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House squanders chance to
get tough on sex offenders
By Rep. Ed Orcutt
Perhaps the most important
responsibility we have as legislators is to ensure Washington citizens
have the opportunity to live in safe, secure communities. A community’s
sense of security depends largely on how we respond to crime, and
whether justice is served. When the victim of a crime is a child, it is
even more important to make sure our laws ensure justice will be served.
It is with this sense of duty that we strongly supported House Bill
2400, which would strengthen penalties for those who commit sex crimes
against children. This legislation was aimed at providing real justice
for our most innocent and vulnerable victims – sexually abused children
– rather than serving the “needs” of child molesters.
Unfortunately, the bill we voted on Thursday night was not the same bill
that received the unanimous bipartisan support of the House Criminal
Justice and Corrections Committee on Feb. 13. It’s not unusual for bills
to change during the course of the lawmaking process, but in this case,
it was a definite turn for the worse.
HB 2400 was intended to establish mandatory minimum prison terms for
certain sex crimes against children – something our state doesn’t have.
Locking up sex offenders costs money, so the bill had to go before the
House committee that handles appropriations. The majority party in the
House then proceeded, under the pretense of lowering the bill’s price
tag, to rewrite HB 2400.
Gone were the mandatory
minimum sentences that would remove offenders from the victim’s
neighborhood, or any other neighborhood, for at least a year. In their
place was language that would still let the most serious offenders dodge
serious prison time in favor of a “special sentencing alternative” that
could include work release or home detention.
We wanted to vote on a bill that offered reasonable, common-sense
solutions to protecting our children. Unfortunately, reason and common
sense became mired in a thorny, complex political battle. Moving the
bill through the committee process, much less bringing it before the
full House, was an unbelievable struggle. This is something we just
can’t understand or condone.
When we finally were allowed to vote, it was on a substitute bill which
falls seriously short of protecting victims. We tried one last time to
strengthen the bill, but the party that controls the House wouldn’t
allow it. In the end we voted yes only because the substitute represents
a small improvement over existing law.
There isn’t one compelling reason we shouldn’t have been given the
opportunity to vote on a strong bill to implement tough penalties for
child rapists and molesters. Victims have pleaded for meaningful reforms
and the bill passed by the House doesn’t address their pleas.
To the members of the
House majority party who argued that the stronger version of the bill
was too expensive, we ask: what price can be placed on the life and
well-being of a child? We wonder how they justify allowing perpetrators
to avoid significant jail time by entering a treatment program in the
community, while victims and their families live in fear.
If there’s a silver lining, it’s that the 2004 legislative session runs
through March 11. The state Senate is now considering HB 2400. We
implore our colleagues in that chamber to return the bill to its
original strength, pass it, and send it back to the House so we can have
a “do-over.” That’s the legislation we need to provide justice and
protection for the most innocent and vulnerable victims, and help ensure
the safety and security of our families and our children.
# # #
For more information, contact:
Brendon Wold, Public
Information Officer: (360) 786-7698
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