Sex offender denied shelter

Thomas Pauli was found dead on the streets of Grand Rapids on January 28, 2009 as a result of being turned away from one and possibly two mission shelters because he is a registered sex offender and cannot be within 1,000 miles of a school or park. Officials believe that Pauli may be alive today if it wasn't for the State law that prohibits sex offenders from establishing residence even for one night within the above-stated terms. The mission shelters where Pauli tried to gain entrance to had to deny him or risk fines and loss of their license and they didn't want to risk that. The reason for these boundaries is based on Megan's Law and followed closely. Bill Schafer of Guilding Light stated that people like Pauli are considered the "Scarlet Letter" folks of our day in age. Pauli was released in 2003 after serving 11 years for second-degree criminal sexual conduct in Grand Traverse County. This is a sad story where someone had to die in the cold of Michigan weather. The problem is that he is a sex offender and if one of these misson shelters would have allowed him to stay the night there that would have put any women or children in danger. If anything would have happened to a child while Pauli was staying there, then that makes the mission shelter responsible. What about any family that he would have stayed with? It is not our responsibility as a community to take care of a sex offender once he is released from prison/jail. He was lucky enough to have gotten released. It is hard to feel sorry for someone who does such a heinous crime against a child or anyone for that matter. On the other hand, maybe something can be done for convicted criminals of such crimes that are homeless and can be rehabilitated, if at all.


http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2009/01/man_found_dead_in_cold_was_tur.html

I can understand where the mission shelters are coming from. The law is the law and even just taking the risk of not getting caught isn’t a good idea because the fines and punishments for breaking the law is normally a lot especially here in Michigan no matter what the situation. On the other hand though, being a sex offender can mean o lot of things and saying that him within a certain radius from a school or whatever is dangerous is not fair or right. Everyone makes mistakes. I know someone on the sex offender list that just went pee in public. Does him doing that put women and children in danger and an unforgiving crime?

I agree that the shelter shouldn't have allowed him in because they would have been putting all the women and children in risk of danger. This is keeping all the other people safe from all the horrible people of the world by keeping him locked out. This man committed a crime and it had to of been more then just peeing on the side of a building. He did eleven years in a prison, so it was more then just a slap on the wrist for him. I can agree that some of the people on the sex offenders list aren't dangerous, but it all depends on the crime they committed to get on the list and how long they had to serve in jail/prison.