Drew Wilson
Shalimar Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz released a new ad Tuesday that trumpets his role in passing tougher penalties on sex offenders in 2014.
“I’m Matt Gaetz, and I’ll always fight to protect our kids,” the Senate District 1 candidate said in the video. “The system was broken, so I led the fight to fix it,”
The 2014 sex offender bill package Gaetz is referring to – SB522, SB524, SB526 and SB528 – passed both chambers with unanimous support near the start of the 2014 Legislative Session and got a signature from Gov. Rick Scott a few weeks later.
“When I became Chairman of the House Criminal Justice Subcommittee, our justice system had failed our kids. In 2013 an 8-year-old girl was abducted, raped and murdered by a violent sexual predator who had just been released from prison,” Gaetz said in the ad announcement. “Reforming our criminal justice system became my top priority, and I led the fight to crack down on these monsters that prey upon our most vulnerable citizens.
Though the Senate versions made it into law, the Gaetz-chaired House Criminal Justice Subcommittee sponsored the House version of Sen. Rob Bradley’s SB526, which increased the mandatory minimum sentences for violent sexual offenders to 50 years, with no opportunity for an early release.
The Gaetz commercial comes one day after his opponent in the SD1 race, Bay County Commissioner George Gainer, released his own commercial touting his conservative credibility. Gaetz’s commercial, which says he’s played a role in getting some legislation passed, ignores the back and forth with Gainer and highlights his work as a lawmaker. Whether championing a noncontroversial bill in his committee is considered leading the fight, though, is up to SD1’s voters.
One comment
TNF 13
November 3, 2015 at 10:38 pm
Sex offenders have the lowest recidivism rate of any crime but murder- Google ‘sex offender recidivism’. The particular case cited is very atypical of sex offenders as a whole. Furthermore, harsher penalties for this crime have never been shown to reduce recidivism or prevent child sex abuse. In fact, harsher penalties like community notification have been shown to increase recidivism.
90% of child sex abuse happens at the hands of those known and trusted by the child, and 95% of the perpetrators have an attraction to children.
If Mr. Gaetz wishes to ‘crack down’ on those who prey on children, he will stop pushing for increased penalties, and instead create a process by which those with attractions to children can get help and treatment to manage those attractions. Not adults, not old men- teenagers. That is when most with attractions to children first begin to notice it. Enough reacting after abuse has happened, and getting help only to those who have acted- make that help available and well-known before someone rapes a child.
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