It's Time For Kristen's Law!


     Kristen's Law would have saved lives. The sheriffs, police chiefs, and prosecutors who are sworn to protect citizens failed to do so because it would have meant extra work, or so they thought. Not only were they incorrect, but their failure demonstrates precisely the flaws in a system that values protecting criminals over potential victims. 

   Introduced in Ohio way back in 2007, this controversial law was named after Kristen Jackson, a 14-year-old who had been dismembered and murdered by a sex offender in 2002. She was lured into his vehicle at a fair and suffered an indescribably-horrible fate. Then came the law named after her, which would have required sex offenders to have neon green license plates.

     Parents were all for it. Had the man had a neon-green license plate on his car, she would have known to stay away from him. It would not have prevented small children from being taken, but it would have warned teenagers like Kristen to stay away. The police, on the other hand, were worried about harassment and vandalism of sex offenders and their property. Besides showing concern for child rapists, they seemed to think that taking a report on a busted window would be more troublesome than fishing pieces of a child from the bottom of a marsh. Anyone who would harass sex offenders would clearly see their RSO status, which is public in Ohio, and do so anyway. The bill even had bipartisan support, as a Democrat and a Republican co-introduced it.

     Try speaking with Kristen's family, having to imagine her suffering when they fall asleep at night and feeling the guilt of not being able to save their loved one. A few honks at a sex offender on the way to his job as a night custodian were enough for those in power to defeat the bill, and they wonder why their kid gloves failed to strangle the problem.

     As I stated last week, laws against sex offenders have improved markedly, and it is time to finally give Kristen the peace of not having died in vain. On the bright side, said child molestor died in 2019 after his stomach literally rotted while he was alive, and he suffered enormous pain. He was 50.

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