Confidential List of Sex Offenders Tracked by Maryland State Investigators

Two facts are important here: 1) It is not a secret list, instead the list is of folks on parole or probation, that state agency is required to know who they supervise, hence their working list. 2) It is a misstatement to say these folks are a "Higher Risk" to the community. These folks are finishing their sentence and that does not mean they are a higher risk to the community. All of these folks would appear on the regular registry if their crimes so warranted it. And this is true of every state in the nation it is a normal function of folks on parole and probation and the agency that monitors them.

10-17-2014 Maryland:

Maryland state investigators are closely monitoring more than 2,000 of the state’s 9,000 registered sex offenders, according to an investigation by the News4 I-Team -- including monthly home visits, polygraph exams and reviews of the offenders’ computers.

The offenders include some of the most violent sexual criminals in the state and some of the state’s most recently convicted criminals. They are getting the extra monitoring in an effort to reduce the risk of the offenders committing additional sex crimes.

Records obtained from Maryland’s Division of Parole and Probation show 2,133 registered sex offenders are being regularly monitored by state agents. The agency monitoring program, known internally as the Collaborative Offender Management Enforced Treatment program, or COMET, deploys state agents across Maryland to visit and question sex offenders deemed to be a higher risk to the community.

The COMET program was developed in recent years, but unlike the public and interactive state sex offender registry, the addresses and other identifying details of the offenders who are included in the program remain confidential, the I-Team has learned.

One of the sex offenders who is monitored under the COMET program said he has been subjected to lie-detector tests to gauge his truthfulness and his likelihood for committing future sex crimes.

“They hook you up and monitor your vitals and your breathing. It’s very intimidating,” said the offender, a former school teacher who pleaded guilty to a sex crime with a student. He spoke with the I-Team on the condition of anonymity.

Other offenders who’ve been placed in the COMET program receive monthly home visits by agents, who ask questions about the offenders’ employment, finances and personal relationships.

COMET investigator Tricia Bennett said, “If someone shuts down real easy or takes an aggressive posture (during at-home interviews), that’s a red flag.”

An agency memo detailing the COMET program said, “The approach is focused on discovering the nature of each offender’s abusive behavior and working to minimize the likelihood that he or she will repeat the behavior.”

State agents also use written score sheets to measure the likelihood of sex offenders striking ..Continued.. by News4 I-Team

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Opinion: California's method of dealing with sexual predators is broken

3-18-2010 California:

SAN DIEGO — In California, the criminal justice system's method of dealing with sexual predators who harm or even kill children is — to borrow a phrase — stuck on stupid.

What else can we conclude in light of recent and frightening revelations about just how free and uninhibited John Albert Gardner III, a convicted sex offender now accused of murder, was while on parole after serving five years of a six-year prison term for molesting, beating and falsely imprisoning a 13-year-old girl. The victim later said in an interview that she thought Gardner intended to rape her.

The Associated Press has reported that Gardner violated his parole seven times by moving too close to a school, for letting the battery run low on his electronic ankle bracelet, and other offenses. According to media reports, Gardner also had other brushes with the law. He was stopped and cited by local law enforcement officers numerous times during his parole for possessing marijuana and other infractions. And yet, his parole was never revoked.

The people of California would like to know why. Was it because of neglect, incompetence or the fact that the prisons are so seriously overcrowded that field agents are discouraged from sending offenders back inside? They may never find out since officials with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation claim that Gardner's field file — which contained, among other things, notes and observations of parole officers — was destroyed under a department policy that requires documents be purged within one year after a person's release from parole.

That's convenient. Are you sure the acronym for this agency isn't CYA? Could this be part of a cover-up by squeamish, six-figure-salaried bureaucrats in response to a high-profile case that could cost them their jobs? That is not out of the question. The more that comes out about what Gardner may have been up to while on parole — including the multiple violations — the worse the story gets.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently ordered the California Department of Corrections to stop destroying the field files. Now Attorney General Jerry Brown, who is running for Schwarzenegger's job, must investigate the Corrections Department to make sure everything was done properly.

Meanwhile, we're not doing a very good job of protecting our children from the inefficiencies of the system. Gardner is now accused in the murder of 17-year-old Chelsea King of Poway. He is also "a focus of the investigation" into the death of 14-year-old Amber Dubois of Escondido.

The 3.2 million people of San Diego County — and the millions more around the country following this story — should start channeling some of the anger and disgust they feel toward sexual predators such as Gardner and focus it on the system that lets them loose in society largely unsupervised. These are your tax dollars at work, folks.

But let's also save some of that anger and disgust for local law enforcement officials and the dysfunctional way in which they deal with sex offenders.

Aim it at police who, with scant evidence, foolishly make snap judgments that missing teenage girls are more likely runaways and not abductees. This was how the Escondido Police Department dealt with Amber Dubois' disappearance last year.

Aim it also at prosecutors who are so eager to put a conviction in the "win" column that they offer ridiculously lenient plea deals instead of going to trial and risk blemishing their record with a defeat.

The accused are entitled to their day in court to answer the charges against them. But this system can't be defended. ..Opinion.. of Ruben Navarrette Jr.

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Gov. wants sex offenders' parole records retained

3-9-2010 California:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday ordered California corrections officials to keep sex offenders' parole records indefinitely after he learned the files of a man now charged with killing a 17-year-old girl had been destroyed.

The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation disclosed the documents on John Albert Gardner III had been destroyed in a response Friday to a records request by The Associated Press.

Gardner pleaded guilty in 2000 to committing lewd and lascivious acts on a 13-year-old girl. Officials said his parole file was destroyed last fall, just a year after he completed three years of parole supervision.

Schwarzenegger called the practice unacceptable. He also told the department to make as much information available to the public as legally possible.

Department spokesman Oscar Hidalgo said 10,000 ex-convicts each month are placed on or released from parole. The system would be overwhelmed by paper records if it didn't destroy field notes kept by agents, he said.

However, he also disclosed Monday that portions of parole files, including those of Gardner, are transferred to central files and retained for 30 years.

Release of information from those files is governed by privacy laws, and in Gardner's case by an ongoing investigation and a gag order imposed by a San Diego County judge.

The department is reviewing what portions of Gardner's central file can be made public, Hidalgo said.

Schwarzenegger's order came hours after Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher, R-San Diego, asked the department's inspector general to investigate whether records were improperly destroyed.

Fletcher praised the governor for acting swiftly to correct what he called an irresponsible policy.

Fletcher said he'll work with San Diego-area law enforcement officials, lawmakers, victims' rights groups and experts to review California sex offender laws to find any gaps. The King family released a statement at Fletcher's news conference supporting the review.

Gardner has pleaded not guilty to murdering Chelsea King in San Diego County and to the attempted rape of another woman. ..Source..

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