COLUMBIA --- More police officers were assaulted or killed in the South than any other region, according to FBI data, and a bill could offer the Palmetto State's law enforcement some help.
Of 59,000 assaults on law enforcement in 2007, nearly half were in the South. For the same year, 31 of the 57 officers killed by a criminal were in the South.
"It's like that every year," said Robert Stewart, who was the head of the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division for 20 years.
He's hopeful that could change. A bill that would require someone to carry a special driver's license or ID card to signify a violent criminal record is headed to the Senate floor.
The program would cost $25,000 up front to change the state Department of Motor Vehicles' computer system, then the ex-offenders would pay $50 to receive a new, marked driver's license or ID card.
S. 288, sponsored by Sen. Larry Martin, R-Pickens, wouldn't solve the problem, Mr. Stewart said, but it would help.
Jerry Wright, the president of the South Carolina Fraternal Order of Police, said South Carolina would be the first state to require the special IDs. A similar bill died in the Georgia Legislature last session.
Privacy activists are bristling.
"It seems to promote recidivism by ex-offenders who have paid their debt to society," said Victoria Middleton, the head of the state American Civil Liberties Union chapter. "The 'scarlet letter' stigma that would follow them doesn't promote rehabilitation."
She said law enforcement wouldn't be the only ones to see the marked licenses.
"There is real potential that it could be used by others for discrimination," she said.
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