Atsalis aims to create narcotics registry

A drug trafficker's registry? Not that I support registries at all, but, the comments about a "Look-Back" provision interest me.

Why not look-back to cover previous drug traffickers? What makes a new case different from an older case with respect to public safety. Is there some form of CURE for earlier offenders? How would children be shielded from earlier offenders? These and many other questions tweak my mind..

Finally, how would the classification system work, based on what? The amount of drugs they were caught with? And how long would they have to register for? And, would there be any form of residency laws, or civil commitment, tied to drugs? Or am I jumping the gun, those to come later when politicians need votes?

4-24-2010 Massachusetts:

CAPE COD — State Rep. Demetrius Atsalis, D-Hyannis, sees the creation of a narcotics offender registry as a step toward great public safety.

He’s been traveling the state talking about the registry, similar to the state’s Sex Offender Registry created in 2001.

“What we’ve been doing most recently is reaching out to various agencies, most recently the District Attorney’s office, and asking them to make suggestions,” said Atsalis, who traveled to the Massachusetts Secondary Schools Administrators Association meeting in Franklin on March 29 to promote the bill.

Atsalis said the idea for the legislation came out of a conversation with Barnstable Police Sgt. Michael Clark.

“Myself and Mike Clark have been friends for a long time and he was playing the public safety end of it, which I agree with, and he brought his brother Pat [a high school principal] into it who added the school end of the issue and it took off from there,” Atsalis said.

“The Narcotics Offender Registry will allow us to disseminate information to the public and help keep the community safer. It would allow the public to know who is living in their neighborhood in order to keep their children safer,” said Michael Clark.

The program would be structured much like the existing Sex Offender Registry with violators classified as a Level 1 (least likely to re-offend), a Level 2 or a Level 3 (most likely to re-offend) classification.

Those classified as Level 3 offenders would have their picture on police department Web sites and in the police station and in other community areas such as the new community center, said Clark.

Level 2 offender information would be available at the public’s request while information on Level 1 offenders would be available for police information only.

“We’re not targeting people who use drugs. We’re targeting people who sell drugs,” said Clark.

A person charged with possession of a drug would not be required to register with the statewide database. Only those offenders who were charged with possession with intent to distribute, distribution or drug trafficking would be registered.

The narcotics registry would be different from the Sex Offender Registry in that it has no “look-back window,” according to Clark. That means that if the legislation were passed, no previous offenders would be included in the registry.

“Everyone would have a clean slate. Nobody who has committed a crime previous to this will be included,” explained Clark.

The Sex Offender Registry had a look-back window of 20 years.

Clark said the narcotics registry would allow the police to monitor drug dealers more closely and allow police to provide information to residents to protect their families.

“[Now] we virtually can tell them nothing. If we tell them if they had a history, we could be sued. The narcotics registry would allow us to disseminate this information and let families know to keep their kids away. It would also allow the bus companies to create bus routes and stops to avoid these houses,” said Clark.

Without the narcotics registry in place, Clark said sometimes even the police departments are left in the dark about who is living in town.

“The problem that we run into sometimes is we would make arrests on somebody for something like drunk driving or assault at a bar and we get the person back to the police department and find that this person has four or five convictions for distributing drugs.

“We all look at each other and say we have 120 officers, why didn’t anyone know this person lived in our town. They get released and they can go anywhere in the state. It would be nice to know where that person was residing,” said Clark.

The legislation is before the Judiciary Committee and Atsalis said he is working with stakeholders to improve the proposed bill before re-filing it.

“We’re going to re-file it come December or the beginning of the year and we could have a hearing as soon as April 2011, I would hope,” said Atsalis.

“Things really just don’t happen overnight. It’s a deliberate, slow process to ensure we do it right and that’s what we are working on now.” ..Source.. Jen Ouellette, THE REGISTER

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IN- Should convicted drug dealers be ordered to register like sex offenders?

Sure drug crimes should, and so should murderers, robbers, car thieves, domestic violence, and any other crime; each should have its own registry. Now, as to the remaining folks, they must be made to swear under oath, they have never committed a crime since birth, anyone refusing, well thats another registry! All those registries should keep the police so busy they don't have time to fight crime, thats keeps everyone employed; a stimulus program.

11-6-2009 Indiana:

Bob B. of Valparaiso claims he lives next door to a convicted drug dealer who is allegedly dealing and using again, but there's nothing he can do, he says.

"We are afraid. And we have been instructed by the local police to report anything the least bit suspicious," Bob said. "Yet legally, there is nothing we can do."

Bob and his wife have lived in their home for 22 years, and they're tempted to move.

"However, we like our house and have put in a lot of work over the years. Morally, how do you sell a house to someone knowing what kind of neighbors they would have? I have decided to stay and improve the neighborhood rather than flee. Do I have any assurances that my new neighbors would be better?"

He's also concerned for his neighbors.

"Next door to us is a couple with a 4-1/2 year old and a 15-month-old. Across the street is a widow, and beside her is a couple with five kids who enjoy playing outdoors. A popular park for very young children, Tower Park, is less than a block away and others in the neighborhood walk young ones by their house everyday," Bob told me.

The problem (and possible solution), he points out, is that convicted drug dealers do not have to register publicly as sex offenders do. Instead, he noted, "they are allowed to cut a deal, testify against others, and then return to the community... where innocent people live."

Bob's advice to others: "Ask everyone in their neighborhood if they know of a convicted drug dealer living in the area. Ask where you walk, jog, etc. We all need to know and we all need to keep our eyes wide open. Ask for their own safety."

"We have done nothing wrong, but are serving a sentence." ..Source.. by Jerry Davich

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MA- Bill would create registry for drug dealers

I fully support this idea as it will totally overwhelm the police so that no more criminals can be caught; cuts down on court cases too. Lets do this. Oh, the problem is -if every drug conviction was FORCED to register- we would see some lawmakers on it now wouldn't we? What the heck, according to lawmaker logic, registries make the public safer; go for it!

5-29-2009 Massachusetts:

Convicted drug dealers could join rapists and other sex offenders on the list of criminals forced to register with the state if a bill sponsored by a Cape Cod lawmaker gains support on Beacon Hill.

State Rep. Demetrius Atsalis, D-Hyannis, has filed legislation seeking to create a drug offender registry, similar to the state's sex offender listings, to help identify and track convicted drug dealers throughout the state.

The proposed registry, which would include all convictions for distribution, trafficking or possession of drugs with intent to distribute, is intended to alert residents to drug dealers in their community, while providing police with a useful tool to combat drug use and drug-related violence, Atsalis said yesterday.

"While we know what sex offenders are in our neighborhoods, we don't know what drug offenders are (coming in)," he said. "And in a lot of ways drug offenders are just as bad. ... They bring some dangerous people into our neighborhoods."

But the legislation, which will now go to Beacon Hill for consideration in the state House of Representatives, could also make it harder for some drug dealers to reform their ways, some critics said.

Such registries — Minnesota, Tennessee and several other states have launched methamphetamine databases — often stigmatize reformed drug dealers, making it more difficult for them to find employment and housing as they look to rehabilitate, said Ann Lambert, legislative counsel to the Massachusetts branch of the American Civil Liberties Union.

In 2008, Cape Cod police departments made 814 arrests for drug-related crimes, including possession, distribution and other crimes, according to the Cape and Islands District Attorney's Office.

"What it's talking about is branding forever people who are substance abusers," Lambert said. "There are large numbers of them that are amenable to treatment."

Modeled after the state sex offender registry, Atsalis' proposal would require convicted drug offenders to report their name and personal information to local authorities, as well as to the registry's five-member governing board upon moving to a new city or town.

It would divide the registrants into a tiered system based on the severity of their crime: Level 1 offenders, those considered unlikely to repeat an offense, would be registered to an internal database available to law enforcement authorities; the names of Level 2 offenders, those considered somewhat likely to repeat, would be available only through inquiries to the state or local police; and Level 3 offenders, considered high risk to repeat, would each be listed on a public Internet database.

The program would be self-funded through registration fees paid by registrants, Atsalis said.

The registry could prove to be a useful tool both for residents who want to protect the safety of their neighborhood and to police conducting investigations, police officers said.

It could help ensure police safety as officers respond to calls and it could cut down on the length of investigations, providing officers with easy access to information, according to Barnstable police Sgt. Michael Clark, who helped Atsalis develop the bill.

"Oftentimes we'll respond to calls and not realize who's residing at a particular residence," Clark said. "We'll respond to a scene and then go back to the station ... and realize they have long criminal records."

To the public, this information could prove more alarming than helpful, some critics said.

"What are people going to do with this information?" David Rossman, director of Boston University's Criminal Law Clinical Programs asked. "In what way would this help the public as opposed to hurt people who might have at one point had a drug problem? ... I don't see what good this would cause." ..News Source.. by Jake Berry

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TN- Registry Of Meth Offenders Criticized

8-30-2008 Tennessee:

Task Force Director Defends Position

KINGSPORT, Tenn. -- The director of Tennessee's methamphetamine task force disagrees with complaints that keeping an online registry of felony meth offenders is unfair punishment.

Task force director Tommy Farmer said the addictive stimulant differs from other illegal drugs because making it endangers people other than the user, including children. Meth is made from heating chemicals that emit toxic vapors and sometimes explode.

-Yup, raise the "children" defense, that justifies everything!

Farmer told the Kingsport Times-News that if you blow up your house, or dump toxic chemicals in a waterway "that is going to have an impact on the entire community."

-So if what one does has an effect on the entire community, then anything can be done to those folks. What about politicians that enact "sounds good laws" what should be done about that?

Monica Pratt-Raffanel, a spokeswoman for Families Against Mandatory Minimums that advocates "fair and proportionate" sentencing laws, said the meth registries in Tennessee and Kansas are unfair.

Tennessee's meth registry that is part of a 2005 law displays the names of meth offenders for seven years. Kansas has since created an online database of meth offenders and also requires that they have "offender" stamped on their driver's licenses.

At least three other states - Montana, Minnesota and Illinois - have adopted similar offender registries since 2005.

Tennessee's Meth Registry shows the name, offense, date of birth, date of conviction and county of conviction of the offender. Unlike the state's sex offender registry, does not include photographs. Also meth offenders do not register annually.

Instead of building a unique database of meth-related offenses, Kansas added meth offenders - and almost all other drug offenders - to an existing registry of violent and sex offenders.

Pictures, current addresses and quarterly updates are required of all those in the Kansas database. First-time offenders remain on the registry for 10 years, not including time served in prison. Repeat offenders remain on the registry for life. The penalties for failing to keep up with the administrative tasks of the registry are the same for all offenders, regardless of the crime that landed them there.

"It's a person-level crime (a violent felony) not to register, or failing to follow one of the rules of the registry," said Jennifer Roth, the legislative chair of the Kansas Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. "It's the same for everyone, regardless of whether your underlying offense was a violent crime or not."

Roth said when someone is "looking at your driver's license, they don't know what kind of offender you are."

"Just the mere presence on the registry means that a lot of people won't give you the chance to explain yourself," she said.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said it has received numerous inquiries from other states interested in adopting a meth offender registry.

State Sen. Randy McNally, R-Oak Ridge, who co-sponsored the Meth-Free Tennessee Act with state Sen. Charlotte Burks, D-Monterey, said registries are a positive way to protect Volunteer State communities.

McNally said the "purpose of warning the public certainly outweighs the individual privacy concerns, or that type of thing."

He said, "If they didn't want to make the registry, they shouldn't have sold methamphetamine." ..News Source.. by WSMV.com

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