CA- State spends millions on rents for paroled sex offenders

1-21-2009 California:

State corrections officials spent nearly $22 million last year on apartments and motel rooms for hundreds of paroled sex offenders, paying more than $2,000 a month for some parolees and housing others in locations apparently prohibited under Jessica's Law, according to a MediaNews analysis of bank drafts issued by parole agents and addresses from the Megan's Law sex offender database.

The housing assistance, which has run for more than two years for some parolees, highlights a dilemma state officials face trying to enforce a voter-approved ban on sex offenders living within 2,000 feet of a school or a park where kids "regularly gather."

They must either find scarce housing and pay to put them up, or deal with a steeper rise in sex offenders who become homeless and lose the stability that experts call crucial to preventing recidivism.

A top state corrections official acknowledged that parole agents have sometimes spent state funds to house sex offenders in areas that officials later learned were illegal. He was unaware of some local examples MediaNews found using state data and a GPS handset.

In El Cerrito, a parole office has spent as much as $300 a week for sex offenders to live at the Budget Inn on San Pablo Avenue. The motel is within 700 feet of Mendocino Park, a neighborhood playground where small children swing, scramble through play structures and ride tricycles.

A corrections spokesman said parole officials realized a few months ago that the motel violated Jessica's Law and now they only pay for sex offenders to live there who are not subject to the 2,000-foot rule.

The state has paid rent for sex offenders at an apartment complex in Martinez that stands about 1,000 feet from the gates of John Muir National Historic Site, which sees a steady stream of school field trip groups. The corrections spokesman said they don't consider the historic site, run by the National Park Service, to be a park. Jessica's Law, or Proposition 83, did not define a park, or how to measure the 2,000 feet - about four-tenths of a mile.

Now, in the face of a worsening state budget crisis, the department plans to sharply scale back the housing payments, returning to a practice of giving limited, short-term assistance, said Scott Kernan, undersecretary for adult operations in the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

"I think it's reasonable we provide that housing on a temporary basis, but we're not going to pay for housing indefinitely," Kernan said. "Those that have been on housing subsidy for a couple of years at $500 a week, we need to ween them off of that. I'm not saying we're going to put them homeless. But if you continue to pay for housing, the offender has no incentive to go out and find other housing."

Kernan acknowledged that the number of homeless sex offenders will likely grow even faster as the state pulls back. Since Jessica's Law passed in November 2006, the number of paroled sex offenders who register as "transient" has surged, from 88 to 1,257 as of Dec. 28.

A report last month by the California Sex Offender Management Board, which includes state and local law enforcement, prosecutors and treatment experts, cited research linking homelessness and a higher risk of sexual re-offending. ..News Source.. by JOHN SIMERMAN, MediaNews Group