Legislative reaction to grief has not always proved effective in dealing with sex offenders.  If history is any guide, Chelsea's Law will be embraced by victims' groups, law enforcement and politicians of all persuasions. When the alternative is violent vengeance, a legislative reaction to such wrenching grief can seem measured and civil. But the near-universal appeal of such laws has stilled the basic questions that inform debates over less emotionally freighted subjects. For one thing, do their restrictions actually work? Given California's woeful financial state, with the corrections system under intense pressure to save more and more money while it imprisons and monitors more and more felons, do they make sense?

By Cathleen Decker, LATimes
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-week14-2010mar14,0,4125153.story