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Should Sex Offenders Be Allowed To List City Parks As Residences?State and city officials disagree about what constitutes an acceptable address in the sex offender registryRelated Content
ANCHORAGE—The question came up because of John Martin III, the man who's been camping out in front of Anchorage City Hall to protest Mayor Dan Sullivan's policy on taking down homeless camps. Martin is a registered sex offender, convicted in 1997 of having sex with a 15-year-old girl. Police arrested Martin Wednesday because he wasn't living at the address where he is registered, which happens to be a city park.
Alaska State Troopers spokeswoman Megan Peters says the state requires sex offenders to give their address, but if they happen to be homeless there's not a lot the state can do.
"If somebody doesn't have a place where they live, if they don't have someone who can take them in so that they have a physical address then they live where they can," Peters said. "If it's a wood clearing next to a creek or wherever, we get as much descriptive information as we can as to where they are."
But Anchorage police feel very differently. They say living in a city park is considered illegal camping. And for a sex offender to call that home makes for even bigger problems.
"First of all, it's contrary to municipal code," said Anchorage police Sgt. Mark Rein. "The other thing is that families and children use the park for recreation and we would like to keep the two separate."
Police say sex offenders have a high rate of repeating their crimes and putting them close to children only increases that risk. They have asked the state to consider strengthening the laws about where sex offenders can live. So far, that change has not gone through.
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THE NON-LAWS PROTECT THE PERVERTS said on Wednesday, Sep 21 at 6:46 AM
Never should be allowed to list their residence as a park, cemetary,play groung, etc. My understanding was that ALL perverts were to keep so many hundreds of yards from play grounds and parks schools.Any where there are kids.The Aclu can take their liberal thinking to china, where they can start the trouble they have here in the states for years. They are nothing but a platform for all the criminals, perverts and low life to get breaks that the honest hard working citizen dosen't get. They bend laws to help the low life. They do not care about the victims.
74130594yort47@yahoo.com said on Monday, Sep 19 at 3:35 AM
There is a lead immunization out there and it is free,and does not need a doctor to administer it,these freaks cannot be rehabilitated so why even waste our tax dollars.I am sick of all these liberals whining that these molesters are people too! well let them stay with you
74018242Anonymous said on Friday, Jul 29 at 8:54 AM
AKChuliRes, he was 23 years old.
71498024gelpack said on Monday, Jul 25 at 3:23 PM
VIVIANE: Excellent idea. The perverts can give the cemetary's address, then the location of the headstone they are sleeping at,via the name of the deceased. Better be sure its an older grave ( like 55-100 years) as no one would want a sex offender sleeping on their relatives grave site!!
71272977AKChuliRes said on Sunday, Jul 24 at 4:50 PM
In all of this drama about the "sex offender", if he had sex with a 15 year old girl in 1997, how old was he then? Was it consensual sex and therefore statutory rape or was this guy an actual rapist and sexual predator? There is a difference an that difference matters every bit as to whether the references to this guy's history digress from the important issues of the actual issue as it is playing out. I scold the media for not making clear note of this in their reporting of this AND other stories where "sex offender" is used not as a descriptor, but as an emotionally manipulative tool, which should in itself be a crime. Self- or politically- serving manipulation and slanted reporting are certainly not honorable.
71227218Missy Moo said on Sunday, Jul 24 at 1:42 PM
Why is this even a question? We have to do WHATEVER
71222269Niki said on Saturday, Jul 23 at 8:37 PM
I was once looking over the sex offender registry online & some perv listed his address as somewhere in Anchorage in a VAN...... CHESTER THE MOLESTER VAN!!!!!!!!!!! LOL
71197821Yup said on Saturday, Jul 23 at 8:04 PM
I'm sure the ACLU will clear this up. Pedos have the right to live in parks school playgrounds, where ever.
71196967Patriotic Pirate said on Saturday, Jul 23 at 8:26 AM
America's rigged courts, bribed judges, fake and phony trials, extortion by lawyers, and over 2 million prisoners in the USA gulag.Not to mention that actually the police are incorrect as usual in an election year about the recidivism it is so low in FACT not their fiction!ASK Canada for their results or so many State or independent studies Must be nice to live in a make believe snow globe Get in touch with reality & the rest of the GLOBE Go find a mama grisly & ask it out for dinner LOL!!!!She will eat You And Smile Law Man! Better Watch that trackin' people ain't like a regular animal yah Know,might fallow a set of tracks right off a cliff in a blizzard...........
71177449PatrioticPirate said on Saturday, Jul 23 at 8:12 AM
WOW HOW RUSSIAN OF YOU ALL seems as though Stalin or Hitler should be running for office if they were alive (ie."Germany, May 15, 1871 - First Version of Paragraph 175 - Unnatural fornication, whether between persons of the male sex or of humans with beasts, is to be punished by imprisonment; a sentence of loss of civil rights may also be passed." What was the outcome of this law that was passed so long ago? When Hitler came to power he "broadened the law so that the courts could pursue any "lewd act" whatsoever, even one involving no physical contact... leading to the possibility of punishment for acts as mild as kissing.... Convictions multiplied by a factor of ten to about 8,000 per year.... Furthermore, the Gestapo could transport suspected offenders to concentration camps without any legal justification at all (even if they had been acquitted or already served their sentence in jail)....Thus, between 5,000 and 15,000 sex offenders were forced into concentration camps, where they
71176936Anonymous said on Friday, Jul 22 at 8:33 AM
It is illegal to camp in the city parks (therefore no one should be allowed to use camping as an address)for one and two these guys move around a lot because they don't want the public to know where they are which makes it easier for them to continue thier pattern and makes it not safe for us and our children, there is a reason they have to register and provide an address. If non-compliant they should be sent to jail, if they continue and are not from this city or state they should be sent back to their city or state of origin to keep ours safe.
71130659USA said on Friday, Jul 22 at 7:11 AM
sex offenders are not allowed in parks but they are welcome at the Y M C A
71125574Viviane said on Thursday, Jul 21 at 11:50 PM
There's a few graveyards around. Give sex offenders a permanent home there.
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