Hot Sex

Today's column will require a small measure of audience participation. First I want you to think of a child you know. It can be your child or stepchild, your grandchild, a niece or nephew, a youngster from your church or a neighborhood kid who rides a bike by your house.

Now, with the smiling face of that child in your mind, I want you to consider how you'd react if that same child was reported missing - snatched by a stranger from a school bus stop. Think first about the panic that would grip the entire community as law enforcement and search crews organized to try and find the missing child? You might even join the search and help scour isolated and wooded areas in hopes of locating the child.

Then consider the anguish and hopelessness that would follow as minutes turned into hours and hours turned into days, still with no trace of the child. And finally, I want you to think hard about the "kicked-in-the-gut" feeling that would grip you when authorities discovered that a registered sex offender, who lived in the immediate area where the child was reported missing, had been named as a "person of interest" in the abduction.

And finally, I want you consider the heartbreak and immeasurable grief that you would feel when authorities discovered the lifeless body of that child, yet another victim of a sexual predator.

While that grim scenario is purely hypothetical, there are scores of families all over the nation who have lived a similar nightmare for real. The fact that we all recognize names like Polly Klaas, Jessica Lunsford, Shasta Groene and Megan Nicole Kanka is proof of that.

I asked you to participate this morning and place yourself in that horrific situation in order to help you more understand the plight of Sara Johnson of Edwardsville.

These days Johnson is a mixture of mad, nervous, scared and more than a little perturbed with the Edwardsville School District. Like many mothers, Johnson was excited about the start of the new school year. Johnson enrolled her 5-year-old daughter at Leclaire Elementary School as a kindergartner, and as you would expect, both mother and daughter were excited about the beginning of the school year.

That excitement quickly turned to horror when Johnson learned that the location where her daughter would wait to catch the bus is directly in front of a house where 22-year-old Jacob Fife, a convicted sex offender, lives. A check of the Illinois State Police Web site shows that Fife lives at 1101 Prickett Ave. and was convicted in 2002 of aggravated criminal sexual abuse (force).

Johnson took her plight to Edwardsville school officials and was told her daughter could catch the bus at a stop located one block away from Fife's residence, but they would not change the bus stop. Under Illinois statute, sex offenders are prohibited from living within 500 feet of child care centers, schools, parks and playgrounds, but there is no law that stops sex offenders from living near school bus stops.

Johnson said she received a letter from Edwardsville school officials concerning her complaint and was told that the school district "uses all reasonable means" to change the location of a bus stop when it is near the residence of a sex offender. However, school officials said the bus stop can't be moved because Prickett Avenue is a dead-end street and there is not enough room for the bus to turn around. In the meantime, children are still waiting each morning in front of Fife's residence for the bus.

I spoke with Johnson by telephone a few days ago and she explained that she's so alarmed with the situation that she takes her daughter to school and will for at least the remainder of this school year.

"The school district needs to cross-reference the bus stop with the addresses of registered sex offenders and then inform parents that their children could very well be in harm's way," Johnson said. "I just don't feel that there is enough protection in place to let her catch the bus there."

Johnson said she plans to take her cause to the Illinois General Assembly and seek an amendment to "Megan's Law" that would prohibit sex offenders from living near bus stops.

While lawmakers have taken positive steps to protect children, much more is needed. We must have tougher laws and tougher penalties against pedophiles that allow judges to hand down tougher sentences - period.

In the politically-correct world we live in, the subject of sexual predators is often glossed over for fear of offending somebody or infringing on somebody's rights. Showing once again just how "out-of-step" I am, let me explain that there are sexual perverts trolling the streets looking for helpless children to attack. And it's up to us to scream loud enough, despite ACLU threats, to put some teeth in laws to protect children.

My idea is that first-time child molesters should get a 30-year prison sentence with no time off for good behavior. A second offense? Well, that would involve a surgical procedure.

This is cache, read story here