The Fleecing of America: Are States Using Sex Offender Registries for Profiteering?

This is a post of one of my commentary from 2005 in my old system.

11-27-2005 National:

"Ghosts in the Machine" by James Carlson is an absolutely wonderful article of how the State of Florida is misleading the public about their "Sex Offender Registry" by including in their totals many groups of former offenders who should not be included. Mr. Carlson is to be commended for his article.

Today we are going to add value to that article by expanding on a few points which escaped Mr. Carlson which is why we have titled our commentary "The Fleecing of America: Using Sex Offender Registries for Profiteering?" Yes, it gets better because it goes way beyond Florida and it appears most all states are following the same tactics.

Referring to our chart below, whether or not these 16,781 "Ghost Offenders" are shown on the "Public Registry" or not, is not important, important is they are included in the totals which Florida reports to the Federal Government and which Florida receives federal funding for.

Each year Florida reports their numbers and gets their funding. Why the double, triple accounting? Notice the number who have "moved out of state," well they are also being reported by the state they moved to, and that state is also receiving funding for them.

Florida claims that they remove "dead offenders" only when they "receive a death certificate," (Clovis Claxton committed suicide and is still listed). It appears Florida says one thing and does another. Why is it that Florida, fully aware of the problem, cannot enact legislation that, when a death certificate is issued for a registered offender (or the state registry should be checked when any death certificate is issued) that a copy is sent to the appropriate agency to correct the registry records?

Could income be a possible reason? Florida, like most states, charges registered offenders a fee to maintain the registry or for making changes. Florida also requires registered offenders to renew their driver's license annually (with associated costs) when other residents do so once every five years. A "Windfall," albeit illegal but who will be the Whistelblower?

As to the 8,260 in jail or prison (a much higher number in other states) why bother putting them into the registry while they are incarcerated? When they are released from jail or prison, part of the release process, could be to register them. Could income be a possible reason, and income every year of incarceration until release?

Recently, in Michigan, the state police ran "Operation Verify" to see that RSOs lived where they were registered. A few Michigan police agencies reported: "Many times, offenders who haven’t updated are in prison or in the hospital." "12 had moved out of Michigan without notifying state police but were in compliance with their new state's laws and seven were in a county jail. [snip] ... one was located in prison and one was deceased." Even more amazing is, the Michigan State Police always blame the offenders for registry errors even when the state auditor blames police!

What is most interesting about what local police found is, the lists they were given included offenders who were dead, moved out of state, and in jails and prisons. So what we have is local police agencies are wasting their time trying to verify people who should not be in the registry in the first place. Additional wasted funds, but at the local level. True there was no mention of "deported offenders," but we know they exist.

See:"85% of Child Predators Captured Are Criminal Immigrants" by Jim Kouri (25 October 2005) "Top officials at the Department of Homeland Security recently revealed that arrests for child sex crimes during the first two years of Operation Predator have exceeded 6,000 and 85 percent of them are criminal immigrants. [snip] Since Operation Predator began on July 9, 2003, the initiative has resulted in 6,085 child predator arrests throughout the country -- an average of roughly 250 arrests per month and eight arrests per day. While arrests have been made in every state, the most have occurred in these states: Arizona (207), California (1,578), Florida (255), Illinois (282), Michigan (153), Minnesota (190), New Jersey (423), New York (367), Oregon (148) and Texas (545)."

When offenders move out of state, is it possible they may move from state to state, causing them to be included in several state registry numbers? Certainly, and then a few states are deriving income from that offender. Maybe all offenders should move from state to state to state to state to state, at what point will it break the bank?

In April of 2005 Parents for Megan's Law surveyed all states and found out how many offenders are included in each state registry. Reportedly there are 551,987 offenders nationwide. PML web site further states "Our results indicate that approximately 24% of the nation's sex offenders are failing to comply with state registration requirements." Their number for Florida shows 33,990 (4-2005) and they rate it A+. It appears that the number given to PML by Florida officials includes dead, deported, moved out of state and those still in jails and prisons, or are those "Ghost Numbers" considered missing by PML?

In closing, it appears Florida is getting federal funding far in excess of what it should be getting. Is this profiteering? What about the other states?


..Source.. by eAdvocate (Copyright 2005 - All Rights Reserved)