Apparently, Megan’s Law wasn’t bad enough. Now my home state of Ohio is pushing ahead a law that would allow prosecutors, or even the alleged victims, petition a judge to have someone listed in the public sexual offenders registry even if they aren’t found guilty! According to the Toldeo Blade:
A recently enacted law allows county prosecutors, the state attorney general, or, as a last resort, alleged victims to ask judges to civilly declare someone to be a sex offender even when there has been no criminal verdict or successful lawsuit.
The rules spell out how the untried process would work. It would largely treat a person placed on the civil registry the same way a convicted sex offender is treated under Ohio’s so-called Megan’s Law.
The person’s name, address, and photograph would be placed on a new Internet database and the person would be subjected to the same registration and community notification requirements and restrictions on where he could live.
Apparently, we now live in a society that is perfectly willing to throw away a tried and true concept like “innocent until proven guilty” because it gives the appearance of “protecting the children”, without actually protecting anyone.
Even as a survivor of childhood abuse, this law idea sickens me.