It is disturbing to see the recent sexual assault-related cases in the Ketchikan court system.
In one case, a minor reports she woke up to discover she was being raped. In another, a woman who admits to being intoxicated, reports she was sufficiently cognizant to say stop when beset by an alleged and known attacker.
Those are two current examples.
Ketchikan has seen such cases in the past. But it isn’t usual for a series of them in a short period of time — at least not so that they enter public purview.
Compounding that is that in some cases the alleged attacker is a registered sex offender. A range of situations can lead to the requirement to register.
The Alaska Department of Public Safety provides a sex offender registry, which is helpful in alerting to potential risks.
Sadly, there is page after page of listed registered offenders in Alaska. As stated earlier, this is disturbing, particularly in cases of an offender with multiple incidents.
It prompts the question of what isn’t being done in the system to prevent this. But it’s the same question when it comes to any number of crimes.
Some say the problem of anti-social behavior such as assault starts in the home. Others blame life circumstances, such as poverty and lack of education. Whatever the thoughts on what creates an offender, there are many.
And everyone, including the families on both sides of an assault, favor answers that would lead to ending rape and the like — not only in Ketchikan, but throughout the state.
It’s when a series of cases occur that the conversation about how to do that becomes louder.
— Ketchikan Daily News, Dec. 13, 2017
