Political shenanigans
Remember the young New Jersey girl whose abduction and death at the hands of a convicted child molester prompted legislatures throughout the country to adopt laws in her honor? Pennsylvania’s Megan’s Law requires those judged by the courts to be sexual predators to register with police upon release from prison. For the worst offenders, the community is notified that a sexual predator lives among them. There is some speculation, given national news stories that other states have failed to efficiently track pedophiles, that sexual predators might be falling through the cracks in Pennsylvania. Auditor General Bob Casey wants to find out how well the state police keep tabs on those required to register under Megan’s Law.
This should be a rather straightforward task. These are people whose arrests, trials, convictions and sentences are part of the public record. But the state police have told Casey to buzz off. The agency claims it can’t release names, addresses and release dates without violating another law, the Criminal History Records Information Act. If Casey were asking for troopers’ case file notes and nitty-gritty details gathered during investigations, we might agree that the state police have a point. But he isn’t, and they don’t.
To make matters worse Gov. Ed Rendell, who beat Casey in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, has aligned his support with the state police, and the whole mess is now in court with Casey fighting for public records in order to determine if police are tracking pedophiles, as they should, or if a number of these predators are roaming freely.
It became worse on Monday when Rendell’s lawyers filed documents in Commonwealth Court, asking that the court find the auditor general’s office doesn’t even have the power to conduct audits on the performance of other agencies. What is Rendell pulling? The auditor general is elected statewide by voters to make sure that agencies not only account for every nickel and dime of their tax money but spend it the way they intended it to be spent.
This is called oversight and accountability. It’s what keeps governments honest. The auditor general traditionally performs this role. The governor is wrong to challenge the auditor general’s authority. Instead, he should be working with Casey and the state police to devise a way for Casey’s staff to conduct an oversight of Megan’s Law without police running afoul of disclosure problems.
There’s a way to do this, and it must be done. The public wanted Megan’s Law to help protect children from becoming victims. Squabbling over power does nothing to further that aim.