OK- Sex-offender registries don’t offer much comfort

9-8-2009 Oklahoma:

OUR VIEWS System has flaws

IT would be nice to operate under the assumption that sex-offender registries are foolproof and keep us aware of and protected from an often dangerous segment of society. That’s just not the case, despite laws in Oklahoma and across the country designed to track and restrict the movement of even more of the convicts.

Law enforcement authorities revealed last week that a man accused in the July 25 rape of an 11-year-old girl in Oklahoma City was a convicted sex offender. Melvin Urbina hasn’t been found but should have been a registered sex offender in Oklahoma. Urbina was convicted of sexual assault in Texas in 1999 and was supposed to register there as a lifetime sex offender. He’s also been deported twice for being in the country illegally.

Then there’s also the recent highly publicized kidnapping case in California. Police believe Phillip Garrido kidnapped an 11-year-old girl as she was walking to the school bus in 1991. She surfaced last month and officials said she had been held captive as a sex slave in a backyard compound for nearly two decades. That happened even though Garrido was a convicted kidnapper and sex offender who regularly checked in with law enforcement authorities. A sheriff’s deputy even visited his house three years ago because of a complaint.

Garrido lived in a remote area, and a neighbor told The New York Times the area was "loaded” with sex offenders. California, like other states (including Oklahoma), has restrictions forbidding sex offenders from living within a certain distance of schools, parks, playgrounds and other places where children congregate.

One unintended consequence of such laws is that offenders tend to live in clusters, a dangerous idea when part of the point is to help them integrate themselves into normal society. Law enforcement officials also have worried — justifiably so — that more restrictions will simply encourage offenders not to register.

No policies will stop criminals intent on wrongdoing. But such cases continue to highlight the need for better sex-offender policies. A better system to set apart the offenders most likely to re-offend would help agencies better spend scarce resources. And while no one wants a sex offender next door, living restrictions aren’t always a great answer, either. Add to that the little or no treatment offered to many offenders while in prison, and it’s clear public policy has a lot of room for improvement.

Meantime, the general public shouldn’t take too much comfort in the offender registries available at police departments and online. Because those may fall well short of the big picture. ..Source.. THE OKLAHOMAN EDITORIAL