Juvenile Sex Offenders Listed with Adult Criminals

A local neighborhood is on edge after receiving notice a high risk sex offender is living on their street.

22-years old now Andrew Aguilar was branded a sex offender when he was only 11 years old.

A system that was built to protect the public from sexual predators, also labels children as young as ten years old as sex offenders.

"This is just a child," Bel Delapaz, Andrews mother, while holding a picture of Aguilar when he was 11 years old.

Aguilar was just eleven years old when he was taken from his family and sent to a Texas State School, locked up for committing sexual offenses.

"You know when your a teenager, you understand, you know what you're doing. But when your younger and you don't understand how to explain, yes I am a sex offender."

Aguilar's mother, Bel, who didn't want to appear on camera, says not only was his childhood taken, but the rest of his life has been drastically altered. At 18 he was forced to register with the Dept. of Public Safety's Sex Offender Registry.

"They're put on the same list that adults are put on that an offender that actually raped and molested a child in a heinous way is put on."

This list has become a stigma that prevents him from doing simple things like applying for housing, higher education, and jobs.

"He's been harassed at work where people have gone to his employment and demanded to speak to his manager."

She wants to see a change, not with the stigma, but with the law that allows him to be grouped with adult criminals.

"And I'm not blaming society, I'm blaming the laws, because until we change the law and categorize these offenders, we don't know who to be fearful of."

"I think Andrew will be okay in the sense that he's got a lot of support and family who love him, but I don't think he'll ever be able to make it on his own."

There is new legislation called the Adam Walsh Act, that if passed, will implement much harsher registration laws for adult sex offenders, and right now the Ector County attorney's office is concerned how the law will impact juvenile offenders.

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• Aguilar
• Sex
• Offender
• Juvenile
• Bel
• Delapaz