Jessica’s Law comes back to the House

Insider's view of the state capital

June 16th, 2008, 7:15 pm · 1 Comment · posted by Barry Smith

The legislative process is slow, as supporters of the Jessica Lunsford Act have found out. The House approved the bill last year in the waning days of the General Assembly session, after the Senate had shut down its committees. Last week, the Senate approved the bill.

Jessica’s Law establishes a minimum sentence of 25 years for an adult who rapes a child younger than 13, requires lifetime GPS monitoring for those released for committing such crimes, tightens sex offender registry timetables and prohibits such offenders from going on the premises of places where children normally congregate.

The House finally got the bill back Monday night. Since the Senate made a few changes – mostly technically – the House has to give final approval before going to Gov. Mike Easley for his signature.

Most bills go directly to the floor for a final vote on whether the House agrees with the Senate changes. That’s called a “concurrence” vote.

However, occasionally, a bill gets sent back committee beforehand. That’s what happened to the bill containing Jessica’s Law. It got sent to a House Judiciary committee. That means its track to becoming law got a little longer.

Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 16th, 2008 at 7:15 pm and is filed under Crime, State government. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “Jessica’s Law comes back to the House”

MSLGW Says:
June 17th, 2008 at 9:32 am
Jessica’s law is NOT the answer, because it paints with a broad brush. 60 million Americans have been sexually abused through incest or friends of the family. The John Coueys of the world are rare in the extreme. However, the entertainment news media and politicians aggrandizing themselves have deceived Americans into a very costly situation. 50% or 30 million of those who have been abused will go on to abuse. We do not have the prison system capable to house all of them for 25 years.
These particular crimes against children “incest” have a first offense recidivist rate of 1 to 2 percent, (without treatment). One must understand that incest is NOT pedophilia!
I have an article on my website entitled “INCEST - A FAMILY TRAGEDY.”
Under “read More,” there is a link to view a video clip and a blogtalkradio interview with the produces of this 12 prestigious award winning documentary. I do believe in PREVENTION through EDUCATION. We will NEVER be effective if we don’t understand the facts. EVERYONE WANTS TO PREVENT CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE> EVERYONE must understand, PREVENTION is BEFORE an act is committed

MSLGW Says:
June 17th, 2008 at 9:32 am

Jessica’s law is NOT the answer, because it paints with a broad brush. 60 million Americans have been sexually abused through incest or friends of the family. The John Coueys of the world are rare in the extreme. However, the entertainment news media and politicians aggrandizing themselves have deceived Americans into a very costly situation. 50% or 30 million of those who have been abused will go on to abuse. We do not have the prison system capable to house all of them for 25 years.
These particular crimes against children “incest” have a first offense recidivist rate of 1 to 2 percent, (without treatment). One must understand that incest is NOT pedophilia!
I have an article on my website entitled “INCEST - A FAMILY TRAGEDY.”
Under “read More,” there is a link to view a video clip and a blogtalkradio interview with the produces of this 12 prestigious award winning documentary. I do believe in PREVENTION through EDUCATION. We will NEVER be effective if we don’t understand the facts. EVERYONE WANTS TO PREVENT CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE> EVERYONE must understand, PREVENTION is BEFORE an act is committed