6-30-2011 Illinois:
Legislation to list murderers for 10 years after their release goes to Quinn
Since Issac Denson finished his prison sentence in October, he has enrolled in college courses and has begun training for the Chicago marathon. Later this year, he will become a first-time father. .
But if recently passed legislation receives the governor's signature, he will also have to publicly identify himself for the next decade by another, far less noble distinction: convicted murderer.
A proposed Illinois murderer registry would require people convicted of the first-degree murder of an adult to register with authorities for at least 10 years after leaving prison. The bill, which was presented to Gov. Pat Quinn on Wednesday after passing the state Legislature last month with almost unanimous approval, would apply retroactively, affecting people released from 2002 onward.
For Denson, 38, who served 20 years in prison after killing his mother during a 1991 dispute, that would mean having personal information posted on a searchable online database for the next decade, including his address, physical descriptors like weight and race, his date of birth, and the nature of his crime.
"I'm trying to do the best I can," Denson said. "But if all that information is out there, after I have done my time and completed my parole, people will just see me as a murderer, not a citizen, or a running captain, or a father."
Supporters of what would be dubbed "Andrea's Law" — named after murder victim Andrea Will — say that Illinois residents have a right to know those details. They hailed the legislation's approval as a responsible step toward tracking and notifying the public of potentially dangerous individuals.
When the bill passed, Will's mother, Patricia Rosenberg, said it was one of the few moments of peace she had felt since 1998, when her 18-year-old daughter was found strangled inside an apartment near the Eastern Illinois University campus.
"I still have nightmares of her fighting for her life, and I couldn't do anything to stop it," said Rosenberg, her voice shaking over the phone. "This was my way of fighting back. If you know who is living next door to you, you have more power — power to protect your family."
But opponents of the legislation have argued that the move is part of a disturbing, costly and unstudied nationwide trend toward publicly identifying an increasing variety of criminals, long after they've served their time in prison.
Every state has a sex offender database, and a handful of states now maintain registries for violent offenders, ranging from murderers to barroom fighters. Illinois already keeps registries for child murderers, sex offenders and arsonists. Tennessee hosts a methamphetamine offender database. State legislators in Maine this year proposed a drunken driver registry. And the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services even maintains a list of dangerous dogs that includes such offenders as Buddy, a black and brown sheep dog who killed a neighborhood cat.
"We live in this day and age of technology where there is no longer an expectation of privacy and there is almost this sense of entitlement to know," said Jill Levenson, an associate professor at Lynn University in Florida and a nationally recognized expert on criminal registries. "But is it worth it from a public policy point of view? Does it prevent enough future crimes?"
A 2008 Minnesota study showed that the state's sex offender registry appeared to significantly reduce recidivism rates for "high risk" sex offenders. Most studies, however, have been unable to prove a connection between public registries and reduced sex crimes, said Levenson, adding that she was not aware of studies that had looked at other types of registries.
Compared with robbers, burglars and those convicted of drug-related crimes, sex offenders and murderers have some of the lowest re-offense rates in the country, according to U.S. Department of Justice statistics. Only 1.2 percent of people who had served time for homicide were rearrested for another homicide within three years of release, the agency found.
Those studies and statistics, however, have not dampened the enthusiasm to publicly identify and track criminals — an entrenched habit in American society, according to Wayne Logan, who is a Florida State University law professor and recently wrote a book on registration and notification laws.
"There is no denying there is a 'Scarlet Letter'-type appeal to these laws," Logan said.
As late as the early 1800s, it was not uncommon for convicts in the United States to be physically branded, serving both as a warning to the community and a lifelong sentence, Logan said. Around the turn of the last century, "rogues' galleries," or photo displays of offenders, also enjoyed a period of popularity. Over the next several decades, a slew of registration laws were enacted nationwide but then fell out of favor under criticism about their comprehensiveness and utility, Logan said.
But a resurgence of interest emerged in the late 1980s and early '90s after several high-profile child victimization cases created big media headlines.
"These (registries) catch on like wildfire," Logan said. "Politicians don't want to look like they are soft on crime or disparaging the legacy of the victim."
Rep. Dennis Reboletti, R-Elmhurst, sponsored the Illinois murderer registry bill after murder victim Andrea Will's family expressed outrage that her killer was released from a 24-year prison term after only 12 years. Justin Boulay, then 20, strangled Will with a phone cord while the two were students at Eastern Illinois University. He was allowed to cut one day of prison time for every day he served without disciplinary problems. After he was paroled on Nov. 16, he moved to Hawaii to live with his new wife.
"These are some of the most heinous crimes that a person can perpetrate against another human being," Reboletti said. "I think it is important that people are aware of who their neighbors are and who is living in their community."
But because Boulay has left the state, he would only be required to register while on parole, which is scheduled to end in 2013. Under the bill's current language, only those convicted murderers still living in Illinois would be required to register for at least 10 years after their release. Hawaii does not currently have a murderer registry.
Reboletti estimated that Illinois' registry would initially impact about 4,300 released murderers in Illinois. If the murder was sexually motivated, the person would have to register for life, Reboletti said.
Those who were found in violation of the proposed law could face monetary fines and jail time, Reboletti said. Because the registry would be incorporated into current Illinois registries, state police officials said it would cost little to enact.
But Rep. Monique Davis, D-Chicago, the only lawmaker to vote against the bill when it first passed the House, said that the burden would still fall on local agencies to track down and catalog released murderers, some of whom have been off parole for years.
Noting that law enforcement has already had some problems keeping the sex offender registry current, Davis said she did not believe another registry would really address the public's concerns over murderers such as Boulay. Instead, Davis said, the state should be investing more resources in transition programs for released prisoners and safety education programs for the general public.
"I think (this murderer registry) makes some legislators feel good," Davis said. "(But) it is giving people a false sense of security."
Denson, who was recently selected as the captain of a local running program, said that his time in prison has turned him into a confident, driven adult and that he believes the registry would unfairly extend his sentence.
"I have done everything the system asked," Denson said. "(And) now they're going to change the game."
Brian Nelson, who pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in 1983 and has lived with his mother since he was released from prison a year ago, said he also has concerns over how the registry will affect her life if neighbors log on and discover that he is living next door.
"A lot of people, when they get out of prison, have no one to live with but their parents or family," said Nelson, 46, a paralegal at Uptown People's Law Center, which has lobbied against the enactment of "Andrea's Law.". "I served 28 years and did my time. Where do you draw the line?"
Nelson also questioned how the registry would really prevent people from re-offending, noting that it does not go as far as other law enforcement tracking measures like electronic monitoring.
"I won't hurt nobody again," Nelson said. "But how is this going to stop somebody?"
But Rosenberg, who has remarried and moved since her daughter's murder, said she believes the registry will be a useful tool for the community and law enforcement. If the database keeps even one person away from a potentially dangerous individual and saves one life, Rosenberg said it will be worth it.
"I don't think accountability should end at the prison gate," Rosenberg said. ..Source.. by Cynthia Dizikes, Tribune reporter
June 30, 2011
Registry of freed killers proposed for Illinois
June 29, 2011
To Catch a Predator host who traps sex perverts in TV stings 'caught cheating on his wife'... by hidden cameras
He's made his name with a controversial show that catches would-be internet sex perverts in televised stings.
But now Chris Hansen has found himself on the receiving end of his own hidden camera tactics, after the married NBC anchor was secretly filmed on an illicit date with a blonde television reporter 20 years his junior.
Hansen, 51, has allegedly been having an affair with Kristyn Caddell, a 30-year-old Florida journalist, for the last four months.
Last weekend he was recorded taking Miss Caddell on a romantic dinner at the exclusive Ritz-Carlton hotel in Manalapan, before spending the night at her Palm Beach apartment.
Hansen, who has two young sons, was caught in an undercover sting operation arranged by the National Enquirer.
Secret cameras filmed the couple as they arrived at the hotel for dinner and then drove back to her apartment - where the pair left, carrying luggage, at 8am the following day.
Hansen lives in Connecticut with his wife Mary, 53, but he has been spending more and more time in South Florida investigating the disappearance of James 'Jimmy T' Trindade - and allegedly sleeping with Miss Caddell. ..For the rest of the story.. by Fiona Roberts
June 28, 2011
Audit adds to criticism of Michigan's parolee program
6-28-2011 Michigan:
Corrections Dept. may understate number of ex-cons who commit crimes after release, critics say
Lansing — Michigan's Prisoner Re-entry Initiative has won national acclaim for helping ex-convicts stay out of trouble, but critics say the state is undercounting lapsed parolees to make the program appear more successful than it is.
The criticism comes amid an audit of the 6-year-old Department of Corrections program that found other shortcomings, including overcharging vendors for services and allowing conflicts of interest between contractors and subcontractors.
Jim Chihak, a former parole and probation officer who was part of a panel that evaluated the program this spring, said the program's intent — to keep prisoners from returning to prison — is admirable, but "the way it's being handled is a disaster."
"If you worked in a bank that was wasting money and not monitoring where it was going, why would you keep putting money into it?" said Chihak, a Marquette County commissioner.
A recent Pew Center national survey of prisons found Michigan boasts one of the nation's sharpest drops in convicts returning to prison.
The state Department of Corrections' re-entry program was credited with the decline in recidivism while the state was closing prisons and paroling 3,000 more inmates in 2009 than in 2006. Recidivism is often factored in as a way to gauge corrections costs.
But current and former parole officers and others say offenders aren't just being returned to prison. Instead, they are being placed in alternative programs, county jails or on tethers — or worse, being freed and returning to crime — without being counted as "official" re-offenders, critics say.
More than 22,500 ex-cons were paroled by 2010 with help from the program, including aid for housing, transportation, employment, health needs and education, according to the Department of Corrections.
It also reports there have been 33 percent fewer returns to prison for parole violations or new crimes between 2006 to 2009 . The department boasts that returns to prison within three years dropped to a low of 36.4 percent, compared with earlier highs of around 45.7 percent.
But those who challenged the numbers note that in most states, ex-convicts who commit new crimes while on parole go to prison or jail.
Michigan has created a "straddle cell" category in which repeat offenders might get GPS tethers and treatment or counseling to help them get their lives on track rather than be put back behind bars. About 43 percent of offenders in Michigan fall into that classification.
Official: Claims 'malarkey'
Critics believe the state's statistics reflect an artificially lower number of repeat offenders.
Barb Hankey, an Oakland County community services manager who sat on the re-entry program's review panel in the spring, said there are "some discrepancies in the numbers that the (DOC) has been reporting."
Statewide in fiscal year 2010, there were 3,655 offenders on parole at the time of a new offense, Hankey said. Of those, 2,087 were sent back to prison.
But 1,568 offenders — 43 percent — received a "non-prison disposition," which means they likely were sent to a local jail and not included in state numbers.
"They were not considered repeat offenders, even though they had committed a crime," Hankey said.Corrections Department spokesman Russell Marlan calls the idea that the state is misrepresenting the numbers "malarkey." "People who violate the law go back to prison," he said.
Marlan confirmed parolees who do not go back to prison are not counted as recidivists, but added "judges have discretion in Michigan and may consider alternative sentences (to prison)."
Critics also say a recent state audit showed lax oversight of contracts within the re-entry program, which has received nearly $300 million over the past six years. It is currently budgeted for about $55 million.
The audit found that the state's "processes for developing (Michigan Prisoner Re-Entry Initiative) contracts and selecting contractors were not effective."
The report by the Michigan Office of Internal Audit Services reviewed only a sample of major contracts, yet found vendors collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars in excess revenues, potential conflicts of interest and numerous programs without any oversight or accounting.
Kurt Weiss, a spokesman for the Department of Management, Budget and Technology, said 10 of 33 major contracts were audited, but there are "hundreds" of subcontractors statewide that were not reviewed.
Marlan said the re-entry program is evolving. "(The program) isn't a magic potion, but it's a far cry from when parolees were released with clothes on their back and $20," he said.
In the past five years, in an effort to free prison beds, the rules have been changed so behavior, including technical violations, that once resulted in an automatic return to prison now may lead to counseling, residential treatment or maybe the county jail.
Some success stories
"To get sent back to prison now, you generally have to commit some kind of violent, assaultive crime or get caught with a gun," Rogers said. "So now you have an artificial recidivism rate."
State officials stress there are dozens of re-entry program successes, such as Stephen Mathison, 38, paroled from prison about three years ago after serving 171/2 years for second-degree murder.
"I was having a hard time adjusting — people thought I wouldn't have any trouble finding a job, but no one would hire me," said Mathison, who learned carpentry in prison.
"The program suggested a therapist that helped me understand what I was going through was not unusual."
A parole officer saw Mathison's potential and suggested he talk with Judy Zehnder Keller, owner of the Bavarian Lodge in Frankenmuth.
Mathison started out as a handyman, using skills learned in prison. Today he is a front desk supervisor at the lodge.
"If it wasn't for the program and some people having faith in me, I don't know what would have happened," Mathison said.
After serving jail time, parolees can qualify for services through community corrections or other outlets. Under a county jail reimbursement program, counties now receive a $60 per-diem fee for every inmate who would otherwise have to be housed in a state prison for infractions. This year, $8.2 million is budgeted statewide for county jails to retain felons locally .
"I personally think the (re-entry) concept is a good thing," said Quintin Rogers, a Pontiac parole officer who has supervised parolees for 15 years. "But it needs to be done before release — not for 90 days after they get out."
One detractor, Berrien County Prosecutor Arthur Cotter, an early advocate of the program, says he feels betrayed by the program's efforts today.
"I was very supportive of the program when it was first started," said Cotter. "But now I see they were cherry-picking the inmates that would do good, who would thrive on a program such as this — people convicted of non-assaultive, nonviolent crimes."
Cotter says he "parted ways" with the program when it was extended to violent offenders "under the cover that the public would be safe."
He added, "It's a public safety issue and is not going to work for everybody." ..Source.. by Mike Martindale/ The Detroit News
State Police plan county-by-county sex offender compliance sweeps
In part this"compliance check" is illegal. If they are doing what the article claims to registrants not under some form of supervision, then they are doing it illegally! i.e. checking computers hard drives and the like. In addition, U.S. Marshals have no jurisdiction doing home address checks of state convicted offenders, unless the state has already reported a state offender to be out of compliance, so allowing the Marshals to tag alone -for the major portion of the sweep- is a complete waste of taxpayer money.6-28-2011 West Virginia:
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- The West Virginia State Police is taking aim at registered sex offenders who have not kept their information up to date.
On Friday, State Police, along with the U.S. Marshals Service, began compliance sweeps of more than 30 registered offenders in Summers County. Police divided up the sweep by where the offenders were located in the county and went door to door to see if reported information was accurate.
They are planning to do these sweeps county by county and already swept Greenbrier County in April, said M.K. Summers of the State Police Crimes Against Children Unit.
The State Police conduct compliance sweeps annually, but these are some of the first sweeps to involve multiple State Police divisions and the Marshals Service, he said.
According to the state Sex Offender Registry Act, anyone convicted of a sex crime or an attempted sex crime is required to register with the police detachment in his or her county of residence. The offender must register their full name and aliases, their home address, their vehicles or motor home, their Internet accounts and screen names and places of employment, among other information.
If the offender changes their address or any other stored information, he or she must report it to the police within 10 days. Any offender violating this law can face felony charges, and if convicted, can be imprisoned for up to five years.
"We do this to make sure they are registered properly. We don't want some of the problems they had in other areas," Summers said
He referenced the story of Jaycee Lee Dugard, a 31-year-old California woman who was abducted when she was 11 by a couple who made her sleep in a tent in their backyard for more than 18 years.
One of Dugard's abductors was a registered sex offender. If California compliance officers were doing their job properly, they would have noticed that a child was living on the premises, Summers said.
"He had been on probation and parole and they still missed that tent in the backyard," he said. "We are trying to avoid stuff like that here."
When a countywide sweep is conducted, all of the sex offenders are grouped on a map by their geographical location. The groups are then assigned to a trooper who leads a team, along with a U.S. Marshal, to work the cases.
Troopers check the offender's premises to monitor who is living there and they also check vehicles to see who they are registered to. They also make sure Internet access is documented because some offenders register their home Internet, but neglect to register the Internet on their cell phones, he said.
Those offenders charged with child pornography or other computer-related crimes are put into a separate group and investigated by officers with computer forensic knowledge. The computers are checked for history and deleted files, he said.
Friday's sweep netted one arrest. It was lad by the State Police, the U.S. Marshals, the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force and about 10 officers from the State Police Crimes Against Children Unit, the State Police Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, the State Police Hinton Detachment, the state Parole Office and the Summers County Sheriff's Department.
Can
Summers said he researched and found that Crawford had previous charges for failure to comply and he will bring a second count against Crawford.
If convicted, Crawford can be imprisoned for up to 25 years. ..Source.. by Travis Crum
Is sex offender program illegal?
6-28-2011 Minnesota:
Critics say mistreatment and an overriding, unspoken directive to keep clients locked away make the state program unconstitutional
To many former employees at the Minnesota Sex Offender Program in Moose Lake, the unspoken reason that no client has ever been released is that’s the way state leaders and program administrators want it.
“They felt (the clients) couldn’t be cured,” said Nicci Trierweiler, a former security counselor at the facility and one of a dozen former employees who made similar comments to the News Tribune. “Most of the men that are in there will tell you, if you ask them, that they don’t think they’re going to get out of there. They will tell you that it’s a life sentence and they’ll be going out feet-first.”
“It’s a waste of taxpayer dollars,” said another former security counselor, Jeremy Jatkola. “I don’t think the patients there are getting the treatment they should be doing.”
“The overriding directive is not to progress patients,” he added.
MSOP senior administrators deny those claims. But if the allegations are true, it’s a problem.
While supporters of MSOP argue that public safety is served by locking up sex offenders deemed to be sexually psychopathic, sexually dangerous or both, the stated purpose of MSOP isn’t to incarcerate but to rehabilitate.
Nearly all the resident offenders have served their prison or juvenile sentences and are committed for treatment at the facility for potential reintegration into the community. The sex offenders aren’t called inmates but patients or clients.
State and federal courts have held that the program is legal only if adequate treatment is provided. If not, the program could be found unconstitutional, which is what happened in the state of Washington in 2000. A federal court judge ordered the state to revise its program after finding it provided a punitive treatment environment and inadequate treatment, staffing and staff training.
A review by both the legislative auditor and the Duluth News Tribune has found many similar problems at MSOP: The treatment environment is violent and punitive toward offenders. Treatment averages six hours a week, and the program has had trouble hiring and keeping qualified staff. Some clinicians and therapists don’t have the educational backgrounds necessary to treat sex offenders.
And, among both current and former employees, there is a history of infighting and troubling behavior.
Those problems, along with the fact that no one ever has been permanently released from the program since it began in 1994, raises questions about whether MSOP is constitutional, said Eric Janus, dean of the William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul.
When the program was created by the state Legislature and approved by the courts, Janus said, it was done with the understanding that offenders would eventually be treated and released.
“A legitimate program, among other things, releases people when they no longer need civil commitment, when they’re no longer dangerous enough to justify being locked up in a secure facility,” Janus said. “We know the program has not provided for that kind of a system.
“You have a picture, in my view, of an unconstitutional program,” he said. ..Source.. by Brandon Stahl, Duluth News Tribune
June 27, 2011
Bozeman tries to cope with registered sexual offender problem
Lets just assume the neighbor did ogle the kids. Dratz claims it went on for a YEAR, now is there a lick of truth to that? What person, esp. a Teacher in this day and age, would not do something about a neighbor if the neighbor was ogling kids in her yard. Why did she not call the police?6-27-2011 Montana:
Bozeman preschool teacher Constance Dratz didn't realize for a year that the neighbor she claims had ogled her bathing-suit-clad students was a sex offender.
The neighbor, David John Woodfin, had been sentenced to 10 years in a Utah state prison for sexually abusing a child - not the type of person Dratz wanted anywhere near her young students.
And as the law now reads, she could do little about it.
State and federal law requires sexual offenders to register with the state and let authorities know where they are living. That information is published online so people can see if sexual offenders live in their neighborhoods.
Now, Dratz wants a city ordinance on the books that would bar sexual offenders from living near schools.
But as states and cities in the U.S. further restrict sexual offenders, law enforcement and rehabilitation advocates are split on whether society wins or loses.
Local prosecutors and law enforcement agents say the registry is a useful tool for keeping kids safe from people who have shown a tendency to sexually offend.
However, statistics indicate released offenders, particularly those who undergo therapy, are unlikely to commit another sexual crime.
Advocates for rehabilitated offenders contend the registry is an additional sentence that castigates ex-convicts who have served their time and makes it hard for them to re-enter society after leaving prison.
And there are questions about how many residency restrictions states and cities can force upon sexual offenders before those offenders decide it's better to go underground.
In Woodfin's case, he failed to register with authorities until this spring, way past the time allowed by law.
Instead, he moved out of the apartment near the preschool earlier this month, and now his whereabouts are unknown.
They're not all pedophiles
Not all sexual offenders are the same or should be treated similarly, said Gallatin County Attorney Marty Lambert.
"People need to recognize that sexual intercourse without consent of an 18-year-old with a 15-year-old that, in every other sense of the word, was consensual" is not the same as an adult sexually abusing a child, he said. "The only thing making the (teen's crime) illegal is the statute saying that a person of the age of 15 cannot give consent."
It should be seen entirely differently than a pedophile's crime, which "isn't just a teenage dalliance," Lambert said.
According to state Department of Corrections statistics, pedophiles represent less than 4 percent of the sexual offender population in Montana.
Of 91 sexual offenders on Gallatin County's registry, four are considered to have a high risk to re-offend. Yet only one of those four committed a crime against a child.
Sexual crimes cover a wide spectrum of charges, from Peeping Tom and indecent exposure to raping a child. Yet all of the offenders are mandated to register and are condemned to the sexual offender list.
Level three sex offenders - offenders that judges consider the most likely to re-offend - are required to register for life. Level two offenders must register for 25 years and level ones, viewed as the lowest risk to society, for 10 years.
After fulfilling the registry period and spending a decade or more in the community, offenders may petition a judge to remove the requirement. But granting those requests are not popular decisions for elected judges to make.
The chicken or egg theory
About 34 percent of Montana's current prisoners were convicted of sexual crimes, according to statistics compiled by Blair Hopkins, a therapist who treats sexual offenders in the state prison. Of those, more than 90 percent are undergoing or are waiting to begin intensive sexual offender treatment.
Of released sexual offenders who have completed Montana's prison-based therapy program, about 2 percent committed another sexual crime, according to Hopkins' statistics. The national average for untreated offenders is about 20 percent.
Public safety officials tout registration as a means of keeping communities safe. But it isn't the solution, a Bozeman sexual offender therapist said.
"Registration gives people a false sense of security because (those registered) are not the ones who are offending," said Fred Lemons, who initiated the prison-based treatment program in 1980. "Ninety percent of the time it's a family member, acquaintance or neighbor - someone with an established relationship" with the victim.
The registry "creates a false sense of security and a false sense of fear and targets family members of offenders as well," he said. "I think the idea is good, but I think if we limited it to high-risk offenders, then it's going to be more helpful."
The register does seem to have one definite effect.
Statistics show that 25 percent of treated offenders and 49 percent of untreated offenders land back in prison - often for not registering as a sexual offender or another parole violation.
But police and prosecutors maintain the registry is a good way to keep tabs on the most reviled of offenders.
"You could argue that offenders don't re-offend because people are watching them," Lambert said. "Isn't it better that we know where they are and that they are following their treatment, rather than not have any supervisory authority over them?"
The registry is important, Bozeman Police Lt. Rich McLane agreed.
"It lets everyone know this is someone who did something wrong," he said. "It lets the public know that we know where they're at and it will keep a large percentage of offenders honest because they know they're being watched, and they don't want to go back to prison.
"If David Woodfin (Dratz's neighbor) was truly trying to live an honest life and had registered, he would have been able to do anything any other citizen of Bozeman could do," McLane said.
Yet even those tasked with upholding the law recognize the registry's shortcomings.
"It would not be in the best interest of the public and it would be unsafe and irresponsible to think the sexual offender registry is going to keep everyone safe," McLane said. "Because they all had to offend first before they were registered."
"It's kind of like the chicken and the egg theory," said Robert Vanuka, the Bozeman police detective who oversees the city's registry. "Which came first? They're on the registry (now), but they weren't on the registry when they committed the crime."
And many sexual crimes go unreported, victim advocates say.
Victims blame themselves or are too ashamed to report the crime. They don't want to live through the trauma of medical examinations, police questioning and reliving the incident through court testimony. Some may be too young to comprehend that what happened to them is a crime.
McLane and Vanuka said educating children and reporting suspicious activity is the key to preventing the crimes.
If a sexual crime is suspected, parents need to stress to children it's not their fault, Vanuka said. Parents need to foster an environment that builds trust and communication.
"If something just doesn't seem right or someone sees something suspicious, we want them to call us," McLane added.
Dratz's neighbor
Had Woodfin registered after he had moved into his apartment at 1715 W. Kagy Blvd., next to Dratz's Yellowstone Montessori Academy, there may not have been a $75,000 warrant issued for his arrest.
But he didn't register within the 10 days mandated by law. Now he's on the lam.
Woodfin, convicted in Utah in 1994 of two counts of sexually abusing a child, spent 10 years in prison and successfully completed his sentence. But he was still required to register as a sexual offender when he moved to Bozeman last summer. He failed to do so until this spring.
Shortly after police told Woodfin he needed to register, he left Bozeman, possibly the state.
If, as Dratz contends, Woodfin was eyeing her young students, a state law that takes effect in October could resolve the issue.
The law allows police to charge someone previously convicted of a sexual crime with predatory loitering if they dawdle near schools, parks, playgrounds and similar places.
Despite the new statute, Dratz said she intends to pursue a law restricting where sexual offenders can live.
If Bozeman commissioners pass such an ordinance, it will be the first of its kind in Montana.
Sending them underground
But laws such as the one Dratz proposes are not the cure-all many hope for and, in fact, often end up doing more harm than good, authorities said.
Miami's restrictive laws, for example, leave few legal places for sexual offenders to live, relegating more than 70 of them to live in a makeshift tent city beneath a Biscayne Bay bridge.
Placing further restrictions on offenders could cause many to disregard the registry law, McLane said.
"It will drive them underground," he said. "It will make them elude the registration requirement. I don't believe it's the complete solution."
Save for a handful of pedophiles, Lemons said he is concerned that a broad-based law would shackle many of his clients.
"I think you can't put a blanket on every sex offender," he said. "But I would be worried if I had a high-level, predatory-type pedophile living next door to a school. The problem is when you throw out that net and just use the term ‘sex offender' and look at them as all the same. I think you're going to put requirements on people who don't need that."
Even Dratz acknowledges the failings of a potential law.
A 2,000-foot limit around schools would make it impossible for offenders to find a place to live in Bozeman, she said. It would force them to move outside the city, thereby making it difficult for law enforcement to keep track of them.
But that doesn't mean she's not going to pursue it.
"When a sexual offense is committed, an offender pays the price to the society but not to the victim," Dratz said. "The harm to the victim is lifelong and often extends to her family and children."
A new law is not about "just waking up a sexual offender and saying move out," she said. "It's saying, ‘Yoo hoo, women are just not going to put up with this anymore in our society. It's causing too much generational and societal harm.'"
Dratz said she'll probably seek a 500-foot limit but, like police, stresses that education is critical.
"I want more families to be aware of this issue and to see more education," she said. "Children need to be trained, and parents need to know how to talk with their children about it."
Dratz says she plans to organize classes for parents.
Meanwhile, Bozeman commissioners tasked City Attorney Greg Sullivan with researching the issue with the possibility of drafting an ordinance. ..Source.. by Jodi Hausen
Given the volatile nature of the subject, that won't be easy, Lambert said.
"It's an emotional issue that draws lots of passion," he said. "But when people consider how to address it, it needs to be done calmly and dispassionately."
Burlington adopts sex offender ordinance after months of debate
The only justification for mis quoting sex offender recidivism rates here, is, this is Wisconsin (Rep. Sensenbrenner).6-27-2011 Wisconsin:
BURLINGTON - After months of debate and tweaking since its original inception hailed by supporters as a move to protect children, Burlington has adopted a controversial ordinance that limits some sex offenders' whereabouts within the city.
The City Council unanimously approved it last week, making Burlington one of the few municipalities in the county to do so.
The ordinance is expected to take effect on Friday, the day after it is published. It creates "child safety zones" in parcels of property where children congregate, like playgrounds, schools or day cares, where sex offenders would not be allowed to reside near or loiter at.
The approved measure applies only to sex offenders whose offenses have been against children or were violent in nature, to the actual parcel of property where children often are and does not restrict offenders' access to religious facilities. Under a recent revision, however, sex offenders visiting religious facilities are not allowed near any school or playground on the premises. That revision, city officials said, was provided in an effort to protect children in parochial schools.
Sex offenders living in a designated child safety zone will be grandfathered in, but city officials said they may not otherwise loiter in restricted areas. The same idea applies for those living within 300 feet of a safety zone.
Officials previously scrapped a 300-foot residential restriction around the zones saying it could cause more challenges for an ordinance that is already a "lightning rod" for legal battles.
Union Grove and Caledonia enacted similar ordinances in 2008 whereas other communities like Racine and Sturtevant dropped the issue due to enforcement and legal challenges.
A sex offender, according to City Attorney John Bjelajac, could potentially claim the ordinance unconstitutionally infringes on his or her rights. But he said he believes it to be fully constitutional, especially with the recent revisions.
Bjelajac quoted a high recidivism rate for child molesters compared to other sex offenders according to studies, adding it's important to reduce the risk of re-offense.
Talk about ERROR, they have this backwards, child molesters have a lower recidivism rate than all sex offenders (3.3% v 3.5%). When will they ever get things correct. And they have missed that released non sex offenders commit more sex offenses than do released sex offenders (6 to 1).Mayor Robert Miller has also been a staunch supporter of the ordinance, calling the plan a set of "hammers and tools" for local police.
Burlington Police Chief Peter Nimmer has told city officials that officers did not have a way to deal with registered sex offenders who are discharged from their sentences and can go or live where they wish. There are about two dozen registered sex offenders in the city of about 10,500, according to police.
While ecstatic the ordinance was finally approved, Miller said it is not as "strong" as he would have liked; he preferred stricter restrictions, but he said it was at least something to protect the children. ..Source.. by CHRISTINE WON
June 25, 2011
Tough new sex offender law goes into effect July 1
This is crazy folks must get a "Travel Permit" to allow being away from their home for 3+ days? ACLU Where are you?6-25-2011 Alabama:
Gov. Robert Bentley recently signed legislation making Alabama’s sex offender registration laws tougher.
The new legislation, which goes into effect July 1, requires registered sex offenders to check in with local law enforcement quarterly while applying tighter monitoring requirements.
The old law required registered sex offenders to check bi-annually.
“This is going to create a significant increase on workload and cost,” Cullman County Sheriff’s Office chief deputy Max Bartlett said. “But anytime you can keep better track of the sex offenders in the county, you’re better off. Our goal, and the legislators’, is to keep the kids and people out here safe.”
The new law, which is 96 pages long, not only changes how law enforcement agencies monitor the movement of sex offenders, but it also applies stiffer penalties — a felony charge — to those who fail to comply.
It also applies hefty penalties on those help hide or unlawfully employ registered sex offenders.
“It’s now a Class C felony for aiding and abetting a sex offender,” said Capt. Edward Potter of the Cullman County Sheriff’s Office. “Also, if a daycare or someone hires a sex offender to work near children, that person will also receive a Class C felony.”
Another significant change to the law is how sex offenders convicted in other states will be labeled when registering in Alabama.
According to the new law, if a registered offender was charged with a sex crime classified as a felony in another state, they will have to register as a felon in Alabama.
“We’ve had a problem in the past with sex offenders from other states coming into the state with what’s sexual misconduct here, but it’s something else over there,” Bartlett said. “Now they fall under our guidelines. If it’s a felony there, it’s a felony here.”
A few other significant changes to the sex offender law include:
Registered sex offenders who are homeless are required to check in once a week.
Those who do day labor must provide local law enforcement with details about where and when they will be working each day.
Sex offenders will have to pay a $10 fee every time they register. That same fee will also be charged for every move.
A travel permit is required through local law enforcement if a sex offender plans to be away from their residence for more than three days or if they plan to travel outside the area.
Those sex offenders who have been classified as sexual predators or convicted of sexually violent crimes will be required to wear a Global Positioning System (GPS) for 10 years, at their own expense.
Some youthful offenders and juveniles, those charged with more serious sex crimes, will have to register for a lifetime instead of 10 years.
“I think this is to try and close some of the loopholes we’ve had in the past,” Cullman County Sheriff’s Office deputy Evlayline Hadley said. “And even though this will be more of a workload, this will help us do a better job of keeping track of sex offenders.
“When they only had to register bi-annually, they could move half a dozen times in six months and it’s hard to track them down. This should offset that some.”
According to the Cullman County sex offender registry, there are currently 155 registered sex offenders in Cullman County. ..Source.. by Justin Graves
June 24, 2011
Sex offender registration update expected to create long lines at police departments throughout Michigan
What a waste of taxpayer money especially when 95% of new sex offenses come from people not on the registry, maybe they should be registered?6-24-2011 Michigan:
If you're a sex offender in Michigan, you might have to spend some time waiting in line.
Changes passed this April to the Sex Offender Registration Act will require the collection and verification of additional information from each registered sex offender, as well as their fingerprints and palm prints.
And local agencies have 15 days to register offenders — and it's going to be busy at most law enforcement agencies, said Sgt. Chris Kuhn of the Allegan County Sheriff's Office.
The new law requires sex offenders to provide social security numbers, passport information, email addresses, online screen names, as well as vehicle and employer information.
Offenders will register within the jurisdiction that they live.
There are three tiers of sex offenders under the new law, Kuhn said. The first tier have committed the least severe offenses and have to register at the beginning of each year. The second tier has to register bi-annually and the third quarterly.
Registration for the second and third tiers is between July 1 through 15.
Kuhn said offenders registering, verifying, or changing their address at the Allegan County Sheriff's Office should expect the registration process itself to require about 30 minutes per person, not including time waiting to be processed.
Kuhn said sex offenders have received letters notifying them what tier they are in and information they need to bring.
There are around 300 sex offenders that will have to complete the registration in in Allegan County, Kuhn said. They are setting up a separate room to handle the number of people coming in.
Kuhn said the Grand Rapids Police Department will have about 1,000 offenders to register.
The city of Kalamazoo has 687 offenders registered, according to the Michigan State Police Michigan Public Sex Offender Registry website.
After the registration, the offender will be given have a receipt to carry around verifying their information.
While the information will take a while to collect and enter into the state's database, Kuhn said it will be invaluable to law enforcement. Some of the information will be made available on the sex offender registry.
Kuhn said July 1, 5, 6 and 15 are anticipated to have the longest wait times. Kuhn said offenders will most likely come at the beginning or wait until the end. ..Source.. by Fritz Klug | The Kalamazoo Gazette
Arizona Dept of Public Safety system hacked: LulzSec group claims responsibility
Computer experts are trying to determine how an international group of hackers broke into the Arizona Department of Public Safety's computers on Thursday and downloaded and released hundreds of law-enforcement files.
The hacking group LulzSec, which has taken responsibility for breaching the websites of the CIA and the U.S. Senate, said in a bulletin that it targeted the DPS because LulzSec opposes Senate Bill 1070, a law the Arizona Legislature passed that widened law-enforcement officers' ability to apprehend illegal immigrants. The law is largely on hold pending a review by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The DPS files, posted on LulzSec's website, include personal information about officers and numerous documents ranging from routine alerts from out-of-state police agencies to videos and photos about the hazards of police work and operations of drug gangs. The names of the files are as innocuous as "resume" and "evaluation form" and as provocative as "cartel leader threatens deadly force on U.S. police."
In its Web posting, the group said the files were primarily related to U.S. Border Patrol and counterterrorism operations.
The hackers vowed to release more classified documents each week as a way to embarrass authorities and sabotage their work.
Steve Harrison, a DPS spokesman, confirmed late Thursday that the agency's system had been hacked earlier in the day. The agency had heard rumors that someone was working on hacking the agency's system, but the DPS could not do anything until the system was actually breached, Harrison said.
Gov. Jan Brewer was briefed on the situation, but her spokesman referred all questions to the DPS.
Experts are working on closing the loopholes and have closed external access to the DPS system.
Harrison said the release of officers' personal information is alarming. This information included the names of eight officers, their spouses' names, cellphone numbers and addresses.
"When you put out personal information, you don't know what kind of people will respond," Harrison said, noting that another officer was attacked at his home Thursday morning in an unrelated incident.
The only breach identified by the DPS so far has been that of the e-mail accounts, the passwords of which were also posted online. The agency suspects most, if not all, of the information released was obtained via what was available on those accounts.
Although LulzSec claims some of the files were labeled "not for public distribution," Harrison said. The DPS did not believe any sensitive information that would compromise current investigations was leaked.
Many of the files reflect the mundane concerns of law enforcement. Others offer insight into efforts to keep pace with rapidly evolving technology and the ways criminals take advantage of it.
Some documents also relate to the DPS' effort to address issues of alleged racial profiling, stemming from a 2001 lawsuit that the agency agreed to settle. As part of that agreement, the DPS has continued to allow a university research firm to collect data on its officers' traffic stops.
Other documents included an intelligence bulletin about the leader of a Mexican drug cartel, an advisory from the Arizona Counter Terrorism Intelligence Center and Highway Patrol operational plans for responding to border threats.
According to news reports, the anonymous computer-hacking group has taken responsibility for breaching websites of the CIA, the U.S. Senate, the Public Broadcast System and numerous video-game companies.
LulzSec posts its exploits on Twitter and, as of Thursday, claimed more than 261,200 followers.
Aaron Sandeen, the state's chief information officer, said a national cybersecurity agency that monitors state websites notified his office of a potential breach.
The DPS website was shut down immediately, Sandeen said, and IT teams went to work "to make sure there was no outbreak anywhere else within the network."
The DPS information system is separate from the rest of state government, he said. No other state agency websites have been compromised, he said.
Sandeen said the DPS attack appeared to have been malware.
DPS employees late Thursday were comparing passwords and e-mail addresses to verify whether the information LulzSec has published matches actual DPS accounts.
"DPS is working to verify all user accounts, change all passwords and make sure everything is secure," Sandeen said. "We have to validate that it is a legitimate hack and it's legitimate information."
IT teams also were looking for the source of the cyberattack by scanning internal computer files for unusual activity, such as peaks of usage.
For example, Sandeen said increased traffic this week on the DPS sex-offender registry could provide some clues.
"I don't know if that's related, but that's something we will look into," he said.
On Thursday afternoon, LulzSec taunted Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio on his official account, saying, "Media? Heat? You?" The tweet included an expletive in Spanish aimed at the Border Patrol.
Sheriff's Deputy Chief Jack MacIntyre said the Sheriff's Office is taking "some countermeasures" with the agency's IT system.
"We will be cooperating with DPS to make sure that we minimize any possible impact," he said. Asked if the sheriff's computer systems had been compromised, MacIntyre responded, "We don't think so, we're looking at that - although we're not absolutely sure. We're working on it full-scale with all our IT people."
Sen. Linda Gray, chairwoman of the state Senate's Public Safety and Human Services Committee, said she was unaware of the attack. But she did worry about confidential employee information, such as home addresses and other identifying details, being disseminated on DPS personnel.
Much of that information is shielded from public disclosure in the interest of protecting law enforcement who work on sensitive matters, she said.
Asked if Maricopa County is taking special precautions amid the high-profile attacks, a county spokesman declined to provide details, saying only, "We are always vigilant."
In a bulletin accompanying the latest release of information, LulzSec said:
"We are releasing hundreds of private intelligence bulletins, training manuals, personal e-mail correspondence, names, phone numbers, addresses and passwords belonging to Arizona law enforcement. We are targeting AZDPS specifically because we are against SB 1070 and the racial profiling anti-immigrant police state that is Arizona."
The group said it will release more information every week to embarrass military and law-enforcement officials "in an effort not just to reveal their racist and corrupt nature but to purposefully sabotage their efforts to terrorize communities fighting an unjust 'war on drugs.' " ..Source.. by Ronald J. Hansen, Sean Holstege and Mary K. Reinhart contributed to this article.
June 23, 2011
OFF TOPIC: Rochester Woman Arrested After Videotaping Police From Her Own Front Yard
NEW YORK -- In May, the Rochester Police Department arrested a woman on a charge of obstructing governmental administration after she videotaped several officers' search of a man's car. The charge is a criminal misdemeanor.
The only problem? Videotaping a police officer in public view is perfectly legal in New York state -- and the woman was in her own front yard. The arrest report of the incident also contains an apparent discrepancy from what is seen in the woman's own video.
That video, uploaded to the Internet this week, more than a month after Emily Good's May 12 arrest, begins by showing a black male being questioned by a police officer at about 10 p.m. The red and blue flashes of a police cruiser illuminate the scene on Aldine Street.
"I just got out of the house, man, I'm sick, man," the man who has been pulled over says. Other police officers search his car.
Then one of the officers, identified as Mario Masic in the arrest report, turns to the camera and asks, "You guys need something?"
"I'm just -- this is my front yard -- I'm just recording what you're doing. It's my right," Good replies.
"Actually, not from the sidewalk," the officer replies, incorrect about the legality of Good's actions.
"This is my yard," Good says.
"I don't feel safe with you standing behind me so I'm going to ask you go into your house, you understand?" Masic says.
From there, the conversation escalates into a confrontation, with Masic alleging that Good is threatening his safety, and that she expressed other, unspecified anti-police statements before the videotaping began.
"Due to what you said to me, before you started taping, I think, uh, you need to go stay in your house, guys."
Good's public defender, Stephanie Stare, told HuffPost she believes from her conversations with several neighbors who were present that Good made no threatening comments before the tape begins.
Ryan Acuff, a friend of Good's who witnessed the exchange and picked up the video camera after she was arrested, agreed.
"None of us was talking to them until they came to us," Acuff said. "The first contact was definitely on tape."
For more than a minute of the video, the officer and Good argue about whether she is threatening his safety. Finally, it appears, Masic has had enough: "You know what, you're gonna go to jail. That's just not right."
Acuff claimed that he and Good were complying with the policeman's order to return to their porch when she was arrested.
"The real reason they arrested her was because she was videotaping," Acuff said. Both he and Good are activists who have previously protested foreclosures in the area.
Acuff has posted his own account of the arrest on Indymedia. He said he and Good were videotaping the traffic stop out of concern about police misconduct.
The police report of the arrest contains another apparent discrepancy from what appears on the video: Masic writes that the traffic stop targeted three individuals who "were all chalkem south gang members."
"This gang is known for drugs guns and violence," Masic notes, underscoring the danger of the situation.
The video, while dark, appears to only show one man led out of the car. Good's public defender says that as far as she has been able to determine, only one man was pulled over.
The Rochester Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In a statement released to the press, Rochester Police Chief James Sheppard said that while he had "researched" the incident, "With the case still pending and my unfamiliarity with the specific details, any assumptions at this time would be premature."
The police department has launched an internal investigation.
Good is scheduled to appear in court on Monday, where her public defender hopes the case will be dismissed.
If that doesn't happen, Stare said, she was not afraid of bringing Good's case to a jury trial.
"She was well within her rights." ..Source.. by Matt Sledge
Sex offender gets settlement after rape
6-23-2011 Minnesota:
A patient who was raped in 2009 at the Minnesota Sex Offender Program's facility in Moose Lake has been awarded $130,000 in a settlement with the state Department of Human Services (DHS).
Philip Goldhammer, 35, alleged that he was raped by his roommate after staff ignored his requests to be transferred to another room. William Cardwell, Goldhammer's roommate, tried to commit suicide following his attack.
It took more than a year and a half after the rape before DHS issued a "client compatibility'' policy designed to protect patients from such threatening situations. Prior to the rape, Goldhammer, who weighs just over 140 pounds, described feeling intimidated by being housed with the 266-pound Cardwell.
Goldhammer will have his own room for 18 months to help recover from the assault under the settlement agreement.
Cardwell, 45, was convicted of assault with great bodily harm after the attack and sentenced to more than nine years in prison. ..Source.. by PAUL McENROE
June 22, 2011
32 Arrested In Child Sex Sting Operation In Lake County
Whoever said "Oddly enough, none of the men arrested were registered sex offenders." needs an education in sex offender recidivism statistics!6-22-2011 Florida:
LAKE COUNTY, Fla. -- Lake County detectives made 32 arrests in six days during a sex sting operation, according to the sheriff’s office.
Undercover detectives went online posing as children or the parents of children trolling for sex. Police said 32 men showed up at a house looking for sex and some brought gifts and candy, all of them were not registered sex offenders.
The Lake County Sheriff's Office held a press conference on Tuesday to announce the arrests and show what they said were the faces of men who want to have sex with children.
"Honestly, I was a little surprised at the number," said Lake County Sheriff Gary Borders.
Detectives said the 32 men traveled to a vacation home that the Lake County Sheriff's Office rented in the Four Corners area. Each of the men was expecting to have sex with a child. One man came all the way from Georgia with two young children of his own in the car, detectives said.
"It's bad enough he's driving to Lake County to meet with what he thinks is a child to have sex with, but to bring his own children with him. The best place for him is jail," said Borders.
The youngest man arrested was 19 and the oldest 63. Every one of the men were considered dangerous, which is why the sheriff's office said they had plenty of manpower during the take downs.
"We're just trying to make a safe arrest. One of the suspects had a gun in his pants," said Borders.
Each time a suspect came to the door of the home, detectives said they were waiting inside and during the operation things got very busy.
"At some points, they had three or four members sitting in cuffs on the floor of the home trying to get them processed and taken out before others showed up. So, it was very much a difficult operation to pull off," said a lieutenant of the Lake County Sheriff's Office.
Borders said his cyber crimes team has been in place for a few years, but this is the unit's largest sting. While the 32 men were essentially tricked by detectives, Borders said that trolling for sex with children is very real.
"I would tell you that there is that type of real activity going on on the Internet," said Borders.
Detectives said some of the suspects are in jail on Tuesday night and they all face felony charges. The men could receive a maximum of 25 years in prison if convicted.
Oddly enough, none of the men arrested were registered sex offenders. ..Source.. by WFTV.com
Sex offenders lived in Fort Lauderdale motel; city law left few other options
6-22-2011 Florida:
FORT LAUDERDALE—A motel known for touting its heart-shaped Jacuzzi for years quietly housed dozens of registered sex offenders and predators.
The Budget Inn on North Federal Highway was one of the few housing options for sex offenders in the city. That is, until the motel's owner learned of the tenants' criminal records this past week and evicted them.
On Friday, 24 offenders were listed on the state's sex offender registry as living at the 50-room motel just south of Oakland Park Boulevard.
Now, most of the offenders who had been staying there are struggling to find a new place to live. They may wind up homeless, highlighting a growing problem in South Florida: Municipal laws have so restricted where offenders can live that many have become homeless or drifters — which makes it harder for law enforcement to keep an eye on them.
"The laws have created this quandary that undermines their very purpose," said Jill Levenson, a clinical social worker studying sex offender issues at Lynn University. "The laws really have to be re-considered."
The motel's owner, Glen Patel, said Monday he was shocked to learn some of his tenants were sex offenders when informed by the Sun Sentinel.
"For the safety of my [other] guests, I can't keep them there," he said.
On a recent night at the motel, several guests said they, too, were alarmed to learn their neighbors were sex offenders. Among the guests staying there last week was a family with two young children.
Patel said state probation officers asked him over the weekend to reconsider evicting the sex offenders because, at least at the motel, the officers knew where they were.
Not to mention, at the motel, the offenders were living in a commercial district, alongside a Best Buy and across the street from a McDonald's — as opposed to being smack in the middle of a residential neighborhood.
State records show at least 36 other offenders have reported staying at the motel since 2007. The offenders' crimes ranged from attempting to solicit a child over the Internet to child pornography, child molestation, kidnapping and sexual battery of a child. Some were repeat offenders.
Fort Lauderdale and other cities enacted stringent sex offender residency laws after 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford was raped and murdered in 2005 by a sex offender who lived in her Central Florida neighborhood.
Under state law, people convicted of certain sex crimes involving children can't reside within 1,000 feet of schools, parks, playgrounds, day-care centers and public school bus stops.
Many cities in South Florida extended the zones even farther, up to 2,500 feet. Fort Lauderdale has a 1,400-foot radius.
Fort Lauderdale's ordinance leaves only about 10 percent of the city open for sex offenders, offering few rentals.
When offenders find a rare landlord or motel manager willing to take them, they move in by the drove, forming what authorities term a sex offender "cluster," which is what happened at the Budget Inn.
Probation officers can't order the sex offenders to split up and move, said Thomas Sharrard, a state probation supervisor for Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe counties.
"We can only enforce what is in their [court-ordered] conditions, and if there is not a condition that says you cannot live with another sex offender, we can't do anything," Sharrard said. "And if you were to kick them out, then the problem becomes: where do you send them?"
In Palm Beach County, about 50 offenders are registered in the Miracle Park community outside of Pahokee. That location, operated by a ministry, was developed to house offenders. ..Source.. by Sofia Santana and Dana Williams, Sun Sentinel
Sex offender allowed back at Lake Michigan College
6-22-2011 Michigan:
Student had been suspended last year by college
BENTON HARBOR — A second Lake Michigan College student suspended last year for being a registered child sex offender has been allowed to take classes again.
The student was one of three men who were notified by LMC in February 2010 that they had been banned for being a child sex offender on the Michigan Sex Offender Registry.
Amid national media attention and public concern over the decision, LMC changed its policy to review the enrollment of such students on a case-by-case basis. The old policy automatically suspended students at all four of LMC’s campuses who were listed on the registry as child sex offenders, regardless of whether it was deemed they posed a risk.
Two of the three students filed appeals in February 2010. A student appeals committee allowed one of the students back, but did not for the student most recently accepted back.
The college has not released what its criteria is for reinstating students.
The settlement to allow the student back to LMC was finalized on Tuesday, although he has been taking classes since January.
The student contacted the ACLU of Michigan last year after the college’s original ruling. The ACLU represented the student and urged the college to look over his case again.
Miriam Aukerman, ACLU West Michigan Regional Office staff attorney, said Tuesday that a blanket ban is unfair and illegal.
Aukerman said this particular student’s crimes were for a 10-year-old offense and added that he received numerous support from friends, faculty, a therapist and his parole officer. She would not say what factors during a December investigation led to his reinstatement.
"Other colleges and universities should follow LMC’s lead and craft more carefully tailored rules that actually keep our campuses and communities safe," Aukerman said. Aukerman said it’s certainly possible that some students should be kept out depending on their individual case.
Lisa Martin, the student’s former therapist, said in a statement that the student was "devastated" when he was kicked out of school.
"He cannot change the past or undo what he did," she said. "What he can and did do is work towards becoming a different person. For him, obtaining an education was central to his plan to turn his life around. In my professional opinion, his attendance at Lake Michigan College does not present a risk. He is a positive addition to the campus, rather than a safety threat."
The issue came to light when one of the three students attempted to resister for winter classes at the Niles Bertrand Cross campus and was not allowed to enroll after he told administrators he was a convicted child sex offender. After a background check of all 4,200 students, the school suspended three who appeared on the registry.
The rule applies only to child sex offenders and does not affect sex offenders whose offense were against adults.
Although the old rule would automatically suspend the students, it essentially was like a ban from the school because child sex offenders are required to register for 25 years.
Bob Harrison, LMC’s president, said the college set new policies in place a year ago to give students a chance to return. He said he had no further comment on the issue. ..Source.. by Tom Moor
June 20, 2011
Editorial: How useful is registration?
Good Editorial. Proves there is no value or further public safety aspect to sex offender registry, so why are folks spending large amounts of money on keeping it up?6-20-2011 Oregon:
UPDATE: To the commenter about "Level 3" registrants. Given the coming of the Adam Walsh Act and its improper HISTORICAL classification system, which does not tell the public anything about the dangerousness of the registrant in TODAYS light, any reliance on Levels is not worth considering any longer. Nationally folks are showing low level registrants are becoming Level-3 after implementing the AWA system.
The legislature has passed a bill to close a loophole in Oregon’s law requiring convicted sex offenders to register with the police. These bills pass easily, for obvious reasons, but does anyone wonder whether they do any good?
This particular measure, HB 3204, requires the registration of offenders who live out of state and are registered there but who temporarily work or are going to school in Oregon.
Assuming the governor signs the bill, which he will, they’ll have to sign up in Oregon too. There are about 50 of them, said Rep. Kim Thatcher, who sponsored the bill.
The question is: Does the registration requirement serve a purpose other than making these offenders jump through additional hoops after serving their time?
The Department of State Police maintains a public website listing those registered sex offenders considered to be predators. On Thursday night, the site said five of them were living within a mile of 600 Lyon St. S.W., the address of the Democrat-Herald.
It was information we had not looked up for years, not since the paper did some stories about the registry. So how useful or important is it?
These are just predatory offenders. Lots of others are registered in the area. The police know where they are if they look up the list, and this may be helpful in the investigation of any new offenses.
But there doesn’t seem to have been a significant change in the incidence of sex crimes in Oregon. More and more people are registered as offenders, but the number of sex crimes reported in the state hovers around 6,000 year after year.
The OSP website makes it plain that the names are being furnished in order for people to provide for their own safety. It’s illegal to use the list to subject the offenders to any kind of harassment or discrimination.
Judging by a regular perusal of crime reports, most sex offenses seem to be committed not by strangers but by people known to the victim. That makes it hard to see how the registration requirement is all that useful in preventing more crimes. ..Source.. by Democrat Herald.com
June 19, 2011
Governor Jindal signs bill criminalizing use of social networking sites by sex offenders
6-19-2011 Louisiana:
BATON ROUGE – Yesterday, Governor Bobby Jindal signed into law HB 55 by Rep. Thierry – a Governor’s Package Bill – which criminalizes the accessing or using of social networking websites, chat rooms and peer-to-peer networks by registered sex offenders.
Governor Jindal said, “We don’t let sex offenders on our playgrounds and online social networking sites will now be no different. We must always be one step ahead of the monsters that prey on our children, and with the development and popularity of social networking websites, such as Facebook and chatrooms, sex offenders have new tools for communicating with our children. Law enforcement officials will now have a new mechanism to deter sex offenders from interacting with our children by criminalizing their use of these sites.”
The new law will apply to registered sex offenders who were previously convicted of indecent behavior with juveniles, pornography involving juveniles, computer-aided solicitation of a minor or video voyeurism; or were previously convicted of a sex offense in which the victim of that sex offense was a minor.
Under the bills these criminals, upon first conviction, will be fined up to $10,000 and imprisoned for up to 10 years without benefit of parole, probation or suspension of sentence. Upon a second or subsequent conviction, they will be fined up to $20,000 and imprisoned with hard labor for five-20 years without benefit of parole, probation or suspension of sentence. ..Source.. by Press-Tribune Staff
Prisons losing crowding battle
One interesting point, the Journalist says "Many convicted of sex crimes" but does not distinguish if they are "New Sex crimes," or are they possibly due to "Failure to Register" charges for maintaining a nonsensical telephone book of addresses where sex offenders sleep? I would like to know.6-19-2011 Nebraska:
LINCOLN — A deluge of new prison inmates — many convicted of sex crimes — is overwhelming the state's effort to relieve overcrowding in the state corrections facilities.
The state has been ramping up a program to accelerate parole for short-term, low-risk inmates and reduce overcrowding, which has hovered around 140 percent of capacity for several months.
But record-high admissions to Nebraska prisons, along with still-transitioning rehabilitative programs, have left those efforts well short of expectations.
Instead of populations falling at the nine state correctional facilities, numbers have risen in the past few months, reaching 4,482, or 141.17 percent of capacity, last week.
State prison officials spoke last year of paroling more than 260 inmates by July 1, but the number of inmates on parole has risen by only 40 since March 1.
Bob Houston, state corrections director, remains confident his department can reach a goal of reducing the state's prison population by 545 inmates, or about 12 percent, over the next two years.
“I think we're on a good track,” Houston said. “But nothing is as fast as I'd like it to be.”
State Sen. Brad Ashford of Omaha, chairman of the legislative committee that oversees corrections issues, said he has faith in the effort to deal with more inmates in less-expensive community settings rather than prison cells. But it's clear changes might be needed, he said.
“We're going in the wrong direction, so we'll have to revisit this,” Ashford said.
State officials, needing to close a nearly $1 billion budget gap this spring, were counting on faster progress to parole more short-term inmates, providing significant cost savings.
A total of $6.7 million in savings was projected over the next two years by paroling 545 inmates.
It costs about $29,000 a year to house an offender behind bars, compared with $5,000 per year for intense parole supervision. Houston and others say parole, coupled with treatment, is more effective at avoiding repeat crimes.
The expected reduction had another anticipated benefit: heading off construction of a $125-million-plus state prison.
When the prison population reaches 140 percent of capacity, it triggers a report to the governor, who can declare an emergency. The figure also can be a benchmark federal judges use to order construction of new prison cells.
The increase in new state prison inmates comes at a time when crime rates are falling in the state and across the nation.
Nebraska's numbers buck another national trend: The number of state prisoners nationwide fell last year for the first time since 1972.
The growth in the number of sex offenders sent to prison appears to be a major culprit in the prison population dilemma.
Such offenders generally serve longer sentences and are paroled at a much lower frequency than other inmates, exacerbating the overcrowding problem.
In the past couple of years, sex offenders have supplanted drug dealers and drug users as the largest group in Nebraska prisons.
A sex offense was the most serious crime committed by nearly 19 percent of all state inmates. Assault followed at 13 percent, with felony drug crimes third at 12 percent.
Officials said prison alternatives such as drug court and community corrections have reduced the number of inmates sentenced for drug crimes.
But while one in five inmates is in prison for sex crimes, only about one in 30 offenders released on parole last year, or 28 in 797, was a sex offender.
That is despite a low rate of recidivism for sex offenders. A 2002 U.S. Department of Justice study found that 5.3 percent of men who committed rape or sexual assault had reoffended within three years of being released from prison.
Esther Casmer, the state parole board chairwoman, disagreed that the low rate of parole for sex offenders was related to any cultural fear of such criminals.
Casmer said her board is often presented with parole candidates who have either refused treatment for sex offenses or have been unable to get treatment because of waiting lists in the state prison system.
Casmer said she won't parole anyone who hasn't shown through treatment that his risk of reoffending has been reduced.
“Those programs are designed to address sexual deviancy or predatory behavior,” she said. “We are not going to consider them for parole without treatment. It wouldn't make sense.”
Houston said his department has increased the quality and capacity of in-prison treatment and is working to create more community-based treatment programs for sex offenders so more inmates can be treated outside prison, during parole.
The state has begun offering more out-of-prison treatment programs through a “day-reporting center” in Lincoln and is working to duplicate that effort in Douglas County.
Once additional community treatment programs are in place, the number of parolees should increase, Houston said.
There are a couple of signs of progress. The number of inmates on parole has risen to 1,015, up from 975 on March 1. Four additional parole officers have been hired in both Omaha and Lincoln and the plan is to hire 12 more.
Houston said six drug abuse counselors have been transferred to community positions so more services can be offered outside prison.
But, because of state budget reductions, the department must first cut expenses elsewhere to free up money to invest in the transition of more inmates to parole, Houston said.
A 160-inmate wing of the Omaha Correctional Center was closed in May, eliminating 14 correctional officer positions. But it takes time to retrain those officers or hire others as parole officers, drug counselors or sex-offender counselors, he said.
The record-high influx of new prisoners is not likely to abate soon, said Steve King, who tracks statistics for the state prison system.
Judges sentenced a record 237 new inmates in March, and the first quarter of 2011 also saw a record 630 new inmates entering prison. That followed a record 2,339 new inmates in 2010.
“We're just continuing to set new records,” King said.
He noted that the legislative trend in recent years has been to increase and enhance sentences, sending more people to prison for longer sentences.
Ashford said it is unclear whether more money will be needed to bolster treatment of sex offenders or whether senators need to re-examine sex offenders' prison sentences.
Prison officials might have to amend their approach to reach their goals of reducing prison overcrowding, Ashford said.
“I do believe the department is doing the best they can, but there may be some structural changes that have to be made,” he said. ..Source.. by Paul Hammel
WORLD-HERALD BUREAU
June 17, 2011
37 South Dakotans have names removed from sex offender registry
8-9-2010 South Dakota:
Sweeping changes to South Dakota's Sex Offender Registry passed by the Legislature this year have resulted in 37 names, including those of six Pennington County residents, being scrubbed from the list.
All 37 offenders had been convicted of misdemeanor indecent exposure, according to Attorney General Marty Jackley, which meant the names were removed from the registry automatically on July 1. The registry can be found online at sor.sd.gov
Rapid City Police Lt. Tom Vliger said a half dozen of the names purged from the sex offender registry were from Pennington County.
“Pennington County had 309 people listed on the registry. Six were removed,” he said.
Vliger said that those convicted of misdemeanor indecent exposure were not part of innocent pranks of locking people outdoors while naked, streaking or swimming in the nude.
“These are not people who are urinating in public,” Vliger said.
Misdemeanor indecent exposure involves an intent to arouse or gratify sexual behavior by someone exposing themselves in public in a way that is likely to annoy, offend or alarm another person, he said.
The important difference from the earlier examples is the intent to arouse sexual behavior, Vliger said.
Legislators passed changes to the registry in March, allowing some offenders to petition for removal and requiring the names of all those convicted of misdemeanor indecent exposure to be purged.
Jackley had argued that misdemeanor offenders already on the list be required to petition as well, but lawmakers overruled him.
The Legislature made changes to the registry this year following an intensive set of studies from 2009-2010.
Lawmakers created a tiered system that allows people convicted of lesser sex offenses to be removed by petition either 10 or 25 years after their conviction. Those deemed high-risk, such as those convicted of violent rape or child molestation, are classified as Tier III offenders and are not eligible for removal.
Tier I offenders, who can petition for removal after 10 years, include those who were 21 or younger when convicted of statutory rape.
People on Tier II, who must wait 25 years, include those convicted of bestiality and incest.
Offenders on the registry still are required to report their address every time they move and are not allowed to live near schools, parks or pools.
There have been two petitions for removal delivered to Jackley's office for review, he said, but his attorneys have yet to offer a recommendation.
Offenders who wish to be removed must file a petition with the Unified Judicial System in their home county, after which Jackley’s office reviews the case and sends a recommendation to a local judge.
The judge can object or sign the petition. Minnehaha County State's Attorney Aaron McGowan said his office has seen a courtesy copy of one petition, although local prosecutors are not required to review petitions.
The exact process has yet to be defined, Jackley said. Judges likely will have broad discretion.
“We’re kind of in uncharted waters at this point,” he said.
The Rev. Joe Panaia of Tea was glad to see his name removed. Panaia operates a ministry called “Bridging the Gap” and uses his past experiences to tell the story of how he has turned to Jesus.
“I’ve never tried to hide my past, but I'm not going to put it on the front page of my website,” he said.
Panaia’s appearance on the list, as well as past convictions for forgery and fraud, stirred controversy one year ago when he attempted to open a youth center in Tea. He eventually backed away from plans for the center.
Despite the guilty plea, Panaia maintains his innocence in the 2001 indecent exposure case. According to court documents, Panaia exposed himself to a co-worker and joked about her turning him in. He fought the charges but eventually pleaded guilty and was sentenced to jail and probation. ..Source.. by John Hult
