IN SOME STATES, SEX OFFENDERS SERVE MORE THAN THEIR TIME

Thomas Wilcox put his hand down the bike shorts of a 13 year old girl he knew and molested her in 1997.  He was convicted of child rape and served three years in prison spending them partly in the state treatment center for sex offenders.  He was scheduled to be released last summer but under a new Massachusetts law there was no guarantee that he would get out at all.  According to the New York Times, enacted in recent years here and in 15 other states, sexually violent predator statutes say that longer prison sentences and Megan's Law sex offender registries are not enough; society needs a way to keep potentially dangerous perverts off the streets after their sentences have been served.

(Brockton, Massachusetts)