ME- STATEHOUSE Testimony targets sex offenders

9-30-2008 Maine:

AUGUSTA -- Victims of sex crimes and the offenders often live in the same home, where the crimes also occur.
That was part of the message brought by Kurt Bumby, senior manager of the Center for Sex Offender Management, to a committee of legislators wrestling with the problem of how to manage sex offenders and increase public safety.

"Being grabbed in an alleyway sometimes happens, but those are the exceptions," Bumby said. "Strangers tend to be the exception."

The Committee on Criminal Justice & Public Safety met Monday at the Department of Public Safety offices in Augusta for a briefing on Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act.

In the second of three informational meetings, the panel heard from Bumby as well as from officials in four other states where policymakers have grappled with similar issues.

"We either reinvent the wheel or take a day and bring in the experts," Sen. Bill Diamond, D-Windham, said. "This should enhance the effectiveness of what we're trying to do."

Diamond, Senate chairman of the committee, said the committee is dealing with three issues:

* legal challenges of Maine's retroactive registration requirement filed by sex offenders;

* the federal Adam Walsh Act, which is aimed at expanding the national sex offender registry and keeping track of sex offenders no matter which state they live in, while increasing penalties for crimes against children; and

* a tiered system to classify offenders based on offense or risk to reoffend or both.

"We have our hands full," Diamond said.

Sen. Earle McCormick, R-West Gardiner, said he was looking for information on how the state's sex offender registry can be more effectively administered.

"If we have a three-tier system, how do we figure who are the high risks?" McCormick said.

Bumby told committee members that sex offenses are a small percentage of all crimes committed, but get a disproportionate amount of publicity.

He also said offenders are a diverse group.

"Research is clear that sex offenders don't all look the same, and those variations have important implications for management strategies," Bumby said. "One-size-fits-all strategies are not likely to get us the results we want."

He said research shows that those more likely to reoffend are those who rape adult women and those who victimize boys outside the family.

"Depending on whom they target, recidivism rates vary," Bumby said. "Sex offenders are not all alike. Do we want policies to treat them alike? Will that serve the public?"

He recommended concentrating on higher risk offenders to lower the recidivism rate.

"It seems we do better to increase public safety when we focused on higher-risk offenders," Bumby said.

Bumby also said a federal study showed that longer sentences do not result in much variation in the rate of committing another sexual offense.

He also said that despite a sharp increase in restrictions on where convicted sex offenders live, there's no evidence those restrictions affect the recidivism rate.

Later, Roger Werholtz, secretary of the Kansas Department of Corrections, said the state legislature there imposed a permanent moratorium to prevent municipalities from restricting where sex offenders can live.

Werholtz said the restrictions tended to force sex offenders into enclaves in rural areas which had less supervision and few opportunities for treatment.

"Ninety-five to 98 percent of people who go to prison in Kansas are going to come back out," Werholtz said. "We want them to succeed, not reoffend."

..News Source.. by BETTY ADAMS, Staff Writer