Burgum signs law prohibiting high-risk sex offenders from living near ND schools

4-20-17 North Dakota:

BISMARCK — Gov. Doug Burgum has approved North Dakota's first statewide restriction on where high-risk sex offenders can live, despite objections from the manager of the state's sex offender program.

Burgum signed House Bill 1334 into law Friday, April 14. The new law prohibits offenders deemed a high risk to re-offend from residing within 500 feet of a preschool or K-12 school.

The bill passed the House and Senate almost unanimously. The only opposition vote came from Rep. Luke Simons, R-Dickinson, who said such decisions should be left up to local municipalities.

"This bill was fully vetted by the Legislature, with a focus on the safety of constituents and their children, before being sent to the governor's desk," the governor's office said in a statement.

Barb Breiland, manager of North Dakota's sex offender program, testified against the bill. She's told The Forum she thinks the restriction could create "a false sense of security," which "could be very dangerous."

Over two dozen other states have imposed these sorts of blanket restrictions on where sex offenders can live, but no research has shown the restrictions prevent sex crimes. Rather, in some cases they've led to "loss of housing, loss of support systems, and financial hardship that may aggravate rather than mitigate offender risk," according to a 2014 report by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Asked about this, the governor's office said in its statement, "We encourage the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and law enforcement to closely monitor the implementation of this law to ensure it has the intended effect of enhancing public safety."

The bill's main sponsor, Rep. Lisa Meier, R-Bismarck, said the idea for the legislation came after her constituents raised concerns about a high-risk offender living by a Bismarck school.

It's unclear how many of the state's high-risk offenders live near schools and will need to move. North Dakota has about 130 preschools and about 480 K-12 schools.

Fargo police estimated that four of the city's roughly 25 high-risk offenders live within 500 feet of a school. Unclear on what defined a preschool, the police only included K-12 schools in their estimate.

The new law goes into effect Aug. 1, said the governor's spokesman, Mike Nowatzki. Violating the law will be a Class C felony with a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. ..Source.. by Archie Ingersoll

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Despite research, ND lawmakers OK bill keeping high-risk sex offenders from living near schools

3-31-17 North Dakota:

FARGO – North Dakota’s on track to have its first statewide restriction on where high-risk sex offenders can live, with lawmakers voting almost unanimously for a bill that would prohibit such offenders from residing within 500 feet of a school.

House Bill 1334, which has received little media attention, quietly passed the House in February and the Senate this week. The bill has not yet been sent to Gov. Doug Burgum, who generally does not comment on legislation before it reaches his desk, his spokesman Mike Nowatzki said Thursday, March 30.

Over two-dozen other states have imposed blanket restrictions on where sex offenders can live. But no research has shown that these restrictions prevent sex crimes. Rather, in some cases they’ve led to “loss of housing, loss of support systems, and financial hardship that may aggravate rather than mitigate offender risk,” according to a 2014 report by the U.S. Department of Justice.

The manager of North Dakota’s sex offender program, who testified against the bill, agrees that such restrictions don’t have the desired effect. “Setting up an imaginary boundary of 500 feet from a school, I think, could provide a false sense of security and that, I think, could be very dangerous,” said Barb Breiland of the state’s parole and probation division.

Breiland said 583 high-risk offenders live in North Dakota communities. It’s unclear how many of them live near schools and would need to move if the bill becomes law on July 1, she said.

Depending on where an area’s schools are located, she said, she thinks the restriction could exclude offenders from entire towns. The Justice Department report said “residence restrictions lead to the displacement and clustering of sex offenders into other areas, particularly rural areas.”

The bill would apply to private and public elementary, middle and high schools, as well as state-licensed preschools. North Dakota has 132 such preschools, including 36 in Fargo and West Fargo, according to the state Department of Human Services.
‘A real uneasy feeling’

In 2009, the North Dakota House defeated a bill that would have made it illegal for sex offenders to live within 1,000 feet of schools, day care centers and other areas with children. At the time, law enforcement officers opposed the bill, saying it did not offer the protection it seemed to, while making it harder for offenders to find housing.

Rep. Lisa Meier, the main sponsor of this session’s bill, said no law enforcement officers testified against her legislation, which applies only to offenders deemed a high risk to re-offend and has a smaller buffer zone. “Five hundred feet seems really like a great, you know, place to go with this," she said.

Meier, R-Bismarck, said she submitted the bill after a student and her mother raised concerns about a high-risk offender living near Light of Christ Catholic School and St. Mary’s Central High School in Bismarck. Meier said the offender’s presence put parents and students “on guard a little bit and gave them a real uneasy feeling."

Meier said two students testified in favor of the bill. “They were mainly concerned that a high-risk sex offender's living right across the street, you know, staring at kids all day," she said.

Meier said the offender no longer lives next to the school. Right now, the closest high-risk offender lives in an apartment about three blocks away, roughly 1,250 feet from the school.

The lone dissenting vote against Meier’s bill came from Rep. Luke Simons, R-Dickinson, who believes decisions on sex-offender residency restrictions should be left up to local municipalities. ..Continued.. by Archie Ingersoll

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Dru Sjodin's killer fights death penalty

1-5-17 North Dakota:

It’s been more than 13 years since Dru Sjodin was kidnapped and murdered by Alfonso Rodriguez, Jr., a convicted sex offender. While a federal jury sentenced Rodriguez to death more than a decade ago, the case remains active today.

In 2003, Sjodin, a 22-year-old college student at the University of North Dakota, was kidnapped from a mall parking lot in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Her body was found months later in Crookston, Minnesota. Rodriguez, a sexual offender, was arrested. Because the crime crossed state lines, prosecutors were able to charge Rodriguez under federal laws — making his trial the first federal death penalty case in North Dakota.

In 2007, a federal appeals court upheld Rodriguez’s death penalty and conviction. In 2011, new lawyers filed an appeal — arguing Rodriguez was “denied effective assistance of counsel,” the trial featured “junk science and false forensics,” and that Rodriguez is “mentally retarded.”

On Dec. 28, prosecutors filed a motion to interview Rodriguez’s trial lawyer under oath due to the claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. The current appeal is almost certainly Rodriguez’s last shot at avoiding the death penalty.

“This comes to no surprise to us at all,” Linda Walker, the mother of Dru Sjodin, told Fox 9. “I think a lot of people don’t understand that when people are on death row, they have only one hour a day outside their confinement…So he really honestly has to sit and think about what’s done, day in and day out.”

It’s difficult to estimate how much longer the case may last. On average, condemned inmates spend nearly 16 years on death row before they are executed. However, the statistics are based on state death row inmates, not federal. Federally, only three people have been executed since the federal death penalty was reinstated in 1988.

Condemned inmates are entitled to an automatic appeal, and another at their request. ..Source..

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North Dakota lawmakers look to streamline sex offender requirements

9-17-15 North Dakota:

BISMARCK – The number of registered sex offenders living among North Dakotans has nearly doubled in the past 10 years, but attorneys said Thursday the law spelling out the registration requirements is long and confusing and should be streamlined.
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"Because ultimately what we want is compliance," Assistant Cass County State's Attorney Renata Olafson Selzer told the Legislature's interim Judiciary Committee.

The Legislature has tasked the committee with studying the law to address inconsistencies and recommend changes for lawmakers to consider in 2017.

Since it was first passed in 1991, the law has gone through multiple revisions over the years, growing to six pages long with 17 subsections, making it the longest statute in North Dakota's criminal code.

"I think we have a statute that works well," Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Byers said. "We've fine-tuned it ... but it is kind of clunky ... and it could be more user-friendly."

Byers said the state has seen a spike in registered sex offenders in recent years, especially in oil-producing counties that have attracted workers and new residents from out of state.

Since 2005, the number of registered sex offenders in North Dakota has climbed by more than 95 percent to 1,353. That doesn't include 343 offenders who are currently jailed.

The state also has 153 registered "offenders against children," plus another 25 incarcerated, who have been convicted of non-sexual crimes against minors but are covered under the same law.

Upon their release or relocation, offenders have three days to register their new address, school or workplace with their local sheriff or police chief.

But the law contains various timelines for other reporting requirements. For example, offenders have three days to report a change in vehicle or online identity and five days to report a change in school or employment, but they're also supposed to notify law enforcement 10 days in advance of a change in name, residency or employment.

Kendall Vetter, a Bismarck police officer who works in sex offender compliance, called the latter requirement "completely unrealistic."

"I have offenders that start and stop three jobs in 10 days because they may get employed and then they find out that they're a registered offender and their employer fires them, or for whatever reason, they leave voluntarily. I could probably charge out every offender in Bismarck for that," he said.

Attorneys also questioned whether offenders against children should be separated in statute from sex offenders because the public — including landlords considering whether to rent to an offender — often don't make the distinction.

"I think we as a society should be less worried about tracking parents who took a belt to a child than one who sexually abused a child," Bismarck defense attorney Justin Vinje said.

Those convicted of failure to register face a mandatory minimum sentence of 90 days in jail and one year of supervised probation. Olafson Selzer said she agrees that's appropriate for an offender who fails to register his or her address and absconds, but questioned whether a less serious violation, such as failing to report a change in vehicle, warrants such a penalty.

Two committee members said they were surprised to hear from Byers that North Dakota's sex offender program doesn't comply with the federal Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006.

Byers said the attorney general's office has decided to deviate from the federal act in three areas because of philosophical differences. He said the state bases its three sex offender categories on risk assessments rather than the conviction offense; it doesn't automatically require re-registration upon any felony conviction; and it publishes only the pictures of high-risk/lifetime offenders on the website and doesn't publish the employers' addresses for low-risk offenders because it could risk their job and increase the likelihood they will reoffend.

"He's going to have a whole lot of time on his hands. What do you think that does for him?" he said.

Only 14 states are fully in compliance with the act, he said. ..Source.. by Mike Nowatzki

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Lobby Guard System Not Foolproof

8-26-15 North Dakota:

Day two of a new school year in West Fargo, and for a new security system in West Fargo Schools and already there are problems. It’s called ‘Lobby Guard’, an electronic system promising an extra layer of security for West Fargo Public Schools.

School visitors must be buzzed into the building, report to the office, answer why they are there and who they are there to see, get a picture taken, scan their government issued ID and then wait as it runs a background check.

"That national sex offender registry. And again that's because that's in Century Code that sex offenders are not allowed on school property,” explained School Safety and Security Coordinator Heather Konschak.

She said it also quizzes a database containing information such as court documents outlining custody disputes between parents. But the system is not foolproof.

"Yesterday we had a situation where one of the visitors to the school scanned his driver's license and the system flagged him as an offender,” Konschak explained.

The person flagged was one of our own News Photographers who showed up to shoot video of an event. The system, however, thought he was a sex offender from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

"Once ‘Lobby Guard’ flags someone as an offender we need to go into the back end of the system,” Konschak said.

When someone gets flagged as an offender, an email is sent out to a school administrator and/or School Resource Officer with an onscreen comparison of the offender’s information from the database and the information from the person in the lobby. If they don’t match, a human must tell the system they don’t match and then rerun their information.

"The system is brand new to us. We're still in the training phases. It was an unfortunate miss on our part,” said Konschak.

It’s something she said should not happen again.

West Fargo School officials apologized to the Valley News Live employee incorrectly flagged by the system. A district spokesperson said there were two more false positives Wednesday with the system, saying a few within the first days of using ‘Lobby Guard’ is to be expected. ,,Source.. by Bradford Arick

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"I know I Made a Mistake," Local Sex Offender Speaks Out, "Before You Judge Them, Talk To Them"

8-7-15 North Dakota:

Years after pleading guilty to having sex with a minor, a local man wants to share the struggles of being labeled as sex offender in the community. "I know I made a mistake and I own up to that,” says Robert Feyh, a level three sex offender, “But, the state of North Dakota is very hard on sex offenders."

We often report on valley news live when sex offenders move into a new neighborhood. They are required to register with police where they are living. A move authorities say is to keep the community safe, but we don't often hear from sex offenders themselves.

Valley News Team's Crime and Safety Reporter Nicole Johnson spoke with Feyh, a 26-year old level three sex offender. "It makes you think you're the worst of the worst,” he says.

What landed a Feyh on the sex offender list he says began as a high school relationship, "Started to become friends, and then it got stronger."

Feyh says his family turned him in when he was 18 for having sex with a 14 year old. "Back in the day 4 years apart was nothing, there was all kind of people dating back then,” says Feyh, “And now 4 years apart is like, oh hey he's a pedophile, he's a creepo."

Feyh did time for corruption of a minor, and now is labeled as a level 3 sex offender. "Not every single sex offender here in Fargo is a bad person, they have had their struggles, and before you judge them, talk to them." Says Feyh , explaining his struggles, "I've already been to jail a few times because I have had a failure to register for being homeless because I can't find anywhere."

Now 26, Feyh says the label has created a vicious cycle, "You see a level three and you automatically think they are all dangerous." He's only found 3 apartments in the city that will allow him to live there. A problem he says many on the list face, some end up homeless.

"If they have a housing for us, just something more accepting, or more understanding," says Feyh, hoping for change in the future. While he admits he should pay for his mistake, he's hoping the community won't look at all sex offenders the same or assume they are dangerous.

After Moorhead police notified the public about Feyh's change of address, several of his friends reached out to us on Facebook. Saying he faces a lot of ridicule, asking us to get the full story out there. ..Source.. by Nicole Johnson

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Lawmakers may require offenders who use prostitutes to attend 'John School’

2-4-2015 North Dakota:

BISMARCK -- Legislators continued their look at new bills to combat sex trafficking in North Dakota on Tuesday, taking up proposals to require school for "johns" and increased penalties for pimps that force abortions.

Anti-trafficking groups are hoping for the adoption of a uniform trafficking law, increased penalties for sellers and buyers of commercial sex and significant resources for victims.

Hearings on the package of bills began last week by the Senate Judiciary committee.

Senate Bill 2332, from state Sen. Mac Schneider, D-Grand Forks, goes after the demand for commercial sex, which many say creates the market for pimps. The bill requires offenders to attend a "John School" and, if the individual reoffends again within 10 years, to register as a sex offender.

Given the enlightenment gained from the educational program, which would be administered on a case-by-case basis in-person or as a webinar, a person who reoffends truly is a sexual predator that should register, said Christina Sambor, the coordinator for the state's anti-sex trafficking coalition FUSE.

The purpose of the John School, proponents say, is to educate men on the negative consequences prostitution has on women -- that it's not the "Pretty Woman" fantasy, but instead women are often being coerced into it.

Sen. Kelly Armstrong, R-Dickinson, had concern about writing into a law a requirement to attend a program that didn't yet exist in the state. But Schneider said he has been in talks with Sambor, who has been in contact with a foundation that does a web-based interactive course for about $300.

North Dakota's education program would be modeled after that of Breaking Free, a St. Paul, Minn.-based organization that supports women leaving prostitution. A survey of men who attended that program showed 61 percent had bought sex before the time they were caught and sentenced to the school. Other statistics have shown they rarely reoffend after the class.

Under the law, judges could make the offender pay for the program.

"If you have the funds to pay for commercial sex, you have the funds to pay for your own education program," Schneider said,

Minot police arrested 13 men in a prostitution sting last Friday in connection with a national enforcement operation targeting johns. Minot Police Lt. Jason Sundbakken said officers made the misdemeanor arrests in about 10 hours on Friday. The men who responded to the ads believed they were arranging to buy sex with women who turned out to be undercover officers.

Sundbakken said while he hadn't been involved in discussions at the legislative level about a proposed John School, he thinks such a program could be effective, similar to how drunk-driving defendants are referred to a victim witness panel.

"At least they would understand the kind of impact they're having on these women," he said.

Another bill, from FUSE and the office of North Dakota’s attorney general, adds "human trafficking or attempted human trafficking" in the definition of disorderly conduct for the purposes of that kind of restraining order. The House Judiciary Committee unanimously passed the bill at its meeting Tuesday.

The idea behind House Bill 1347 is to give parents a clear tool if they worry a pimp is trafficking or trying to traffick their child, Sambor testified.

She noted that under the proposed "Safe Harbor" law, which is also being considered by legislators and is already incorporated into federal law, anyone under 18 that's engaged in commercial sex is presumed to be a victim. The bill also updates the definition of "deprived child" in juvenile court to include victims of trafficking, in case their parents are their traffickers.

In yet another bill, the North Dakota Catholic Conference is pushing a bill that would tack five years onto the maximum prison time for pimps if, during the trafficking, they forced or coerced their victim to get an abortion.

Christopher Dodson, executive director of the conference, cited studies and articles on the prevalence of forced or coerced abortions in trafficking in his support of Senate Bill 2275.

Sen. John Grabinger, D-Jamestown, said the reporting of such a crime might be "kind of a hearsay deal," and brought up concerns over the difficulty of proving it in court.

But Dodson said he knew of three federal cases where this act came to light in the process of a trafficker's prosecution.

The Senate committee unanimously passed a resolution to support a federal law that would make www.Backpage.com more liable when it houses sex ads featuring trafficking victims. North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem spoke in support of Senate Concurrent Resolution 4017 and told the committee how state attorneys general for years have fought with the website, which houses a good share of the Internet's ads for prostitution that often actually feature victims of trafficking. Backpage representatives have maintained the site cooperates with law enforcement and that if it shuts down its escorts page, the ads would simply migrate to more underground websites.

North Dakota law enforcement agencies routinely post sting ads on Backpage when going after johns, Stenehjem said, "because we know that that provides a ready clientele and market for individuals who are interested in finding somebody online to engage in sexual trade."

Sambor told legislators how in a recent trafficking case, a 13-year-old girl in Moorhead, Minn., was advertised by her traffickers as a 21-year-old on the site.

The Senate committee took no action on the other bills.

Polaris releases hotline data

Polaris, a national anti-human trafficking organization, on Tuesday released data of calls during 2014 to the hotline it runs for suspected trafficking.

Polaris received reports of 16 possible cases of human trafficking in North Dakota last year, including 12 sex trafficking cases and three labor trafficking incidents. Since 2007, the hotline has received reports of 36 possible cases of human trafficking in the state.

Overall, 5,167 possible cases of human trafficking were reported to the hotline in 2014, according to Polaris. Most (71 percent) of the calls were to report potential sex trafficking, with labor trafficking making up 16 percent. The organization has reported on the top venues for sex trafficking are commercial-front brothels, Internet ad-based trafficking and motel- or hotel-based operations since 2007. Domestic work, traveling sales crews and the food service industry were the top industries where labor trafficking was reported. ..Source.. by Katherine Lymn

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Wisconsin man ordered to pay restitution to child porn victim in North Dakota

This is victim one, he has ??? more should they come forward in the future.

8-29-2014 Wisconsin, North Dakota:

A Wisconsin native living in Fargo, N.D., recently became the first person in that state ordered to pay restitution to a child pornography victim, following a United States Supreme Court decision this year about child porn restitution.

Robert Carey Evans, 58, of Waukesha, was ordered by a district judge on Aug. 21 to pay $3,250 to a victim who appeared in child pornography he possessed, according to a release from the United States Attorney's Office District of North Dakota.

This order is in accordance with Paroline vs. United States, a Supreme Court decision from April that says child porn possessors can be held liable for losses caused by trading a victim's image. The decision held that district courts can order restitution to victims for the circulation of child pornography.

Evans was found guilty of 14 counts of child pornography possession in October 2013, and sentenced to 10 years in prison in February. Investigators had seized more than 13 hard drives and 43 DVDs containing child porn from his Fargo apartment, featuring more than 22,000 images and 1,400 videos, according to the release.

After Evans' conviction, one of his victims submitted a claim for restitution for losses she incurred from Evans' images of her.

She was the only one of Evans' victims to file for restitution under Paroline vs. United States, according to Jennifer Puhl, a prosecutor in the case. ..Source.. by Jason Silverstein

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Federal funds targeted for improved sex offender registry

A quarter of a million dollars+ (so far), to know where each sleeps for a few hours of the day or night! And to know names of those in prison and civil commitment facility. What a unbelievable waste of taxpayer money.

7-31-2014 North Dakota:

Federal funds will help enhance the North Dakota attorney general’s sex offender website, according to Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem.

The state is receiving $30,000 for the website, according to Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., who announced the grant Tuesday.

Stenehjem said the funding will cover the costs of updating computer software to allow multiple addresses to the sex offender information available to the public through the website. The public will be able to view all residential addresses of a sex offender who moves between a distant job and a home or a school residence and a home.(This helps HOW? Useless info!). Another update will allow users of the website to access information from out-of-state sex offender registries(Why?).

“It will help augment funding we get from the state,” Stenehjem said, referring to state money used to program and operate the sex offenders’ website. “The state has spent almost a quarter million dollars over the last 12 years.”

Heitkamp said the funds are intended for improvements to the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act system, which began during her days as North Dakota attorney general from 1993 to 2001.

“These funds will help enable those efforts to continue by making sure North Dakotans are aware if sexual predators live in their communities,” she said.

Currently, the website displays maps showing the location of the primary residence of a registered sex offender. Offenders are required to notify law enforcement officials when they move or establish new residences. That information is updated to the website in real time, Stenehjem said.

“These will be nice improvements,” he said, referring to the planned changes to the website. “When a source of additional funds comes along you take advantage of it to make the system better.”

The North Dakota sex offender website currently lists 1,805 individuals of which 230 reside in Stutsman County. The Stutsman County total includes those housed at the North Dakota State Hospital, James River Correctional Center and Stutsman County Correctional Center. ..Source.. by Keith Norman

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Council limits where sex offender can be

Why do lawmakers like these fail to recognize that the threat is NOT from folks living within XX feet of these places, but from EMPLOYEES.

4-15-2014 North Dakota:

When registered sex offenders move into a community, the first response is fear, the second is uncharitable feelings and the third is, how do we protect our children?

Worried parents and other like-minded individuals wish they could cordon off their town and roll out the “unwelcome sign.” It isn’t that easy. After an offender has served their time, they have rights on where they want to live. Most of us hope it is somewhere else, but what can you do when their residence is your city?

The Hankinson City Council was notified of a high-risk sex offender living near town and they created an ordinance to limit where the offender can be in Hankinson. The council created their ordinance from one the city of Abercrombie adopted. It is a legal way residents can restrict offender’s activities.

Hankinson established a safety net for children by creating areas around locations where children regularly congregate in concentrated numbers and will prohibit registered sex offenders and sexual predators from loitering or prohibit establishing temporary or permanent residency near these locations. Mayor Joseph O’Meara said the council had their first reading of the new ordinance last Monday. “We can’t make it so they can’t come to town. Period,” he said. “But, there are critical areas we don’t want to see him loitering around.”

There are a number of registered sex offenders living in Richland County, with three high-risk offenders living in Wahpeton, one near Hankinson and the fifth one residing in Lidgerwood, N.D. Registered offenders have served their time and have rights. City councils represent the rights of their citizens and are obligated to protect our children, especially from the ones considered high risk to re-offend. ..Source.. by Daily News Editorial Board

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Booming Oil Fields May Be Giving Sex Trafficking A Boost

2-1-2014 North Dakota:

A Friday night at J Dub's Bar & Grill in Williston, N.D., begins and ends with multicolored flashing lights, thumping dance music and crowds of young men with money to spend.

"A lot of testosterone being thrown around in this town," says Nathan Kleyer, 24, a Williston native who's at J Dub's with some friends for a few drinks.

And he's seen it all over town, he says: "These scantily clad women walking in, and they will hop tables until they find a john to take them home."

He's seen it in bars, and he's even heard about it at a nearby chain restaurant, he says.

"If you're looking for it, you can find it; it's there," Kleyer says. "You know, there's women looking to make money, too."

This is the kind of anecdotal story you hear about prostitution in the Bakken oil fields region. The workforce is well-paid and is predominantly male. Ask people who live there, and it doesn't take long before you start hearing about a rise in prostitution.

Tiffany Aho runs a cleaning company in nearby Sidney, Mont. Her company cleans oil field offices in the North Dakota oil fields as well as "man camps," the clusters of long narrow buildings or trailers built by oil companies to cheaply house workers.

"We get several people when we're out on locations that ask if we offer more services than just cleaning," she says.

"Sex services?" a reporter asks.

"Correct."

"At all times, I send two girls — I never send one girl to a location," Aho says. But that doesn't stop the propositions from coming.

Scan the North Dakota section of the online classifieds site Backpage.com and you'll find pages of postings from female escorts with revealing pictures of women offering companionship, massages and more.

Many posts contain disclaimers saying anything that happens is between two consenting adults.

"I mean, you can't put your finger on it," says Bryan Lockerby, the administrator of the Division of Criminal Investigation for the Montana Department of Justice.

Lockerby knows the oil boom in his state and in neighboring North Dakota means economic opportunities for organized crime. "Guns, drugs, prostitution — all of that goes hand in hand," he says.

But law enforcement in the region just hasn't had the training or the resources to fully grasp what's happening on the ground.

Agencies are trying to change that, though. There are more highway patrol officers now, and the FBI has a new office based in Sidney that covers the entire Bakken region.

And to address prostitution, Lockerby says, you need to start with a focus on human trafficking.

"Seventy percent of the women that have gotten into prostitution started at the age of 13 to 14, when they were recruited by pimps."

Montana established a human trafficking task force in 2012 — a partnership among the state and federal agencies such as the FBI, IRS and the Department of Homeland Security.

Still, the task force has only prosecuted a handful of cases since forming.

Adrian, who lives in Montana, says she wasn't recruited into prostitution. She was originally forced into it, she says, by her adopted parents in Texas.

"I was 11 when I started getting sold," she says. "And by the age of 15, 16, I was sold to a pimp."

Adrian asked that her last name be withheld because she fears for her safety now that she's speaking out. She says going to the police was never an option — she was always so closely watched.

"I mean, if you went to go get help, you were dead. ... There's always someone outside your door when you're doing what you had to do," she says. "If they weren't, they were sitting outside in their cars, so there was no escape."

But she did escape, making it all the way to a Montana safe house called Traffick Refuge. She considers herself one of the lucky ones.

Now 19, with dyed red hair and a new GED, Adrian is trying to spread awareness.

While Adrian was trafficked in Texas, Patricia Freeland, Traffick Refuge's executive director, says she's sure this kind of trafficking is on the rise in the Bakken. She says schools need to be better informed — and that the oil companies need to better monitor those man camps.

"They're so out of control, I believe, because it's so rural — so small town — in North Dakota and eastern Montana."

The attorneys general of both Montana and North Dakota have joined others around the country asking Congress for more funding for programs that fight human trafficking.

As for law enforcement, Freeland says officers need to stop treating prostitutes as criminals. "I don't care how willing they look," she says. "They're victims." ..Source.. by Dan Boyce

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North Dakota senator's federal bill aims to tackle human trafficking problems that have expanded to her state

11-30-2013 North Dakota:

U.S. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp has introduced legislation meant to crack down on sex trafficking (S.1733 - Stop Exploitation Through Trafficking Act of 2013), which experts fear is on the rise in her home state of North Dakota due to the large influx of men coming to work in the state's western oil patch.

Heitkamp, a Democrat, introduced the bill this week on the same day that federal prosecutors in North Dakota unsealed charges against 11 Dickinson-area men who were arrested in a child prostitution sting. The men thought they were buying sex with teenage girls, prosecutors allege.

"Just looking at the recent arrests would tell you that North Dakota could be ground zero for this type of behavior," Heitkamp told The Associated Press on Friday.

It's a trend that has alarmed federal prosecutors in North and South Dakota. A man on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota was recently sentenced to 45 years in prison for coercing women into prostitution in oilfield communities. Two men in South Dakota have received life sentences for human trafficking cases in Sioux Falls.

"With the increase in population, there's the risk of organized crime," said Timothy Purdon, the U.S. attorney from North Dakota. "We're certainly very aware of the threat potentially posed by human trafficking in the oil patch."

Heitkamp said the bill, which focuses on all forms of human trafficking, would encourage law enforcement officers and the courts to treat minors who are sold for sex as victims, not as criminals. She said it includes a safe harbor provision to encourage them to come forward.

"These are very difficult issues to expose and research," Heitkamp said. "It's very difficult to get the victims to speak. They've been conditioned not to speak. They've been terrorized."

Heitkamp said estimates show that more than 100,000 minors in the U.S. are forced into sex trafficking every year. Children are 13 years old, on average, when they are forced to become prostitutes, she said.

Native American girls and women often are targets of human traffickers, Heitkamp and Purdon said.

"You have a vulnerable population in young girls on the reservation," Purdon said. "My concern is that they could be exploited if organized human trafficking operations gain an inroad here."

Purdon said the 11 arrests in Dickinson and three arrests in a Williston sting about a month ago "stand for the idea that there is the demand out there as well." Trying to stop the supply is more difficult, he said.

Going after the johns could help deter other future buyers, Heitkamp said.

"Nobody wants to see their name in the paper relative to sex trafficking," she said.

Brendan Johnson, the U.S. attorney for South Dakota, recently argued and won a case in front of the 8th U.S. Circuit of Appeals that reinstated convictions against two men who previously were acquitted of commercial sex trafficking. The men had been arrested in a sting operation known as "Operation Crossing Guard."

South Dakota has a couple of unique sex trafficking stages with the annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally and a pheasant hunting season that attracts hundreds of outdoors enthusiasts from around the country.

"Anytime you have large groups of men gathering, you're going to have the potential for sex trafficking problems," Johnson said. "That's just the reality." ..Source.. by DAVE KOLPACK

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Sex offenders clustered in Fargo’s core

6-2-2013 North Dakota:

Concentration in low-income areas brings risks, expert says

Heidi Laho was packing last week to move her five small children, her husband, and herself – carrying their sixth – from their current house to a new one.

The new house is pretty near their old one, still in the Madison neighborhood, north of Main Avenue and west of University Drive in Fargo. But she’s not staying because they like it there.

Laho moved to that area of Fargo about three years ago out of economic necessity, needing affordable housing while raising a large family. As her mom helped her pack, they kept an eye on the kids playing outside.

“Hopefully, sooner or later we’ll be able to move out of this neighborhood,” she said.

One of the reasons Laho wished she was packing to move somewhere else is the 16 registered sex offenders who live in the Madison neighborhood.

Seventeen registered sex offenders live in the neighborhood the city defines as downtown, and 10 are in the Jefferson neighborhood, which stretches from Main Avenue to 13th Avenue South from University Drive to 25th Street. Another 10 sex offenders live within one or two blocks of those three neighborhoods.

That means that in Fargo, home to most of the metro area’s sex offenders, all but 10 of the 63 offenders whose addresses police publicly disclose are clustered in the city’s core – which includes some of Fargo’s poorest neighborhoods. About 75 percent of students are on free or reduced lunch at the elementary schools that give Madison and Jefferson neighborhoods their names.

That sort of concentration can have upsides, a local probation official says, but a researcher who studies sex offenders warns that the clustering in the lowest-income and least cohesive neighborhoods of a city brings risks.

“We are immersing them in communities with greater amounts of deviant influences – drugs, alcohol, prostitution, poor economics,” said Ohio State University’s Richard Tewksbury, who studies justice administration and sex offenders.

Cluster concerns

While research shows sex offenders are less likely to reoffend than those who have committed other types of crimes, Tewksbury said the clustering ensures more offenders live in areas of a community that are less organized in key ways, setting them up to fail.

Though it’s “almost desirable to disappear” due to the intense stigma of a conviction for a sexual crime, Tewksbury said the concentration in poorer neighborhoods isolates sex offenders, who are better able to re-enter society when they have community support.

For those concerned to be living near sex offenders, children are often less supervised in poorer neighborhoods, Tewksbury said.

Laho has a rule that her children aren’t allowed to go anywhere without her.

“There’s a few people – (but) I just don’t trust anyone,” she said.

Also, adults in those areas of communities are less likely to access registry information and know where offenders are living, Tewksbury said.

Take for instance Amber Kanowske, who was out for a walk in the Madison neighborhood last week with her chatty 3-year-old son, D’Angelo Tucker.

Kanowske moved to the area from Milwaukee last month, primarily for the welfare of the children, since there were shootings back home. ..continued.. by Emily Welker, INFORUM

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SD, ND, tribe unite on sex offender registry

11-12-20012 North and South Dakota:

The states of South Dakota and North Dakota have reached an agreement to work with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe to crack down on sex offenders.

PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — The states of South Dakota and North Dakota have reached an agreement to work with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe to crack down on sex offenders.

The states and tribe will share offender and conviction data, process DNA samples, and advise each other of offenders moving across jurisdictional boundaries.

South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley, North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem (STEHN’-juhm) and Standing Rock Tribal Chairman Charles Murphy announced the agreement on Friday. It will enable the tribe to put data from its sex offender registry on a national database.

The Standing Rock reservation straddles the North Dakota-South Dakota border. ..Source..

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DOJ awards Dakotas tribes $1 million in grants

8-31-2012 North Dakota:

The Department of Justice has awarded more than $1 million to four Native American tribes in the Dakotas to enhance sex offender registration and notification programs.

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — The Department of Justice has awarded more than $1 million to four Native American tribes in the Dakotas to enhance sex offender registration and notification programs.

The North Dakota congressional delegation announced Thursday that the grants have been awarded to the Three Affiliated Tribes of Fort Berthold, the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the Spirit Lake Sioux Tribe.

The congressional delegates say in a news release that the tribes will use the money to help implement and comply with the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act of 2006, which seeks to close gaps and loopholes in sex offender registration and notification programs. ..Source.. by JamestownSun.com

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Does Facebook Monitor Anything? Sentence in sex crime case upheld

From the court decision: "Detective Hajicek obtained a search warrant for the Facebook account of "Tyler Anderson." The account revealed that, between December 2006 and July 2009, Anderson engaged in more than 800 private chats, mostly with adolescent girls. In the chats, Anderson represented himself as a young man in his teens or early twenties. He often flirted with the girls by telling them that they were "hot," "smokin," or "sexy" and asked them if they had boyfriends. On several occasions, Anderson sent images of male genitalia to the girls and asked for inappropriate pictures of them in return. Anderson told at least one girl other than M.R. that he had a cousin who "wants to like hook wit u" and exchange "sex for money.""

1-5-2012 North Dakota:

FARGO (AP) - A federal appeals court has upheld the sentence of a Minnesota man accused of setting up a Facebook account under a false identity and using the site to contact a 13-year-old girl for sex.

Thirty-six-year-old Darrin Anderson of Middle River, Minn., was sentenced to 12 years in prison after pleading guilty to a charge of travel to engage in illicit sexual conduct.

Authorities said Anderson traveled from Walhalla, where he was working, to East Grand Forks, Minn., to have sex with the girl in exchange for $300 in August 2009.

Anderson allegedly engaged in hundreds of private chats with girls and attempted to solicit them for sex.

Anderson argued in an appeal that the sentence was excessive. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued its ruling Wednesday. ..Source.. by The Bismark Tribune

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Bill blocks some sex offenders from living in N.D. state parks

2-2-2011 North Dakota:

Under a proposed piece of legislation, certain sex offenders would no longer be allowed to live in state parks.

House Bill 1435, introduced in the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, is being pushed by the attorney general's office after it became known that sex offenders were legally registering their address as that of a state park.

"We learned of at least one individual probably more who are registering their addresses, and appropriately registering under the current system of the law, their addresses as they're required to do, and they've been listing at state parks because that's where they were living at the time," Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem said.

No one can live in state parks for more than

14 days as it is, and under this bill, sex offenders could still live in the park for three days since that is the amount of time they have to register their address.

The bill would only apply to moderate- and high-risk sex offenders, like child molesters, as opposed to low-risk offenders, which Stenehjem described as people who committed a sexual act with someone more than four years younger in the context of a relationship.

Sex offenders are rated from low- to high-risk by the Sex Offender Registration Advisory Committee, which considers factors like employment, residence and the crime itself to judge an offender's likelihood to reoffend.

Sex offenders who follow the law often have trouble finding a place to live since many landlords don't want to rent to them. Some end up homeless.

That was the case for Timothy Profrock, who, after serving nine years in prison, was evicted from a Mandan apartment and spent the next several weeks moving from park to park with his family before ending up at Fort Lincoln State Park.

Stenehjem said the bill was not written to include local parks because he believes they should come to that decision on their own. The bill only applies to moderate- and high-risk offenders because they are the most dangerous to children or people staying in tents versus a secure structure like a house.

The committee voted unanimously to give the bill a "do pass" recommendation. ..Source.. by REBECCA BEITSCH, Bismarck Tribune

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Do sex offender boundary laws work?

Just because a law is popular doesn't make it effective! These laws are nothing more than banishment of undesirables, child safety is a ruse perpetrated by politicians. Finally, there isn't an ounce of evidence that these laws enhance public safety, in fact, by diverting taxpayer money to these laws, there is less for normal law enforcement.

4-5-2010 North Dakota:

Piepkorn says yes, but those who’ve studied issue disagree: There’s no doubt that a ban on sex offenders living within 1,200 feet of Fargo’s schools or parks would be popular. Dave Piep­korn, the city commissioner backing that idea, said the reaction he’s had from Fargo residents has been “overwhelmingly positive,” and in a nonscientific online Forum poll last week, 86 percent of the 2,188 votes were in favor.

There’s no doubt that a ban on sex offenders living within 1,200 feet of Fargo’s schools or parks would be popular.

Dave Piep­korn, the city commissioner backing that idea, said the reaction he’s had from Fargo residents has been “overwhelmingly positive,” and in a nonscientific online Forum poll last week, 86 percent of the 2,188 votes were in favor.

“The majority of people have said it makes sense,” Piepkorn said.

The enthusiasm explains why sex offender residency laws have grown quickly in the decade or so since they were first enacted. A report by the Center for Sex Offender Management, a project of the Department of Justice, states that from 2000 to 2008, the number of states with restrictions for sex offender housing went from five to nearly 30.

Yet Fargo’s police chief and the head of an area nonprofit that works with victims of sexual violence are both dubious about the effectiveness of such laws. And they’re not alone.

Studies of sex offender residency laws in areas they’ve been tried haven’t found any positive effect on recidivism rates. Authorities who deal with sex offenders – police, prosecutors and probation and parole agents – often end up opposing the buffer-zone restrictions.

“It’s almost totally driven by emotion,” said Richard Tewksbury, a University of Louisville professor of justice administration who studies sex offender laws. “Without exception, all the research shows there is no impact.”

Pushed to margins

Gary Davis is a Level III sex offender, a 65-year-old who must register for life because of two indecent exposure convictions in North Dakota, the latest in Cass County in 2007. Level III is the designation for sex offenders who are deemed the highest risk to re-offend.

He had difficulty finding a place to live at first, being turned down by a handful of landlords before ending up at 1122 2nd Ave. S. in Fargo – one of four Level III offenders in the apartment building.

Davis has no complaints about the small apartment, though he said his hopes for rehabilitation would be better if he were elsewhere.

“You’re in the place you are trying to get out of,” he said.

It doesn’t appear the building Davis lives in would be affected by the 1,200-foot law. City planners are still working on a map plotting the restricted areas, but a similar map produced by The Forum indicates the largest swaths of area left open to sex offenders would be downtown and in the industrial parts of the city straddling Main Avenue between Interstate 29 and 25th Street. Much of the city would be off-limits.

That’s one of the troubles with broad bans on where sex offenders can live, said Tewksbury. If they can find a place at all, it’s in “the poorest, most disorganized, least desirable areas of the city,” he said, where it is more common for children to be unsupervised.

It also tends to make it harder for sex offenders to access treatment, find jobs and have a support system – all keys to crime-free life.

“We simply make life more difficult in the important ways,” Tewksbury said.

Davis agreed, saying that isolation makes his recovery much harder.

“The only way to be back in society is to be around people,” he said.

If the law pushes offenders away, Piepkorn said, that’s fine with him. That’s partially the point, he said.

“I think we’d be sending a message that convicted sex offenders aren’t welcome in Fargo. That’s the bottom line, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with saying that.”

Police Chief Keith Ternes said that sort of take on sex criminals is overhyped.

“We’ve put a scarlet letter on those people,” he said. “It’s not the only offender out there to be concerned about.”

Hardship without upside

Ternes is worried the 1,200-foot ordinance could lead more offenders to stop registering, as they must do under state law, which would in turn take up more of the police’s time.

That’s what happened in Iowa, one of the first places where offenders were barred from living by schools or parks. The state repealed the law upon the urging of law enforcement officials. It’s a case Ternes has pointed out publicly.

Tewksbury said he has conducted a study of re-offending rates in Iowa during the time the law was in place, though it hasn’t yet been published. Recidivism was unchanged, though the law put a greater burden on both the offenders and the authorities responsible for keeping tabs on them.

“It poses many hardships, with no real possibility of benefits,” he said.

The chief is also skeptical that a geographical separation between places kids go and offenders’ homes does much to keep children safe.

Piepkorn said the law’s main purpose is to protect the most vulnerable people in society – children.

Yet a sex offender who’s looking to strike again can simply travel to those same areas, Ternes said. Also, a study in Minnesota showed that’s a rare occurrence.

That study of 224 repeat sex offenders from 1990 to 2005 found that 16 of them made contact with a juvenile victim within a mile of their home, but none of the contacts happened near a school, park or playground.

Piepkorn said he thinks some researchers “have an agenda” to support rights for sex offenders and said he’s been getting most of his negative feedback from out-of-state groups.

As for Ternes’ opposition to the residency ordinance, Piepkorn said: “He just has a different perspective. I have no problem with disagreement.”

Greg Diehl, the executive director of the local Rape and Abuse Crisis Center, said though he can see the rationale of Piepkorn’s proposal, he doesn’t think much of the 1,200-foot law, either. He’d rather see new approaches implemented.

“I’m not sure that this would solve a whole lot of anything,” Diehl said. “The biggest issue is there are no easy answers.”

“At least it’s being talked about,” Diehl added.

‘A positive effect’

Davis said he doesn’t understand why he would be barred from living near the places children go since he has no record of abusing minors.

“Sex offender: That’s just a word,” he said. “It should be based on the charge.”

That’s also what Tewksbury suggested: reserving residency limits to those who’ve abused children. Otherwise, buffer laws rely on the assumption that all sex offenders target kids.

Piepkorn said he wants to fashion the law based on how it had worked in other places. “You want it to have a positive effect,” he said.

He said he’s leaning toward proposing the city law only apply to the Level III and medium-risk Level II offenders – roughly 25 percent of Fargo’s 155 registered sex offenders.

Piepkorn said he would potentially consider having the law only apply to those convicted of crimes against children.

City Attorney Erik Johnson is researching the laws enacted in other areas and working on a draft ordinance, Piepkorn said. A small group working on the proposal – which includes Ternes – plans to meet next week to take up the issue.

The proposal wouldn’t be in front of the commission until after that, Piepkorn said. He expects the debate about it to be robust.

“I will guarantee that will happen,” he said. ..Source.. Dave Roepke

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ND- Review of the Offender Registry System

11-12-2009 North Dakota:

by Brandie Dixon, West Fargo Pioneer

Recent events relating to child abduction have been headlining in the news and have brought attention to the Offender Registry System. The West Fargo Police Department thought a review of the system and how it works would be pertinent.

Recent events relating to child abduction have been headlining in the news and have brought attention to the Offender Registry System. The West Fargo Police Department thought a review of the system and how it works would be pertinent.

Minnesota can be credited with initial development of an offender list. Before 1991, law enforcement did not have an organized, compiled list of sex offenders. When Jacob Wetterling was abducted in 1989, a massive search was organized and numerous leads were generated and logged. These leads actually became the foundation of a massive database that lead to the development of a sex offender list in Minnesota.

While Wetterling has never been found, the legislation passed in Minnesota is credited with the beginning of the Sex Offender Registry that exists today. Since then, several bills and acts have been created and passed on a national level, which include: the 1994 Missing Child Response Act, 1994 Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act, 1996 Megan’s Law, 1996 Pam Lychner Sexual Offender Tracking and Identification Act, 1997 Jacob Wetterling Improvement Acts, the 2000 Campus Sex Crimes Prevention Act, and the 2006 Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act.

Because of the evolution of the original offender registration program in 1991, the registry has become a national resource for law enforcement.

"In essence this article speaks of the evolution of sex offender laws, mentioning each major step over the past 14-15 years. To use the word "evolution" is to mislead readers, reality is we have seen noting more than a re-packaging of the exact same concept of the first law, lawmakers are stuck in a tracking mode, they have no intention of preventing new sex crimes.

Its like a soap product that has been around for many years, but sales are falling, so manufacturers market a "New & Improved" product. That is precisely what lawmakers have done, we hear them say "Get Tough on Sex Offenders" using the "New & Improved" laws. Since there is no way to put any checks and balances on lawmakers, these "New & Improved" are really "more onerous" because lawmakers are mad about a small number of High Profile cases which have occurred over the years.

While high profile cases do occur they are few and far between. Worse is, When lawmakers get mad about those cases, they punish all registrants, and the person that caused the high profile case -rarely if ever- sees society again nor the bight of the new laws. The wrong people are paying for the terrible crimes of a select few. by eAdvocate

The 1991 North Dakota State Legislature passed the first two laws dealing with offender registration. In 1993 the North Dakota State Legislature amended these statutes.

There currently are three categories of offenders covered by the North Dakota Century Code that include offenders against children, sexual offenders and sexually dangerous individuals.

Several agencies in the state are responsible for working together to maintain the registered offender database. In North Dakota, the Office of the Attorney General is responsible for maintaining a statewide database and conducting address verification of offenders. The courts, correctional facilities and the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation are responsible for informing convicted offenders of their need to register. Law enforcement agencies are responsible for carrying out the registration process.

Offenders are registered by local police and sheriff’s departments by fingerprinting, photographing, and obtaining the offenders registration information and signature. This information is sent to the Office of Attorney General, Bureau of Criminal Investigation, where the statewide registration database is maintained.

The West Fargo Police Department currently maintains files for 34 registered offenders. Five of these offenders only work in West Fargo and live elsewhere in the community. Offenders are to appear at the law enforcement agency in the jurisdiction of their residence, school enrollment and or employment within three days of moving into that jurisdiction.

West Fargo Police Clerks are responsible for completing the registration paperwork, fingerprinting and photographing each offender. Police Clerks also maintain the files on the registered offenders as well as statistical reports at the end of each month detailing the number of offenders that live or work in West Fargo. The Police Clerks work closely with patrol officers to keep information current and up to date.

“The police clerk staff at the West Fargo Police Department plays a big role in keeping the sexual offender files up to date, as well as processing the new offenders that move into our community,” Detective Sergeant Greg Warren said. “They also update offender information when offenders move to a new address, change vehicles or change their employment.”

West Fargo police officers are assigned at least one offender that they are expected to maintain contact with on a regular basis. These assignments are overseen by Warren. Warren and his staff of investigators are also assigned one or more offenders to maintain contact with.

The offender registration process in West Fargo has changed and evolved drastically since it was first established in 1991.

“When law enforcement started registering offenders, we only dealt with offenders once a week at the most,” Warren said. “Since that time, it has become a daily routine of registering offenders, checking on offenders, keeping the paperwork up to date and notifying the State Bureau of Criminal Investigations of all changes and additions.”

Warren also sits on the Sex Offender Containment Task Force that is made up of officers from the West Fargo Police Department, Fargo Police Department, Cass County Sheriff’s Office, State and Federal Probation, and the Cass County State’s Attorney Office. This task force was created in order to foster open communication and shared information related to offenders in Cass County. The committee meets monthly and discusses any problems relating to the registration of new or existing offenders. They also discuss offenders who have been compliant and are meeting the requirements laid out by the court and parole or probation, whether an offender needs to be on a GPS tracking system, and any failure to register cases that may have occurred with the State’s Attorney Office.

Offenders must register in North Dakota if they have pled guilty to or been convicted of certain criminal offenses. These offenses include several sex offenses such as, but not limited to, gross sexual imposition, corruption of a minor, luring minors by computer and sexual assault. A person also must register if that person has pled guilty or “nolo contend ere” to, or been found guilty of, an offense in another court in the United States, a tribal court, or court of another country, which is equivalent to those offenses.

Individuals convicted of crimes that are not sex offenses but which involve, for example, force against or restraint of a child, are required to register as an “offender against children.” Offenders against children are listed on the state’s offender registry but are not sex offenders.

The Office of the North Dakota Attorney General maintains a Web site –– that includes a listing of high risk offenders and offenders with a lifetime registration requirement. A printable list of all offenders, regardless of their risk level, also is available. The information on the sex offender Web site is current and updated in real time as it is reported by local law enforcement agencies. ..Source..

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ND- Registered sex offenders struggle to find housing

9-27-2009 North Dakota:

When high-risk sex offender Richard Vondal moved into a house so close to Mandan High School that the school district had at one time considered buying it, anger and fear was a common reaction among parents and community members.

The high school spread the word to the students. Parents found out from their kids. Mandan police were flooded with phone calls.

At the heart of many of the discussions were false assumptions that North Dakota has laws prohibiting registered sex offenders from living within a certain distance from schools, licensed daycares and public parks. However, North Dakota remains one of a handful of states without such laws, after an attempt at putting 1,000-foot safety zones around such areas died in the North Dakota House of Representatives during the 2009 session.

Vondal was far from the first sex offender to live near a school, and several others live in close proximity to other schools in the Bismarck-Mandan area. However, his case points out the problems communities have in finding adequate and appropriate housing for people convicted of sexual offenses.

Vondal registered an address of 909 Sixth Ave. N.W. in Mandan with authorities in late August. Sex offenders are required to register their addresses and other information with law enforcement for varying amounts of time dependent on their risk level. The Mandan Police Department put out the information on Vondal to local media outlets, who released the information to the public.

Mandan Police Deputy Chief Paul Leingang said his department fielded plenty of calls from parents and others who were angry over Vondal's choice of housing so close to Mandan High School. That's nothing out of the ordinary - people usually are unhappy to hear of a sex offender living nearby or near their children's schools.

"Nobody wants them in their neighborhood," Leingang said.

Parole and Probation Officer Brian Weigel said the Vondal case actually shows how well the registration process in the state works. Under pressure following public release of his address, Vondal chose to move, even before Weigel and other Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation authorities could force him to find a different home. The community was aware of where he was living the entire time, Weigel said.

"It did exactly what it was supposed to," Weigel said about the state's registration process.

Weigel, who is tasked with supervising sex offenders who are on parole and probation, views the house next to the high school as a completely inappropriate abode for a high-risk sex offender. Parole and probation officers can make a person under supervision move if they disagree with their choice of housing.

"We know that's not a good situation for him," Weigel said.

Sex offenders often have trouble finding appropriate housing once people find out who they are and what they've done. Few property owners will rent to sex offenders, and when an offender finds a home, the neighbors aren't always welcoming.

"We're constantly struggling with finding housing for registered offenders," Weigel said.

Developing housing options for sex offenders who have nowhere to go has been an ongoing struggle for the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Research has tied stability to lower recidivism rates for sex offenders, which means offenders who are homeless or lack support systems are more likely to reoffend.

"If you're homeless and unable to find stability, it actually makes a more high-risk situation," Weigel said. "Stability is by far the best thing to try to reduce recidivism in the future."

From December 2007 to June 2008, the state DOCR rented a house in south Bismarck for homeless sex offenders. The state did not renew the lease due to public complaints about the program, particularly after two offenders in the house were arrested for violations.

In late June, the DOCR placed a single-wide mobile home on prison property just east of the prison grounds for the purpose of housing homeless sex offenders. Offenders pay $7 a day to live in the trailer, which has four bedrooms, a kitchen and a bathroom. Residents of the house have to wear a GPS locator at all times and follow a curfew and rules. The house can hold up to seven men who are under state supervision for sex offenses until they find permanent accommodations of their own.

Currently, two offenders live in the trailer, according to the state sex offender registry. The mobile home cost the state $28,100, and setting up water and other services pushed the price tag to about $35,000.

Christopher Voisine has been living in the trailer since it became available. "I was the first when it (mobile home) opened and I'm trying to be the first out successfully," said Voisine.

The struggle to find adequate housing does not stop for offenders who have completed periods of parole or probation.

Timothy Profrock, a moderate-risk offender, was released from prison in 2005 after serving nine years for criminal sexual conduct in the third degree. The victim was a 27-year-old woman. Unlike Vondal, no one can prohibit him from living wherever he can find housing.

"He paid his debt to society," Morton County Sheriff's Det. Curt Berreth said. "He's done his time. He's just got to abide by the sex offender conditions."

Berreth handles sex offender registrations in Morton County, outside of Mandan. That means that every time a registered offender in rural Morton County changes an address, telephone number, workplace, vehicle, school or other pertinent information, they have to visit Berreth. While some people keep their information constant for 15 or 20 years, others, like Profrock, have become frequent visitors to Berreth's office.

Profrock moved to Mandan in December 2008. He registered an address at a Mandan apartment in March 2009, but eventually was evicted from there, Berreth said.

In late August, Profrock registered an address of a campsite in Graner Park, the first of three public parks he has registered as addresses since then. By early September, he had registered at a campsite in Little Heart Bottoms, followed in mid-September by Fort Lincoln State Park. Berreth expects him to register a new address soon, as Fort Lincoln only allows people to stay there for two weeks.

Berreth said Profrock and his family would like to buy a home in the area or move back to Michigan. Currently, his status as a registered sex offender has kept him and his family from finding a permanent place to rent.

Berreth said the situation is a Catch-22: Sex offenders have to live somewhere and register their addresses, but "nobody wants them around." Because Profrock obeys the law and registers his address, people know who he is and choose not to rent to him.

"It is tough for those guys," he said, noting that it's hard to sympathize with the situation. "That's the way it is. They made choices earlier on in life."

Profrock's cell phone was out of minutes, and he could not be reached for comment, Berreth said.

In efforts to keep sex offenders from living in places where children are plentiful, some states and municipalities across the country have enacted laws requiring registered offenders to live more than a certain distance from schools, playgrounds, daycares and other places children congregate.

A bill was offered to the 2009 North Dakota Legislature that would have prohibited high-risk sex offenders or offenders who have had victims younger than 15 from moving to residences within 1,000 feet of schools, parks or licensed daycares. The bill came out of committee with a do-not-pass recommendation, then was killed by the House 65-28.

It is a Class A misdemeanor in North Dakota for a sex offender to be on the property of a school, unless allowed by the school for specific purposes, such as voting.

Weigel said similar laws in other states have been ineffective and counterproductive in many cases. The laws push sex offenders out of many communities, creating situations where they have nowhere to live and end up registering as "homeless" or "transient" or stop complying with registration laws.

"The states that have passed laws such as that have found that it has caused greater problems because their registration compliance drops drastically," Weigel said.

Iowa law once prohibited all sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of schools, park, daycares and other places children congregate. However, the Iowa Legislature changed the law earlier this year, making it apply only to offenders against children in cases not involving consensual acts between teens close in age. Prior to the law's change, it faced court challenges and complaints about sex offenders being banished from many neighborhoods, leaving them with few affordable housing options.

Similar laws in other states, such as California's voter-passed Proposition 83, also have been challenged by the courts, and the California Sex Offender Management Board noted in a 2008 report that the number of offenders registering themselves as "transient" had quadrupled since the passage of the law.

Groups such as the American Correctional Association, in a January 2007 resolution, and the Iowa County Attorneys Association, in a 2006 statement, have said there is no evidence that residency restrictions work in preventing sex offenders from reoffending.

Weigel said the current housing situation for many registered offenders in North Dakota is bad but would be made worse by laws further restricting residence locations. Strong registration laws that allow authorities to better track convicted sex offenders are more effective than laws regarding where offenders can and can't live, he said.

"People who have committed sexual offenses in the past are in our community, and we need to monitor them," he said. "And if we put in to law such strong restrictions that they decide no longer to comply, then we're kind of defeating our own purpose." ..Source.. by JENNY MICHAEL Bismarck Tribune

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