Best bet: Keep sex offenders in jail

Sex offenders who are required to register annually with their appropriate law enforcement agency must supply additional information under the Sex Offender Internet Identity Act. Sex offenders now will have to provide e-mail addresses and instant messaging, chat room or other Internet identities they use or plan to use. Sex offenders also will be required to report all Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) that they use or are registered for, as well as blogs and other sites they maintain or to which they have uploaded any content or posted any messages or information. The bill, signed into law last week, was sponsored by state Rep. Sandy Cole of Grayslake.

What recourse of action will the state's attorney's office take should a sex offender violate this law, and how does that punishment differ from the law that mandates sex offender's to register?

How successful has the state's attorney's office been in prosecuting repeat offenders who do not register. If the SAO has not successfully convicted repeat offenders with the maximum prison time, then what improvements are being made to protect the children in the community?

How does this new law protect the children in the community if it provides no real solution to aid in the prevention of sexual assault?

Will this new law reduce the number of sex crimes that are committed against the children in our communities, and if so, how? If not, then why are we writing up more laws if none of the laws that we have are being enforced with the maximum prison sentence?

It is more important to keep these offenders in jail and off the street; that way the children will not be at risk. Laws that require sex offenders to register their names, addresses, employment status and now their e-mails only means that they are out of prison, and pose a threat to the children in the community because sexual assault has the highest rate of recidivism and the least amount of prison time served.

Before we write any more new laws we should seal the loopholes in the current laws that have allowed for a 10-percent increase in sex crimes committed against children in Lake County from October 2005 to October 2006.

Denise Rotheimer

Grayslake