7-29-2009 National:
Housing sex offenders is no easy task. In many communities, there are restrictions on where convicted sex offenders are permitted to live, which can severely limit housing options. This core issue, combined with the challenges of helping a convicted sex offender become financially independent, complicates the task of serving homeless sex offenders.
This workshop topic: the challenges of serving sex offenders.
4:00pm - Moderator to room of 50: "For those of you who work with sex offenders, f you have a successful story you want to tell, or a strategy you want to share, please raise your hand.
4:03 - All kidding aside, successful strategies for serving homeless sex offenders include working with parole officers and knowing your laws.
4:04 - One comment illustrates just how interconnected homeless services, prisoner re-entry, and housing sex offenders can be: "Our shelter is used as a dump for the prison; people come straight from prison to our shelter. Ironically, we're right next to a school."
4:07 - Great observation: serving a sex offender is hard enough, but navigating all of the restrictions placed on sex offenders by society complicates matters.
4:18 - Talk about collaboration, our group of 50 is making a list of challenges of serving an individual sex offender and challenges that society places on sex offenders.
4:21 - Serving homeless sex offenders has its challenges, even though it's doing the right thing. One organization had a released homeless sex offender refuse to the rules of the program, and went on to brutally murder a 13-year old girl. Faced with the decision to continue serving this population or not, they decided to continue. However, they lost all of their insurance and most of their board members. It wasn't easy.
4:24 - People who are housed, employed, and supervised are much less likely to re-offend than homeless sex offenders.
4:25 - Serving sex offenders is a re-entry issue, not a homeless issue. Amen.
4:41 - Sex offender or not, nobody should die on the streets. Reminds me of this story. "When you humanize people, even sex offenders,
4:43 - England and Scotland didn't impose residency restrictions (because they saw how well it worked here). Instead, they treated sex offenders as a public health issue. Statistic: 10-15 percent of convicted sex offenders will repeat offense, but 100 percent of convicted sex offenders will commit this crime once. We should focus on preventing this crime in the first place.
4:50 - How can homeless service agencies reach out to landlords to serve tough-to-serve populations? Answers: be honest with landlords about the nature of the crime. Also, supportive housing model, where organization pays rent and serves as intermediary between landlord and tenant, allows for early detection of problems and guaranteed rent for landlord. Win-win.
4:58 - One service-provider says that getting offenders into housing is the biggest hurdle; once they're in housing things are typically smooth sailing.
5:01 - Talking about serving homeless sex offenders can easily be over-simplified, or over-complicated. We need real answers for people's concerns about living in a community with sex offenders. People are scared. Sex crimes can be heinous.
5:05 - Great answer: Look at this from a public health perspective. When is the public safer? When convicted sex offenders are living under bridges in precarious situations, or in permanent housing with supportive services?
5:07 - This session has made clear that more research is needed on this topic. Data is needed on the summer of homeless convicted sex offenders and effective solutions. Researchers, graduate students, academics, think tanks - these service providers are looking at you!
5:10 - It's important to recognize that serving homeless convicted sex offenders takes a lot of patience and tenacity. It's not an easy job. But it's extremely important, albeit thank-less, work. ..Source.. by Shannon Moriarty
July 29, 2009
Challenges of Serving Homeless Sex Offenders
April 27, 2009
VT- Man denies guilt in offender registry case
What is interesting here is, apparently in Vermont if one is homeless they are required to check-in with police DAILY which is totally absurd. Consider this, if one is NOT homless and on the registry, the police allegedly know where he MAY BE sleeping (his registered address), but the police do not know where he is any other time of day. What is so special about homeless offenders that the police must know daily where they have been? What we have is a case of discrimination!
4-27-2009 Vermont:
BENNINGTON – A man who has prior convictions for robbery, federal charges of gun possession and sex crimes was arraigned on Tuesday after police said he lied to local police and the Vermont Sex Offender Registry about where he was living.
Jamie R. Dunnells, 36, whose address is listed in court documents as Manchester, pleaded innocent in Bennington District Court on Tuesday to three misdemeanor charges of failing to comply with the Vermont Sex Offender Registry.
In an affidavit, Bennington Police Detective Lawrence Cole said Dunnells was convicted of sexual assault on a person younger than 16 in Windsor District Court in August 2001.
Dunnells was convicted of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl in 1996 in Bethel and sentenced to serve four to 12 years, but the sentence was to run at the same time as sentences from the federal court and the court in New York.
In 1997, Dunnells and his brother, Terry E. Dunnells, robbed a Stewart's convenience store in Hoosick, N.Y. Dunnells pointed an unloaded .22 caliber rifle at employees while his brother grabbed money from the back room, according to police.
Dunnells was convicted in New York of second-degree armed robbery in 1998.
He was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2000 after he pleaded guilty to possessing a firearm while a convicted felon.
Dunnells "failed to report for supervised release as required" in November 2007 and was ordered to serve another year.
After being released from federal prison in November, Dunnells came to Bennington where he told officials at the Vermont Sex Offender Registry and Cole that he would be homeless.
Dunnells was required to check in daily and did so until March 31, but Cole said police learned that Dunnells had not been in the places where he said he stayed.
Cole said Dunnells had reported spending the night in a "smoking hut" on the grounds of the Southwestern Vermont Medical Center in Bennington.
A Bennington police officer checked the area on March 24 and 25 and never saw Dunnells. Security officers from the hospital said they had never seen anyone in the smoking hut overnight either.
At the end of March, Dunnells told officials at the Vermont Sex Offender Registry that he was staying with his girlfriend on North Bennington Road.
Cole said he investigated the home and found that Dunnells had stayed there several times when he said was staying somewhere else.
According to Cole, Dunnells said he was concerned that if he admitted to staying with his girlfriend, it would affect the amount of financial support she received from the state.
When Dunnells was released from prison at the end of last year, Essex Police, believing he planned to live there while homeless, issued a release calling him a high-risk sex offender. While Dunnells is listed as "noncompliant" with treatment on the Vermont Sex Offender Registry, he is not described as high risk.
Dunnells was released without bail on Tuesday. If convicted of the charges against him, he could be sentenced to up to six years in prison. ..News Source.. by PATRICK McARDLE STAFF WRITER
