Jaycee Dugard’s tormentor, Phil Garrido, is a perfect example of the type of monster Jessica’s Law is supposed to keep off the streets for as long as possible.
If Jessica’s Law had been in place in Nevada all those years ago, Garrido would have served his full sentence and, after serving his prison sentence, might have spent time in a mental health care facility when you factor in these California Jessica’s Law provisions:
* California’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation can now evaluate incarcerated sex offenders who fit the profile of a sexually violent predator after only one felony sex offense has been committed. Prior to Jessica’s Law, the agency had to wait for a sex offender to claim a second victim. What this means is the SVP could be committed to a state mental hospital for further evaluation and treatment – after serving prison time.
* District attorneys now have the ability to file new petitions every two years to demonstrate that the offender still poses a danger to society.
* Sexually violent predators are now required to serve their full parole in the event they are released from a mental facility.
Amber Alert is another example of a good law that is fulfilling its purpose of saving children’s lives. Had the alert system been in place in 1991, perhaps Jaycee Dugard would have been rescued on the same day she was kidnapped from her South Lake Tahoe home.
September 2nd, 2009 at 12:00 am
George
I want to thank you for all you have done to point out the problems with our Prisons and Criminal Justice system.
My solution to to the prison problem is since Arnie basically gave control of our prisons to the Federal Gov. at twice the cost of housing Federal Prisoners , We should just give each of our prisoners to the Federal Gov. with a check for 24,000 per year per prisoner.
This would cut our prison costs from 10 billion to 5 billion saving our state 5 billion in our budget challenged times ,a Win Win policy for every one involved ?