Every day I receive one or more emails from the state of Pennsylvania telling me what bills were introduced, voted on, etc in the state house and state senate. (This isn't a special favor to me, anyone can sign up for it on the state's general assembly page.) Sometimes for some odd reason a bill isn't listed until months after it is acted upon in some way. In today's email the only bill mentioned is HB2444 which was referred to the Judiciary committee on February 8, 2006. It wouldn't have really drawn my interest if it weren't the only one listed and sent out so long after going to committee. So I looked at the synopsis:
No. B2444 By Representatives BARRAR, ARMSTRONG, BALDWIN, BOYD, CALTAGIRONE, CAPPELLI, CORNELL, CRAHALLA, CREIGHTON, CRUZ, DALLY, DELUCA, GOODMAN, HESS, HICKERNELL, KAUFFMAN, LEH, MARKOSEK, MARSICO, MCILHINNEY, R. MILLER, PETRARCA, PHILLIPS, PYLE, SIPTROTH, SONNEY, STABACK, E. Z. TAYLOR, WILT, WOJNAROSKI, YOUNGBLOOD and BEYER.
Printer's No. 3520.
An Act amending Title 42 (Judiciary and Judicial Procedure) of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes, providing for library notification by offenders and sexually violent predators.
What exactly does that mean? I looked at the full text of the bill (here). This is the meat of it:
(a) Duty to notify library.--Upon each entry into a public library, offenders and sexually violent predators shall notify a library staff person of their status as an offender or sexually violent predator. For purposes of notification, offenders and sexually violent predators must have a valid form of government-issued photoidentification available for the inspection of the library staff person. The library staff person shall document offenders' and sexually violent predators' names and date and time of attendance in the public library.
(b) Penalty.--An individual subject to notification under this section who fails to notify a library staff person commits a misdemeanor of the third degree.
My first thought was that this would not be much fun for the library staff who, as I understand it, aren't very well paid to begin with. My second was that this would allow for better tracking of computer usage by sex offenders, at least those who could not afford to have a pc at home. They could still visit their skeevy friends who did but it might cut down a little on Internet use to lure children. It would also perhaps dissuade sex offenders from using the public library as a place to meet and groom potential victims. My third thought was to wonder if this impinged on the civil rights of sex offenders.
It is interesting legislation and I will make a point to follow it, providing it ever gets out of committee where it has been sitting for 6 months. If you have any thoughts on it and your legislator is on the Judiciary committee (see link above for list or go to the state house's page and check the committee listings), you might let them know.
Update: In discussing this with Mr. J, he wonders why the focus is on libraries. What about malls? Internet cafes? Public parks? All very valid questions.
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5 comments:
I did a little voluteering at my local Phila library brach about 5 years ago.
Couple things, first the libraries have only a limited number of computers and there's ALWAYS a waiting list to use them plus the max time allowed is one hour. This notion that somehow people just walk into a library, plop down at a computer and spend hours at it is just plain wrong.
Second, every librarian I met there was freaked out that people would leave their kids alone at the library for extended periods of time and the potential for kid to be spirited away or go willingly with s stranger. I guess some parents felt the library is a safer alternative than leaving kids home alone or assume that the librarians can/will watch out for the kids. The libraries aren't staffed to be a day care or police adjunct.
The bottom line is that this is a silly and unenforceable bill, although well-intentioned.
PD,
It is foolish to leave children and a public library (or anywhere) and assume someone else will guarantee their safety. At my local public library there is often a computer available and seldom a wait. When I've traveled and used public libraries for Internet access I've sometimes spent considerable time at a terminal, not hours, but there has never been anyone waiting for the terminal so I didn't rush.
The more I think about the more the law sounds like a "cya" of some kind. It would also be grounds for automatically arresting any sex offender found in a public library that hadn't notified staff he was there.
It would be very difficult to enforce. Libraries that had little traffic from offenders would probably not be familiar with the regulations. It would have the effect of denying this group of people access to state-funded resources and that can't be right.
Maybe everyone is hoping it will die in committee and that's why it was delayed in being announced. In that case my calling attention to it won't be appreciated.
whether or not kids are unattended, it's unmistakable that a lot of them use libraries, for reading programs and presentations and so forth. I presume that the originator of this strange legislation had in mind protecting kids in such a public place from marauding predators, although it's hard to imagine that library staff can be expected to keep an eye on each person who signs in under such a rule. just misguided on a number of fronts...
I volunteered at the PFL Welsh branch and it was always a wait to get a terminal. In fact there was then and is now usually a line waiting for the doors to open so people can get to a computer without waiting.
I suspect the library may be the best of bad alternatives for some parents who can't afford day care or don't want to leave their kids home alone or don't have a relative or neighbor who can keep an eye on the child.
PD,
Unfortunately the parents of these kids are not the only ones who have figured it out. Also, unless there are signed permission slips of some kind library staff can't act in loco parentis. Misbehaving children can be sent out of the library but, I think, unless parental permission has been given, staff can't give kids time outs or other forms of discipline. Some libraries do have some kind of after school programs but the state cut library funding significantly a few years ago. It's not their primary mission so when something has to give.....
I do have to note that I spent a lot of time in my local library when I was a kid and really enjoyed my time there. The staff "adopted" me and gave me little jobs to do (the other kids were at the pool or something -- it was just me hanging around), such as pasting blurbs and card pockets into books. I had a blast. Of course, that was in the days before computers so there weren't lines for anything, except sometimes the newspaper.
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