The alleged murder of a 10-year-old Cedar Rapids girl by a convicted sex offender has raised several questions about how those offenders should be treated by the state. Governor Tom Vilsack says the state can best protect our children by ensuring that convicted sex offenders get proper treatment before they return to society.
He says, “We need to do more to protect our young people. And the way we can do that is by ensuring that we have an adequately funded sex offender unit, so that when individuals are ready to be released from the corrections system, that they’re not put out into the public until such time as we’re convinced that they’re no long a threat to our children or the society.” 37-year-old Roger Bentley of Brandon is charged with first-degree murder and kidnapping in the death of 10-year-old Jetseta Gage of Cedar Rapids. Bentley is a registered sex offender, but the sex offender unit that Vilsack refers to was not in place at the time Bentley was released from prison. Vilsack says he’s requested over one-million additional dollars for the sex offender unit and says it’s up to the legislature to take action.
He says, “We made a request of additional resources for that unit from the Legislature. And if we’re really serious about this problem, we’ll see additional resources going into that unit, that’s my hope.” Vilsack says the state also needs to look at how it can improve the public’s access to the sex offender registry. Vilsack says the state has taken some serious and significant steps in the recent past to strengthen the laws to protect children. He says, “This was a very tragic situation in Cedar Rapids. We’re going to I think have fewer of those situations because of what we’ve done recently in terms of strengthening penalties, providing for the sex offender unit and strengthening the registry .” But Vilsack says there’ll be a problem if there aren’t adequate resources. Representative James Van Fossen, a republican from Davenport, has suggested the state should implement the death penalty for someone convicted of killing a child. Vilsack says, “We have a death sentence in Iowa, you commit a crime, you go to prison and you don’t come out alive. That’s the law in Iowa and it should remain the law.” Legislators have also considered upping the penalty for the crime of lascivious acts with a child. Vilsack says he’d listen to that discussion. Vilsack says he wouldn’t be opposed to increasing the penalties, but he says “if you allow these people to walk after they’ve paid the criminal justice price, then you’re really not protecting the public.”
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