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The Jimmy Ryce Act targets only a small number of predators for
treatment, leaving thousands of offenders released from prisons
every year without little or no therapy.
Ryce agrees that more needs to be done to prevent rapes, molestations
and other sexual crimes before they happen.
''We need to understand these people more,'' said Ryce, whose home
is filled with photos and mementos of his son. ``You just can't
treat them like every other criminal. We aren't doing a whole lot
better at prevention.''
On Sept. 11, as the country marked another year since the attacks
on the World Trade Center, Jimmy's parents faced the 10th anniversary
of their son's abduction and death in 1995.
That's when Jimmy hopped off the school bus in daylight and began
the short walk home, past the citrus groves and bucolic yards of
his neighbors in the Redland, a rural hamlet in South Miami-Dade.
Out of nowhere Juan Carlos Chavez, a migrant handyman living in
an abandoned trailer two miles away, cut off Jimmy's path with his
pickup truck.
According to Chavez's confession, he jumped out, grabbed Jimmy
by the shirt and pointed a gun at him.
''Do you want to die?'' he asked.
''No,'' Jimmy said.
''Then get in the truck and lie on the front seat floor, so no
one will see you.''
In that split second, Jimmy was gone forever.
''It's hard,'' Don Ryce said. ''I don't know why five and 10 years
have such special meaning, but they do.''
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