Megan’s Law isn’t working to protect children

“To get the correct answer,” it has been said, “one must remember to ask the correct question.”

So it was in 1994 with the brutal rape and murder of 7-year-old Megan Kanka by a man living in her New Jersey neighborhood.

The public came virtually unhinged when it became known the vermin who killed her had two previous sexual-assault convictions. Predictably, the battle cry from the bully pulpits began: “If only there’d been a law,” they said, “this tragedy could have been prevented.”

As an attorney with more than a passing familiarity with the criminal-justice system at that time, I predicted one of two possible outcomes. At best, I figured it would be the automatic death penalty for the perpetrators of violent crimes on children. At worst, perpetrators would receive life in prison without the possibility of parole. These seemed reasonable enough “answers” if the question was: “If pond-scum pedophiles are so dangerous, why are they ever released from prison?”

I was, of course, wrong.

Instead, led by liberal loon and Democrat Dick Zimmer, the New Jersey state Legislature passed “Megan’s Law” in an unprecedented 89 days.

As the juggernaut ensued, state by state fell victim to the crusade.

When Zimmer went on to Congress, he saw to it that a version of his idiotic New Jersey statute also became federal law.

When all was said and done, everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief. Do-gooders and idiot politicians all proudly sat around drinking Coca-Cola, singing “Kumbaya” and basking in the answers that were Megan’s Laws.

And what exactly do Megan’s Laws do?

Megan’s Laws require, among other things, that low-life pedophiles and other assortments of sex offenders “register” with law-enforcement agencies once released from prison. Offenders are then categorized into tiers. Those most likely to re-offend are listed in public databases.

To this day I have no idea what “the question” was that allowed this moronic “answer” to become law. If I understand the thought process, the death penalty is too harsh for these scum, but regulation “for the children’s sake” is just way cool.

The Silver State’s version of this lunacy can be found at www.nvsexoffenders.gov. Although, other than protecting the privacy of the offenders registered (no addresses are given), there isn’t a whole lot of useful information provided.

If that sounds harsh, consider this: According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, 20 percent of all girls and 10 percent of all boys will suffer some form of sexual assault before reaching adulthood.

According to the National Institutes of Health, the average child molester sexually abuses 117 children during his lifetime.

The California Department of Corrections reports that more than half of its convicted sex offenders are returned to prison within a year of their release. That number jumps to three-quarters after a year. In fact, 20 percent of all U.S. prison inmates report having molested a child.

Now consider that there are more than 400,000 sex offenders in the United States. In Nevada alone, almost half of the active cases are out of compliance with Megan’s Law. California also recently reported that it can’t account for the whereabouts of 33,000 of its offenders required to register. (So much for the effective “regulation” of criminals.)

So now I’d like some criminal-coddling, anti-death penalty, left-wing type to please answer this question: If pond-scum pedophiles are so dangerous that they need to be registered, why should they ever be released from prison at all?