• Home
  • News
    • Politics & Government
    • Business & Economy
    • Crime / Courts
    • Health / Medicine
  • Sports
    • High School Sports
    • Radio Iowa Poll
  • Affiliates
    • Affiliate Support Page
  • Contact Us
    • Reporters

Radio Iowa

Iowa's Radio News Network

You are here: Home / Crime / Courts / ICLU files suit over sex offender law

ICLU files suit over sex offender law

June 26, 2003 By admin

Iowa’s Civil Liberties Union has filed a federal suit hoping to strike down a state law that requires convicted sex offenders released from prison to live more than 2000 feet from any school or daycare. A Washington County judge in April found the law unconstitutional but ICLU director Ben Stone says a federal suit may hurry the process of erasing the law, which he says puts an impossible burden on many people.Stone calls it a poorly-conceived law that’s hard to enforce and wastes resources of law enforcement and charges that it’s to get politicians reelected. The civil liberties union says this may be the first class-action lawsuit in the nation to take on a law of this type. Stone says not only does it “banish” offenders from entire towns, but it’s unfair to the few places they may be allowed to live. It’s not very popular with residents of those few neighborhoods where sex offenders can live, since they will heavily populate those places and that won’t help property values. In a lot of towns it amounts to a “banishment” because they can’t live anywhere within city limits, and even in Des Moines or Iowa City Stone says four-tenths of a mile is a big distance, considering it includes every day care that’s licensed, and that’s a lot. ICLU says Iowa law already has systems for tracking released sex offenders, and this law puts too much burden on local police. This is just having police try to keep track of where hundreds and thousands of people live, and cops don’t have the staff. The group cites the case of a man who was 18 when he was convicted of having sex with his 15-year-old girlfriend, in another state — and says he couldn’t even have been convicted for that in Iowa but now lives here and faces impossible conditions under the sex-offender residence law.

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Filed Under: Crime / Courts

Featured Stories

Exhibit features lesser known works of Grant Wood

Testing finds 21 new CWD cases in deer

It may become a crime in Iowa to use fake urine in workplace drug tests

February trending 18 degrees below average temperature

Iowa House Education Committee votes to end tenure at UI, ISU, UNI

TwitterFacebook
Tweets by RadioIowa

Iowa’s Jack Nunge lost for the season

Key stretch begins for #9 Iowa

Drake’s Roman Penn lost for the season

Drake’s DeVries named to Naismith watch list

State wrestling opens with limited attendance

More Sports

eNews and Updates

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Archives

Copyright © 2021 ยท Learfield News & Ag, LLC