WANTED: Changes to Michigan Sex Offender List

Memo to the women and men who serve in the Michigan Legislature

Re: MICHIGAN SEX OFFENDER REGISTRY


Perhaps you read the short story in some of our newspapers last week that on Monday, January 26, a 52 year old man was found frozen to death on the streets of Grand Rapids. He was a registered sex offender, and couldn't find a place to stay. He had been turned away by at least two rescue missions because the state law prohibits him from staying, even for one night, within 1,000 feet of a school.

Granted, our state has huge budget and unemployment issues, and granted your plate is more than full.

But we have a problem. Creating strict, far-reaching rules does not necessarily reflect a tough position on crime.

Doesn't a story like this tweak your conscience, perhaps just a little bit?

Michigan's Sex Offender Registry is terribly unfair the way you designed it. True, a person who freezes to death on a Michigan street because he could not find a place to live may have been a dangerous pedophile. But how would we know? The same registry contains the names of some unfortunate residents who were arrested by zealous police officers for urinating in public. Perhaps the registry contains the name of a young man who had consensual sex with the woman he later married, but she was underage at the time. It's a known fact that there are names of people on the registry who didn't even realize they were committing a crime. Now they are branded with a scarlet letter for life.

Members of the family of Mr. Tom Pauli have contacted HUMANITY FOR PRISONERS: We need help to be pointed in the right direction on how to get the laws changed.

Persons whose names are on the Sex Offender Registry cannot change laws. HUMANITY FOR PRISONERS cannot change laws. YOU can change laws. In what may have been perceived as an effort to protect your constituents, your action now ruins lives, prevents legitimate potential employees from getting jobs, drives people onto the streets and now, horror or horrors, has claimed the life of a victim who lost hope.

We want pedophiles locked up. And if these animals are released, we want to know where they are.

Frankly, we're not worried about that poor all-night traveler who was forced to seek release when he could find no open public restroom.

One thing is certain: You'll give this matter a second thought if a member of your family gets trapped in this maelstrom.


Doug Tjapkes, President
HUMANITY FOR PRISONERS
20 W. Muskegon Avenue
Muskegon, MI 49440

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