NEW YORK
Times Union
By TU Editorial Board on May 8, 2017
Our opinion: The state Senate’s Republican majority is effectively enabling child sexual predators when it refuses to extend the statute of limitations on criminal and civil action.
It wouldn’t be a legislative session without at least one news release boasting of what New York’s Republican Senate majority is doing to crack down on sex crimes. What should concern New Yorkers, though, is what the majority is trying to tamp down.
The Senate’s latest crusade is a bill that would bar low-level sex offenders from driving for ride-hailing companies, like Uber and Lyft. Yet behind the scenes, the GOP majority is doing its best to block even a vote on a different type of sex crime legislation — a bill to extend the statute of limitations on prosecution and lawsuits involving child sexual assault.
The ride-hailing bill would modify the just-approved law that allows outfits like Uber to operate in the state. The original bill prohibited Level 2 and Level 3 sex offenders from driving for those companies. The new measure would add to the list Level 1 offenders — those considered to have a low likelihood of committing sex crimes again.
As potential crime goes, this is pretty minimal. The Senate is focusing on relatively low-risk individuals who would be constantly monitored on the job by technology that would record the driver, the fare, and the pickup and drop-off locations and times, making it unlikely anybody could get away with a crime.
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