Mandatory life, no parole for child molesters?

WND is reporting...

Amid increasing evidence that child molesters are sexual predators for life, Florida lawmakers are considering life for sexual predators.

State Rep. Bob Allen, R-Merritt Island, hopes to seize the opportunity of a special legislative session that begins today and runs through Friday to make headway with his "Sexual Predators Elimination Act."

The measure, HB 251, seeks mandatory life sentences without parole or eligibility for gain time for individuals designated as sexual predators. Under Florida law, these are individuals convicted of sexual battery on a child 12 or younger, repeat sexual offenders, sexual offenders who use physical violence and sexual offenders who use or threaten the use of a deadly weapon.

"We need to lock them up and throw away the key," Allen told WND. Otherwise, he says, they continue to prey on children and teenagers to feed a need that never goes away.

Who could possibly be opposed?

George Crossley, president of the central Florida chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. "I'm reasonably cynical enough to know that these folks really don't care one way or another about what happens to children, they care what it'll take for them to win the next election."

Crossley told WND he's concerned about the 170,000 family members of sex offenders across the state being adversely affected by what he views as a building hysteria.

"About 3 percent of the people that we're talking about here are sexual predators who deserve to be watched," he said. "The other 97 percent are sexual offenders, some of them who 20, 25, 30, 40 years ago did something, and in many cases it was underage sex. ... The facts are in most of these cases, you're not talking about people who are a threat to anybody. And yet, since Jessica Lunsford's murder, which was basically the fault of law enforcement in more ways than one, we've had one Draconian statute proposed after another."