'Press' wrong on sexual abuse

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You aren’t a criminal in the eyes of The Riverdale Press unless you committed a sex crime at a headline-grabbing private school decades ago (“Real criminal justice reform,” July 23).

Let’s be clear: sex offenders prey on people everywhere, whether it be inside an elite private school, a home or on a city street.

The Press twisted my record and positions on sexual predators beyond recognition.

Throughout my career, I’ve shielded the public from dangerous sexual predators and enhanced victims’ rights to seek justice in criminal court.

While The Press mocks our state’s civil confinement law as a “dubious power” and believes my call to strengthen it to include people with antisocial personality disorder is nothing more than going after an “easy target,” one might consider the genesis of institutionalizing predators who pose a threat to our society.

Back in 2005, a Level 3 sex offender, Phillip Grant, murdered Connie Russo-Carriero near the Galleria Mall in White Plains. She was a mother of two.

This tragedy spurred conversations about civil confinement. Grant denied mental health services offered to him, though he displayed signs of extremely violent behavior.

Working with Russo’s family, I held roundtables, press conferences and lobbied my colleagues to support a civil confinement law.

Finally in 2007, I proudly stood with her sons, Jonathan and Michael, as Gov. Eliot Spitzer signed the Sex Offenders Management and Treatment Act into law. Through our advocacy, sex offenders now receive more psychiatric treatment after they serve their sentences if a court deems they remain a threat to society.

Recently, New York State’s highest court set a dangerous precedent by ruling antisocial personality disorder was too vague a diagnosis in a civil commitment case. I proposed legislation to remedy this ruling. Many sex offenders with this personality disorder do pose a threat to society and must be considered for mental health treatment.

sexual abuse, sex offenders, press, Phillip Grant, Connie Russo-Carriero, Child Victims Act, Kathleen Ham, Senator Jeff Klein
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