Police Struggle To Track Homeless Sex Offenders

The fallacy of an fixed address: Authorities claim, that, if they have a fixed address for a former offender they can monitor him/her thus preventing recidivism. Accordingly, if we are to believe the police, then the only new sex crimes are committed by homeless offenders. Right?

Monitoring: What monitoring do police do, occasionally they go to an offender's home (fixed address) and make sure s/he lives there. After that moment of contact they do not know where the registrant is until they come to that fixed address again. So, monitoring means what? And, how does that moment of contact prevent recidivism?

Public Truth: Authorities will always wordsmith to make the public think they are doing something that protects them. The truth of the matter of registries is, they are useless nothing more than a public telephone book with pictures, but harmful to registrants and their families. Clearly further punishment.

Challenge: As to homeless registrants, who due to all the collateral laws are prevented from having a fixed residence and wander all day long, how can they be charged with a crime because of their status in the community? That is what is being done to homeless offenders, and I challenge anyone to refute these realities..

4-9-2010 Tennessee:

Investigators Worry About Repeat Offenders

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The city of Nashville has thousands of homeless. Of those, 70 are registered sex offenders. Keeping up with them is an ongoing problem for Metro police.

"We know that registered sex offenders need to be kept up with because most of them will re-offend," said Metro Police Lt. Mickey Garner.

Problem one and this applies to all former offenders: This policeman has no idea what the real recidivism rates are, so he makes claims that are unsupported and in fact untrue (Tennessee Rates are proven to be very low). Offenders hear this type of disrespect and have no recourse, can you expect them to respect the laws? At some point the police must begin a pattern of respect so that respect is returned, former offenders are just as human as anyone else. The police -due to their treatment of offenders- contribute to the disrespect for the law!

This week, convicted sex offender Samuel Dorsey, 31, was arrested and charged with the rape of a 17-year-old girl. He told police he's homeless.

"When he registers as homeless, we don't know where he is," said Garner. "We can't keep up with him."

It is legal for a convicted sex offender to register as homeless. No address makes tracking sex offenders difficult, but the bigger problem is getting them to register at all.

"They could show up anywhere," said Garner.

That isn't to say officers haven't been successful in catching some violators.

Last week, Mark Sheckles was arrested after members of Cornerstone Church in Madison called police with safety concerns. They believe Sheckles was living behind the church.

Two months ago, Jonathan Evans and Raphael McPherson were arrested in Tent City, a well-known homeless encampment along the Cumberland River.

All three men failed to register on the Tennessee Sex Offender Registry.

Neither of them reoffended. Humm, this refutes the police theory.

Erik Cole of the Homelessness Commission said the sex offender status often keeps homeless men and women out of housing facilities and keeps them on the streets. Outreach workers urge them to register and warn them that they can't hide from police in well-known homeless hang-outs such as Tent City.

In recent years, changes were made to state laws to help track homeless sex offenders. They are now required to register more often.

"The law requiring sex offenders who register as homeless was increased from the normal registration period of time either every year or four times a year to every 30 days," said Kristin Helm of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

But that's no guarantee they will register. So in the coming months, more will be done by police.

"What we might be doing is some kind of stings downtown to try to locate these people," said Garner.

Metro police currently have 150 outstanding warrants for sex crimes, 125 of which are for failure to register, a felony offense. ..Source.. Heather Jensen