Proponents in Wisconsin, Ohio and Alabama say the sex offender plates would be another tool to keep the public safe. Critics say the plates would lead to a false sense of security and unintended consequences.
"For too long child sex predators have been watching our children," said state Rep. Joel Kleefisch, a Wisconsin Republican. "It's time we have an opportunity to watch them back."
Wisconsin's bill, authored by Kleefisch, would require people convicted of the most serious assaults involving children to use a chartreuse-green plate. The license plate in Ohio would be fluorescent green, and the Alabama bill would leave it up to the state Department of Revenue to design the plate.
An Assembly committee approved the Wisconsin bill 8-3 last week. Hearings have been held in Ohio, where Gov. Ted Strickland, a Democrat, has said he would sign the bill if it makes it to his desk. The Alabama bill was only recently introduced.
Oshkosh resident Travis Hoddel, 30, a registered sex offender following a 1994 conviction for an assault involving a relative that was not severe enough to be covered by the proposed Wisconsin plan, called the license plates "ridiculous."
Hoddel, who would not have to use the plates, nevertheless wondered what would happen if an offender's wife used the car with the special plates.
"There are people like me (for) who it was an isolated incident, and we are trying to move on and live a normal life, and we can't," he said.
Mark Jackson says he has "not even the slightest iota" of sympathy for any inconvenience the license plates might pose.
In 2002, a convicted sex offender abducted, raped and murdered his 14-year-old daughter, Kristen, after she attended a county fair in Wooster, Ohio.
"It's destroyed us," Jackson said. "That's why I have no sympathy for the lives of the sex offenders."
Jackson recently testified in support of Ohio's bill, dubbed "Kristen's Law" after his daughter.
"We would have known this perpetrator lived in our neighborhood," he said.
In Alabama, Democratic state Rep. Marc Keahey, father of a 17-month-old son, said the impact of these crimes "hits home." He authored a bill to require special plates for sex offenders convicted of assaulting children younger than 12.
"We need to do everything we can to make sure we are warned," Keahey said.
Carl Wicklund, executive director of the American Probation and Parole Association, said he isn't sure the license plate laws would make communities safer. He said they potentially could create a false sense of security.
Wicklund said the vast majority of sex offenses are committed by people the victim knows.
"What (lawmakers) try to get across to the public is sex offenders are these people who jump out of the bushes," he said. "That's much more the exception than the rule."
Wicklund also said many lawmakers are reluctant to oppose bills that crack down on sex offenders.
"It takes an awful lot of political capital to say, 'No, that's not the way to go,' " he said.
Carrie Abner, a research associate who studies sex offender management with the American Probation and Parole Association, an affiliate of the Council of State Governments, said she is not aware of states other than Wisconsin, Ohio and Alabama with pending license plate bills and that she knows of no states that have passed such a law.
In Wisconsin, state Rep. Mark Pocan, a Democrat, said the plates could simply encourage sex offenders not to drive. Or, the plates could spur vigilantism, he said.
"I understand the frustration that legislators and the public have about dealing with hard-core sex offenders," Pocan said. "The problem is, we come up with a lot of knee-jerk reactions that don't do anything about public safety."
Ohio state Sen. Kevin Coughlin, a Republican, said the criticisms don't have merit.
In addition to requiring that sex offenders use special license plates, he said the Ohio bill would increase penalties for someone who commits a sex offense while in possession of a rental car and restrict an offender's use of company cars to business hours and business purposes.
Coughlin said lawmakers are trying to stay a step ahead of sex offenders. He said lawmakers from other states have called his office inquiring about Ohio's legislation.
"We understand sex offenders are entrepreneurial," Coughlin said. "They find ways around the rules and find ways around the laws, and that's why legislators all over the country are constantly introducing and passing bills dealing with this stuff."
