Ehrlich Proposes Monitoring Sex Offenders for Life

Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. announced this morning he will ask the legislature to impose lifetime electronic monitoring on all child sex offenders and sexually violent predators.

The legislation will be part of a package of initiatives he will bring to state lawmakers when they convene Wednesday for the start of the 2006 General Assembly session.

The governor presented his plans at Glendale Elementary School in Anne Arundel County. The school was recently in the news after a quick-thinking secretary used the state's online registry to identify a man lurking on school property and alert authorities.

Among Ehrlich's proposals will be one that would make it illegal for a convicted child sex offender to enter school grounds without permission or live within 1,000 feet of a school or day-care facility.

Ehrlich (R) acknowledged that he will meet resistance from civil libertarians, comparing the trade-off to the one made when Congress passed the USA Patriot Act.

"I would ask everyone here not to indulge, but to listen to those concerns," Ehrlich said. "We're not going to demonize and demagogue those who have certain issues with this."

There were both Republican and Democratic elected officials on hand for the announcement. Sen. Philip C. Jimeno (D-Anne Arundel) said the governor's proposals will be considered alongside those already offered by such Democrats as state Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. and Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley.

In August, O'Malley, a Democratic contender for governor this year, proposed requiring child sex offenders -- whom O'Malley said cannot be rehabilitated -- to wear ankle bracelets for life that would allow law enforcement officials to track their locations with Global Positioning System technology. Florida is adopting that system.

At the announcement, O'Malley showed reporters how the city tracks garbage trucks using the same technology. Ehrlich announced a first set of recommendations days later.

At the time, Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan (D), another gubernatorial contender, criticized Ehrlich and O'Malley for playing politics with such a sensitive issue.

"This is not a partisan issue," said Jimeno, who sits on the Senate committee likely to hear the legislation. "I think we'll wind up with something that combines the best elements of all the ideas being put forward."