Tragic Twist of Irony Highlights Need to Crack Down On Sex Crimes

By Assemblyman Jim Tedisco This past Friday, October 29, I traveled from my office in Schenectady for a meeting with the editorial board of The Queens Courier to discuss the need to pass the Assembly Republican’s legislative package that targets sex offenders. The package of bills include, The Sexual Assault Reform Act, Civil Confinement of Sexualy Violent Predators, and Consecutive Sentences for Serial Rapists. The meeting was a follow-up to my article that appeared in the October 27 edition of this paper, "The Need To Protect Society From Sex Offenders."
While the meeting had been scheduled for a number of weeks, little did I know that just two days before, three teenagers attacked and sodomized a 16-year-old girl. One of the teens charged in the attack said that he just "wanted to know what it was like to be a rapist." In addition, headlines in the previous week’s papers warned us that a serial rapist in Queens had struck again.
I knew that this issue was serious and urgent, but the attacks during the past two weeks have driven home the crisis that people in Queens are living with on a daily basis. My travels on behalf of Assembly Minority Leader John J. Faso could have taken me anywhere in the state but they brought me to Queens. And I came with the message that "we can do something about these tragedies and we can better protect our women and children from these sexual predators."
While this is clearly a statewide epidemic, the events of the past two weeks have demonstrated that these sick, demented, and vicious criminals are weaving a tapestry of fear and violence throughout the streets and neighborhoods of Queens. We need to stop them before that tapestry blankets the entire borough.
In the October 27 article, I highlighted three key bills that need to be acted upon by the New York Assembly (The Sexual Reform Act, Civil Confinement of Sexually Violent Predators, and Consecutive Sentences for Serial Rapists). Our state’s sexual assault statute was drafted in 1965. While times have changed and the nature of these crimes have become more horrific, our laws are not equipped to provide sex offenders with the kind of punishment that they deserve. Today I would like to highlight some of the reasons why we need these bills passed into law.
• Nearly one quarter of convicted rapists receive sentences in a local jail, which typically means they will spend an average of only 11 months behind bars.
• Released rapists are 10 times more likely than felons convicted of crimes other than sexual offenses to be rearrested.
• 25 percent of sexual offenders released from New York State prisons have had a pervious arrest for a sex crime.
• Convicted rapists discharged from a state prisons on parole are likely to have served an average of only about half their sentences, or about five years. Those convicted of other sexual assault crimes and discharged from state prisons are likely to have served an average of just under three years, or about 41 percent of their sentences.
• An estimated 24 percent of those serving time for sexual assault had been on probation or parole at the time of the offense for which they were in State prison.
For some reason however, Manhattan Assembly Speaker, Sheldon Silver refuses to allow these bills to come before the full assembly for a vote, despite their overwhelming support in the State Senate.
The Borough of Queens is fortunate to be represented by 16 members of the Assembly. This is clearly a poweful political force that the Speaker cannot ignore. As a result, I have asked this paper to publish the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of the 16 Queens representatives and I urge you to contact each one of them to enlist their support for the sex offender bills currently before the Assembly.
With your help, we can finally see the long overdue changes to New York’s sexual assault statutes.