Remember the story of those Florida sex offenders living under a bridge because, under the law, there was nowhere else for them to go? (WLA posted about it here.) Well now we in So Cal have our own version, according to Saturday’s LA Times.
His name is Ross Wollschlager and he’s staying in a tent on a Ventura river bottom. There is a full time tax-payer funded security guard parked outside his tent, to make sure he behaves, and everyone behaves toward him, plus he wears two electronic monitors.
Wollshlager was reduced to river bottom living because of Jessica’s law, another of California’s poorly thought out Feel Good/Get Tough initiatives that make the public believe it was made safer, but in the end causes more problems than it solves. Legal analysts predicted that Jessica’s law—passed by a large majority of California voters last November— would trigger a string of dilemmas that its proponents were not adequately addressing. The problems, say authorities, have begun, and Wollschlager’s case is only the beginning.
“It’s harder to protect the public when he is homeless,” said Margaret Coyle, a county prosecutor who opposed Wollschlager’s release. “Were he in a condo or an apartment, we could supervise him more effectively.”
Things are complicated by the fact that Wollschlager is exactly the kind of scary, creepy guy nobody wants in their neighborhoods. At age 19 he crept into the houses of strangers and raped the women sleeping inside. (He was convicted of two such rapes in the 1980s.) Then, when he was released from prison for the rapes (he served four years of an 8 year term), he crept in another house, climbed into bed with a ten year old girl, and began making advances, stopping only when her mom heard something and snapped on the light.
For molesting the little girl, Wollschlager was locked up for 24 years—13 of those years in prison, another 11 in Atascadero State Hospital in a program for repeat violent sexual offenders. After he was ordered released, he remained at Atascadero for another 17 months because authorities could not find a place for him to live. Finally an appellate court ordered him released anyway, home or no home.
Jessica’s Law prohibits sex offenders from from living within a half mile of a public school, a park or a public beach. So, when they get out of prison—or in Wollschlager’s case, a mental hospital—there are a few places for sex offenders to live.
A friend offered Wollschlager a permanent place to stay, but the friend’s house is within 2,000 feet of a park, so it was eliminated as a possibility, reports the Ventura County Star.
Wollschlager claims he just wants to get on with his life and not harm anyone else, and that he understands why no one wants him around. Whatever the case, the fact is unless we are prepared to incarcerate him and those like him forever, we must find a way for the Wollschlagers of the world to live among us.
The past Friday, the state Department of Corrections announced that it had notified 2,741 sex offenders, (all paroled after Nov. 8, 2006, the date that Jessica’s law went into effect), that they were in violation of housing restrictions mandated by Jessica’s Law. The parolees now have less than 45 days to comply with the law. Every year, still more will be paroled.
So where are they going to go? Somewhere that makes us—and them—safer? Or simply off the radar?
So where are they going to go?
Options: Kill them? Castrate them? Make them prison guards? Send them to Montanna?
It sure is hard to find anywhere that doesn’t violate the remoteness provisions.
This is exactly the type of problem that upsets me with many proposals–although, I was never particularly bothered by anything that affected child molestors. It’s always, “Let’s do something, now!,” and I add, “Without thinking it through?” (Boy have we seen the fraud with Katrina when they handed out the credit cards and opened the bank.)
My solution? Hey, I don’t know. It’s your problem. You’re welcome.
There are a number of single-room hotels with a microwave where these people live, and the owners get unusually high rent for the place, so it seems to work out. That’s assuming the occupants have some sort of employment. I saw this article, too, but am not clear why this guy can’t do same. Because he’s too kookoo to get a job? Would seem cheaper to find him a job as a janitor and put him in one of those places than have the security guard. Unless he’s too kookoo to live on his own to be trusted, in which case, why is he out at all?
Now, where’s HE going to live?
LINK: Ex-ACLU Chief Gets Seven Years For Child Porn
“They say Rust-Tierney had video showing, among other things, the sexual torture of infants and toddlers. The judge said she’d never heard of child pornography that vile and said because of that, Rust-Tierney would stay behind bars until his trial.”
Should we open homeless shelters for perverts?
Some of you may be familiar with the case of GIDEON v. WAINRIGHT. That’s the case that required the state to provide an attorney at no cost to you if you were indigent in a criminal case. That was a big cause for Justice Hugo Black who chafed at a 1940 case BETTS v. BRADY that said the opposite. He had chipped away at it (like requiring a lawyer for capital cases) but wanted a situation where the defendent was convicted where it would appear obvious that aa lawyer would have made a difference.
Well he had his clerks look at all Cert petitions that would be relevant and they found a doozy. No lawyer and very feeble evidence. And the transcript showed that the defendant just couldn’t present his case – he stumbled, stuttered – it was a mess! Everyone who looked at it knew that if he had aany representation at all he would probbnaly prevail and be found not guilty. So why didn’t they use that case? He was convicted of Child Molestation!
Hugo wanted someone more palatable. They found Clarence Earl Gideaon convicted of petty theft of a Florida Pool Hall/Bar and that was perfect. You can read all about it in “Gideon’s Trumpet” by Anthony Lewis which is about the best intro to the Supremes for the layperson you’ll find.
But the lesson here is no one is going to bleed for kiddie rapers. And that’s the way it is.
You forgot the other “problem” which was created with the passing of Megan’s Law, anybody can now search the Internet and find out that a registered sex offender is living in their neighborhood.
There have been stories about groups of neighbors forcing out a registered sex offender. I remember a story about a sex offender in Covina that was not wanted in the neighborhood because there are kids living in the neighborhood. How many neighborhoods do not have kids?
So there is virtually no place for a registered sex offender to go, I am sure no wants a sex offender living next door, but all these new laws, legislators did look at the obvious problem of what to do with these people.
Megans law