Sex Offender Law May Be Amended

A bill introduced in the State Senate last week would allow local police departments to release the names of all sex offenders who live in that city.

Members of the public are currently allowed to request the names of those convicted of sex offenses over the past 15 years who live or work within a mile of their home or their children's school or day-care center.

"The problem with the one-mile part of the law for a place like Cambridge is that, in a mile radius from here, you could be in Somerville, Arlington or Boston," said Sgt. Joe McSweeney of the Cambridge Police Department. "It's very difficult to break it up like that because it becomes unclear which municipality has jurisdiction."

The information is available to anyone, including Harvard students, who, as Cambridge residents, can justify being given the list.

The list is intended to protect children, McSweeney said.

"I think that this law is really intended to put people, anyone hiring day- care or with children going to school, at ease," he said. "It really most benefits children."

Massachusetts is the last state in the country to pass a sex offender registry law.

Nevertheless, the law has stirred controversy among some Harvard student groups.

"We have come down against these types of laws, in principle, because they are a violation of privacy," said R. Brian Black '97, director of the Civil Liberties Union of Harvard.

But Seth D. Hanlon '98, president of the Harvard-Radcliffe College Democrats, said he supports President Clinton's leadership in passing these kinds of laws.

Harvard Republican Club President Jay Dickerson '98 agreed that the laws are socially beneficial.

"The rights of the criminals should not become more important than the rights of the victims," he said.

"This is an issue which transcends party lines," Dickerson said, noting that both Clinton and the defeated Republican presidential candidate, Bob Dole, support sex offender registry laws.