Knox County Commissioners are trying to pass an ordinance that would increase the distance sex offenders must stay away from schools and child-care facilities.
“Locally the state law is 1,000 feet,” said County Commission Chairman Scott Moore, sponsor of the ordinance.
The new law would increase the distance to 2,500 feet that a sex offender is ordered to stay away from those facilities.
According to Moore, the idea started two years ago when “there was an incident at the north end of the county” where it took sheriffs several months to get rid of a sex offender.
The ordinance was approved unanimously by the commission’s 19 members Monday in the first of two votes, Moore said.
In order for the proposal to pass and become a county ordinance it must be read again and voted on in February; if it passes it will become law.
The proposed ordinance would require a sex offender to not work, live or be within 2,500 feet of a school or day-care facility.
“Anything we can do to protect our children,” Moore said.
A similar ordinance that was passed in an Iowa county was challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union in that state.
The ACLU took the case to the United States District Court, Southern district, and won. But on appeal, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ordinance last year and the United States Supreme Court refused to hear the case.
Ben Stone, executive director of the ACLU in Iowa, said the ordinance hurts the community rather than helps it.
“It’s impractical. It’s unenforceable. It drains resources from legitimate law enforcement and it doesn’t make anybody safer,” Stone said.
The effect of the ordinance isn’t to ensure children’s safety, but to encourage sex offenders to keep their secret hidden.
“It drives sex offenders underground. They don’t register — they run, they hide,” he said.
According to the Knoxville News Sentinel, the proposed ordinance would make it a civil penalty to violate the space limit, with a potential fine of up to $500 a day for violating it. The state law also carries a criminal penalty.
Ordinances like the one proposed in Knox County first gained attention in Florida after the abduction and murder of 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford. Since then a similar ordinance has been passed in that state.
Knox County schools haven’t experienced an instance like the assault and murder of Jessica Lunsford, according to a school spokesperson.
“We have not had a particular incident of that type around the schools here,” Russ Oaks, Knox County Schools spokesperson, said. “We will support whatever decision that is made.”
According to Moore, the ordinance basically comes from a desire to protect kids from a whole list of sex offenders. The greater the distance offenders must stay away from school facilities, the more unlikely it is for an incident to occur.
