WHIO Local News

Austria: Tougher law would not have stopped Cleveland horrors

Tom Michaels - Internet News Director

@ November 10, 2009 5:32 AM Permalink | Comments (1)

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- One of Ohio's foremost champions of tougher sexual predator laws concedes that probably no law could have stopped the tragedy unfolding in Cleveland.

Republican Congressman Steve Austria, a former state senator from the Dayton area, pushed for state laws that he and other supporters believed would make Ohio safer.

Yet Anthony Sowell, a compliant registered sex offender, is accused of murdering several unsuspecting women and stowing their bodies in a Cleveland house and yard that reeked of rotting flesh. Remains of 11 people have been found.

Austria says the laws play an important role in allowing society to keep track of sex offenders, but those who want to will find ways around any safeguards.

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Just wondering
I'm wondering how effective sex offender registration really is. According to a 2008 report by the Office of Sex Offender Management, a project of the U.S. Justice Department, "these laws have significant resource implications, yet to date very little research has been conducted to examine the extent to which these investments have yielded significant public safety returns."
By Demosthenes @ 11/10/09 08:19:52 AMreport abuse

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