"An 11th hour addition to Del. Rob Bell’s (R-Albemarle) 2006 legislative offensive on sex offenders proposes to bar those registered with the Virginia Sex Offender Registry from working at elementary and secondary schools. Moreover, in the most serious cases—such as rape or aggravated sexual battery of a child—the defendant would not be able to volunteer at schools, either.

There are currently 90 cons in the Charlottesville-Albemarle area listed with the State registry. According to the Sexual Assault Resource Agency, however, the reg-istry represents only 10 percent of sex of-fenders: 90 percent are acquaintances of the victim and their crimes are never reported.

Bell drafted the bill two weeks ago after hearing about a case in Madison in which a 10-time sex offender and felon visited a primary school dressed as Santa; school officials did not find out about his criminal past until after the fact. Although no children were harmed, Bell saw a loophole that needed closing.

Bell cites high rates of recidivism; a 2003 study by the Department of Justice, for instance, says 40 percent of sex offenders reoffend within a year of discharge. He also cites evidence that sex offenders don’t “age out” of their crimes, and Bell characterizes continued monitoring of sex offenders not as a “double standard” but as a “different standard.” According to Bell, whereas crimes like armed robbery are “a young man’s game,” a sex offender’s capacity for crime persists throughout his life.

While agreeing that sex offenses are among the most serious out there, UVA Law Professor Anne Coughlin warns that assumptions about those offenders that bar the possibility of rehabilitation are dangerous.

“We’re committed to labeling these people as forever corrupt,” says Coughlin, who believes the laws currently on the books are sufficient. “That’s a very strong statement. Are we confident?”

In addition to the school bill, Bell is the co-patron of another bill that would increase the mandatory minimum prison term to 25 years for sex crimes against children and require a minimum of three years of monitoring by a global positioning system after the offender had served time.

Whereas Charlottesville Police Chief Timothy Longo says it is important to be aware of whether convicted sex offenders are interacting with children on school grounds, he “would rather not get into the whole GPS thing because that takes it to the next level.”

Coughlin agrees and points out that, in light of the recent disclosures that the Bush Ad-ministration has condoned mon-itoring the comments and move-ments of private citizens, the GPS question could create a Fourth Amendment issue.

“Certainly [GPS tracking is] the use of technology to gather information about people’s thoughts, comments, movements,” she says. “And this is all very much in the public eye.”" (Nell Boeschenstein, C-Ville Weekly, January 31, 2006)