenses again," argues that too broad a law risks deluging the police with paperwork. Whitman would prefer to follow the lead of Washington State, whose notification laws are touted as model legislation. Those provisions strive to match the extent of the notification with the nature of the offender's crime and his chances of becoming a repeat offender. Residents learn of an ex-prisoner's presence in the community in about 20% of the cases; only the police are notified in the remaining cases.
Even so, the state has suffered from some vigilante-style abuses. In July 1993 the home of convicted child rapist Joseph Gallardo was burned to the ground after citizens in Snohomish County learned he was about to be paroled. "When things like that happen, you jeopardize the ability of the person to ever readjust to community life," says Stephen Bright of the Southern Center for Human Rights. Such a reaction "enhances the chance they'll return to crime," he warns. Civil libertarians contend that notification laws are unconstitutional and have the effect of illegally keeping people in custody after they have served their sentences. However, such arguments carry little weight with people like relatives of the Heatons whose determination is that it must never happen again.