Senator George Runner
Serving the 17th District which incorporates portions of the Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Ventura and Kern counties.

I am shaken to the core by the tragic deaths of Chelsea King and Amber Dubois. My heart goes out to their families and the tremendous loss they are forced to endure. No parent should ever have to experience such heartbreak.

That's why it's not surprising that when I said goodbye to my daughter last week (she is returning to Key West for Coast Guard duties) I gave her an extra hug and told her to be safe.

As parents we worry incessantly about the safety of our children in this precarious world of ours. We preach and instill values that we hope will keep them out of harm's way.

When our children grow to be responsible adolescents or adults we are delighted, but our ability to protect them from threats of criminal violence is limited.

That's why it's necessary for our society to pass sensible legislation, like Jessica's Law, that protects our children, serves justice and punishes criminals.

Thanks to the intransigence of a liberal-controlled Legislature, it took the California voters to pass Jessica's Law in 2006 - and they passed it by a whopping 70 percent!

What the voters understood is that by passing Jessica's Law, they would empower district attorneys to put dangerous, violent rapists away for longer periods of time - including the civil confinement of sexually violent predators.

You see, one of the provisions of Jessica's Law states that a convicted sex offender only has to commit one violent sex crime to qualify for mental health evaluation while incarcerated in state prison. What this means is a convicted sex offender could be committed to a state mental hospital for further evaluation and treatment - after serving prison time for a single offense.

The fact is, had Jessica's Law been in place when John Albert Gardner - the man accused of killing Chelsea King and is a suspect in the Amber Dubois killing - was sentenced for lewd and lascivious behavior and false imprisonment of a minor in 2000, he would have been eligible for additional confinement in a state mental hospital. But because of pre-Jessica's Law conditions, Gardner was not eligible for civil commitment as a sexually violent predator without a second victim and thus, Gardner was released to the streets after serving a mere five years.

Sadly, it appears Gardner has more victims.

Keep in mind, too that Gardner showed all the signs of a sociopath - the San Diego Union-Tribune reports that a psychiatrist said Gardner should be locked away for a long time because he "would be a continued danger to underage girls in the community."

Furthermore, if Gardner had been subject to Jessica's Law when he was first paroled he would have been wearing a GPS device, which would have served as a deterrent to commit heinous crimes.

I don't want to get caught up in speculation - especially when an innocent girl was brutally murdered. What I want to illustrate is that Jessica's Law is aimed directly at sexually violent sociopaths like Gardner.

Consequently, when critics of Jessica's Law question whether California's increased spending on the psychological evaluations of thousands of potential sexually violent predators is cost effective; I would argue that it's one of the greatest investments we can make - for the safety of our children.