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One town's search for more ways to protect children should be adopted Island-wide The New York State Legislature continues to remarkably defy the imperatives placed upon it by the public to protect their communities against recidivist pedophiles. Strong pieces of legislation that would mandate civil confinement for those criminals who have served their terms but continue to pose a threat to children has failed to win passage in Albany. And, with the exception of some legal safeguards enacted with much grumbling, there continues to be an LIRR-wide gap between political partisanship and an aggressive commonsense approach to the problem. At the local level, officials have recognized they can't wait for Albany to act and have taken things into their own hands. Suffolk County enacted a law that recently went into effect ensuring that convicted sex offenders released from prison live at least a quarter of a mile away from places that serve children-schools, parks, nursery schools and youth centers. Now, Babylon Town has taken another step. It is using its technological resources to ensure that this law and others are being met. The Town's newly developed geographical information system allows the town to take the state's registry information indicating where violent sexual predators are living and compare it to a map that isolates the restricted living areas for pedophiles. And the program, after some initial development, is cheap to maintain when compared to the level of protection it provides. When it is determined that a sexual offender is violating the county law, the town will act, notifying the landlord and the state parole board, and monitoring the situation to ensure it is appropriately resolved. Babylon's decision to move forward with this project came after it was discovered that the state was permitting clustering of these ex-offenders within communities, magnifying their threat. In fact, two years ago, more than 7 were found to be living in a motel in North Babylon in obvious disregard to many laws already in place. The overlay abilities of the GIS to protect communities against pedophiles has made Babylon's latest move possible, but few smaller communities in the state have these technological systems in place, so, adopting this program is not likely. At the county levels, however, geographical information systems are at work performing a myriad of important functions from monitoring the location of drainage pipes to street lamps to setting up a system of road management and repair. Nassau and Suffolk should consider adding the functionality that Babylon has to these systems, and link it with the police departments across Long Island to create a comprehensive regional site that can tap into the wealth of information from the state's sex offender registry and make it work here to protect children and families.
Our children cannot wait for Albany lawmakers to reach consensus on controversial measures that are mired in political wrangling. Our communities need to use all of the resources at their disposal to do what needs to be done, and our county and town lawmakers have to have the vision and determination to make it happen.
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