The Long Island Advance/Suffolk County Legislator Jack Eddington
According to Parents for Megan’s Law, the average sexual offender is 31 years old,
white and male. Less
than half (about 42 percent) report having never been married. Roughly the same percentages
(35 to 40
percent) are repeat offenders. Furthermore, fully 93 percent of sexual assault victims know
their
attacker as either family members or
acquaintances. That means that only seven percent of sexual predators are actual strangers, a
fact that at
first glance would appear to be good news, but not really. In all, the statistics are
unsettling,
especially when you consider that these numbers represent only the predators that have been
caught. It is
our job to protect the most vulnerable members of our families and communities and as chair
of Public
Safety, I take that responsibility very seriously. For this reason, I have written
legislation to provide
GPS monitoring of homeless registered sex offenders in Suffolk County. Monitoring
homeless sex offenders with a GPS ankle bracelet will help to circumvent the loophole,
besides being a
cost-conscious alternative to the trailers.
(New York)