MN- Too close to home

7-24-2009 Minnesota:

When a Level 2 sex offender recently moved into Otsego, it caused people some anxiety. Around that same time the city passed an ordinance governing where a Level 3 sex offender could live, and most importantly to many people, where such an at-risk offender could not live.

For many, the answer is simple: Do not allow sex offenders of any kind near any children at any time. However, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) Web site states, “There are no provisions in Minnesota’s registration law which prohibit registered offenders from living in the vicinity of a school or day care.”

It does go on to say that restrictions can be placed on certain offenders.


The city of Minneapolis Web site clarifies that such a provision can be made in the case of an offender committing a sexual crime whereby he or she had gotten access to a school or day care in committing the sexual crime. In that case the person would not be allowed near such places.

According to Nancy Sabine, director of the Jacob Wetterling Research Center (JWRC), classifying all sex offenders as predatory and harmful and restricting where they can live is a flawed approach in dealing with sex offenders.

“Residency laws don’t do one shred of good,” Sabine claims. “We’ve worked all the Minnesota cases backwards from 2007 to see if any residency restrictions would have prevented one crime. Not one. The crimes are happening because they are connected to relationships. They are people you trust, so you go off with them to your house, their house, to the park or wherever.”


She contends a sex offender living near a school or playground has no significance.

“Think of how many crimes you see committed in those two areas. These sex crimes to children are committed on the way to school or on the way home from school by a neighbor, a friend, a civic leader like a Boy Scout or Girl Scout leader and that kind of thing,” Sabine explains.

One of the classic examples, the JWRC director says, is that these zoned residencies keep the offender away from children at schools or day cares, but while kids are at these places during the day, most offenders are away at work. In essence the system is restricting where the offender sleeps at night, she points out.

“It’s ridiculous. We don’t think it through far enough to make sound public policy,” Sabine says. “What we’re doing is grandstanding around one of the most loaded issues in the public’s mind. Politicians pass all these regulations, and the public thinks they’re doing well, but we don’t see any change in things.”

It is ironic, but Sabine says the very foundation that was so influential in getting the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act passed, is now speaking out against its widespread misuse. She says the law’s intent mandated that violent sex offenders get placed on a registry. It was meant to be just one tool in a tool kit that dealt with serious, violent and patterned sex offenders. Now, however, it is being applied to all sex offenders.

The JWRC director adds the misuse is caused because everyone who has committed a sex crime is registered on the Predatory Offender Registry, and that there are many sex crimes that are not predatory in nature.

Sabine explains: “Non-predatory crimes include things like public urination and what we call “Romeo and Juliet” situations where you might have a 19-year-old getting caught having sex with a 15-year-old which is beyond the three-year age limit (difference in age of someone over 18 years old and someone under the legal age). These are two kids who care about each other, and it’s not predatory. We don’t want the same kind of punishment levied on these kinds of situations as we do the Alfonso Rodriguezes of the world who steal young women like Dru (Sjodin).”

Other lower level sex crimes Sabine talks about that are included in the offender registry include oral sex at school and sexting (when people send pornographic images of themselves or others via their cell phones). These are sex crimes juveniles commit that are added to the sex offender registry, but crimes Sabine maintains are not predatory.

“These are good kids making poor choices that harm other people,” Sabine says, “especially when they share the photos. But, I want to be clear; there are no lower level sexual crimes that are excusable. We are all for preventing every single act of sexual harm we can.”

Research shows, Sabine continues, that treatment and supervision is far more effective with juvenile sex offenders, and that 97 percent of those juveniles on the registry never offend as adults.

But Sabine has issues with more than juvenile offenders getting classified with the more serious sex offenders. She says the way the system is set up now does a disservice to everyone, including the offender who is not a predator.

“If you keep using a one-size-fits-all approach,” Sabine says, “you keep confusing who is doing the deed, how they are doing it, where they’re doing it and more specifically and most importantly, what works best in preventing and reducing those kinds of crimes.”

Sabine’s idea of a predatory Level 3 sex offender is someone who willfully victimizes another person, often done in a manipulative, conniving and pre-planned manner. Often, she says, they are crimes of aggression and less sexual in nature but because they are sexual crimes, people cannot separate the two.

As with abduction crimes that have declined over the past 15 years due to better prevention methods to keep kids safe, Sabine wants to see the same trend evolve in the case of sex oriented crimes. The approach has to change, though.

“The more we allow hatred to drive our choices, the less likely our families will come forward to get help for these kids who are doing harmful acts. They’re just going to hide it,” Sabine contends.

She quotes a statistic that says 90 percent of all sex criminals incarcerated every year in Minnesota prisons are first-time offenders.

“That means we are growing sex offenders, and we are growing them in our homes,” Sabine warns. “People think they are coming from somewhere else so nobody is getting them help.”

In 19 years of dealing with law enforcement agencies in issues involving sexual exploitation, Sabine says of the 78 families that experienced the most heinous crimes during that time frame, just two perpetrators had any previous sex offenses.

“That’s staggering to me,” Sabine says. “We keep going after the monsters that don’t exist.” ..Source.. by Bob Grawey, Staff writer