2-25-2010 Florida:
Leaders of Broward’s cities, towns and villages asked state legislators on Thursday not to scale back local restrictions on where convicted sex offenders may live.
But several Broward legislators said they were reluctant to go along with the municipalities’ request.
Most of the county’s local governments have imposed restrictions preventing registered sex offenders from living within 2,500 feet of places such as schools, school bus stops, day care centers or parks where children congregate.
The result: few places for them to live, leaving pockets of homeless sex offenders.
The most notorious location in South Florida is a colony of homeless sex offenders living under the Julia Tuttle Causeway in Miami. Broward also has a large concentration in Broadview Park, an area near State Road 7 and Interstate 595, surrounded by Plantation, Davie and Fort Lauderdale. Officials have said the neighborhood has the highest concentration of offenders in Broward.
When the spring legislative session convenes next week, one issue on the agenda is preempting local rules on the residency restrictions, possibly overriding some local restrictions and imposing a 1,500 limitation instead.
State Rep. Hazelle Rogers, D-Lauderhill, said the tougher local restrictions sound good, but there are significant side effects.
“These folks, at some time they are out of the penal system. They are out. They’ve served their time and they have to live somewhere,” she said. “Where do we house these people? They have family members that live in our cities, in our counties. Should they live under a bridge?”
More important than such wide bans on sex offenders residencies, Rogers said, is making sure their activities are controlled and that “we know where they are at all times.”
State Sen. Eleanor Sobel, D-Hollywood, said the current restrictions are “creating a bigger problem as we’re witnessing under the bridge in Miami.”
“We know where they’re sleeping, but we don’t’ know what they’re doing during the day,” she said. “Most of us have gut reactions against sexual predators. The lowest of the low in our communities. But to outlaw them so that other cities have to take them…. It is not right. We can’t have a knee-jerk reaction to this. This needs to be a thought out social policy.”
Another side-effect of the increasingly restrictive residency rules in cities, towns and villages is that the few remaining pockets of unincorporated Broward are becoming home to more and more sex offenders, said state Rep. Evan Jenne, D-Dania Beach.
“They very often become rife with child predators,” he said.
State Rep. Martin Kiar, D-Davie, disagreed with his colleagues.
He said the local restrictions are designed to “make sure that these deviants are kept away from our children. These proposals in Tallahassee would weaken your ordinances.”
If the state overrides the city, town and village restrictions, setting a rule prohibiting sex offenders within 1,500 feet of schools and other kid-friendly places, Kiar said, “it will bring these deviants closer to our kids.”
Wilton Manors Mayor Gary Resnick, president of the Broward League of Cities, said as a matter of principle the state shouldn’t meddle in the decisions the local governments have made.
“The solution in every city is going to be very different,” he said. “A one-size-fits-all is not going to work here.” ..Source.. Anthony Man
February 25, 2010
Legislators say state may need to ease local sex offender restictions
August 2, 2009
FL- Man who helped change sex offender laws says he 'made Florida safer'
8-2-2009 Florida:
In 2000, Ron Book discovered that the nanny he employed was sexually molesting his daughter, Lauren, 16.
The woman was arrested and sentenced to prison. But Book, an influential lobbyist formerly of Miami-Dade now living in Broward, didn't stop there.
He helped pass an extension of the Florida statute of limitations for sex offenses against minors, tougher penalties for sex offenders misusing the Internet, enhanced state-funded treatment for victims, and more.
In what has become his most controversial initiative, he set out to persuade dozens of counties and municipalities - including in Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast—to sharply restrict where sex offenders can live.
Today, many cities have buffer zones forcing sex offenders to live at least 2,500 feet from schools, parks, day care centers and school bus stops. Critics - including officials in law enforcement and corrections circles — say the new laws have left some offenders homeless and harder to track, but Book stands by his efforts.
"I sleep well at night knowing I have made Florida safer," he says.
Meanwhile in 2000, Dick Witherow of Lake Worth, a former private detective turned pastor, who preached to substance abusers and former convicts, began ministering to sex offenders.
He also had personal motivation. In 1953, at age 19 , he was arrested for impregnating his girlfriend, then 15. Facing a possible sentence of five years for statutory rape, he asked the judge for permission to marry instead. The judge agreed, Witherow avoided prison, and the couple were married for 25 years before her death in 1979.
That story is contained in his book, "The Modern Day Leper," which argues that today sex offenders are treated the way lepers were in Biblical times - as if any contact with the public is dangerous. He says in his own case, he would have been banished to prison instead of being given a chance to make a family and a productive life.
Witherow hastens to separate most offenders from sexual predators who commit violent crimes against children, like John Couey who raped and murdered Jessica Lunsford, 9, in Citrus County in 2005, helping provoke the expansion in buffer zones.Witherow says only about 1 percent of offenders are predators.
"Most of these men are regular people who made a mistake," he says. "They aren't guilty of horrible crimes. The idea should be to help them make a successful transition back to society. Treating them like monsters isn't the answer."
He says he has found that many offenders had drug and alcohol problems that led to their sex offenses and he helps treat those addictions.
Witherow also says the buffer zones are a pointless product of public hysteria.
"The living restrictions are useless and do nothing to protect children," he says. " In an overwhelming number of cases, it isn't strangers who commit these offenses, but people the children know well. Look at the case of the nanny, right in this man's home."
In his book, Witherow quotes a Congressman who stated that 100 percent of sex offenders repeat their offense. Ironically, the politician is former U.S Rep. Mark Foley, R-West Palm Beach, who was driven from office after sending sexually suggestive messages to male pages in Congress.
"The truth is sexual offenders have a very low recidivism rate, less than 5 percent," Witherow says. "Ninety-five percent of sex crimes against minors are committed by new offenders and the living restrictions don't do anything to stop that."
Today, Witherow's Matthew 25 Ministries runs a program in Pahokee - Miracle Park - where some 30 sex offenders live. He ran a similar facility in Okeechobee County from 2000-2003, until local officials enforced zoning restrictions that drove him out.
The offenders share the 104-unit Pahokee complex with non-offenders, largely retired sugar workers. When Matthew 25 arrived in December several families with children moved out. The Palm Beach County Office of Equal Opportunity is investigating to determime whether the families were forced out, something Witherow denies.
Now Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office is saying the facility is too close to a baseball diamond and wants the offenders out. Witherow says the diamond hasn't been used in years. He calls it "more harrassment" of sex offenders who are trying to remake their lives.
The program for the offenders combines religious instruction with state mandated counseling, and lessons on substance abuse, finance and anger management.
Witherow says since 2000 he has counseled somewhere near 100 sex offenders and not one of them has been arrested again for a sexual offense.
"The real danger for parents isn't these sexual offenders," he says. "It is that your own child will be turned into a sex offender by what he's finding on a computer right in your home."
Book disagrees strongly with Witherow and stands by the buffer zones, although recent events in Miami-Dade have made him rethink the size of those zones.
Apart from being a lobbyist, Book is chairman of the Miami-Dade Homeless Trust. The expanded zones have left dozens of men unable to find a legal residence and they live under a bridge in Biscayne Bay.
Book, who championed the zones, is now, ironically, having to help the men find places to live. Last week he placed at least eight of them in a rental complex. He says he now believes that slightly smaller buffer zones would open housing - 1,750 to 2,250 feet, instead of 2,500 feet.
He also says that he supports a system that distinguishes between more serious offenders and others, and "a judicial review where some people can come off the list of offenders" and no longer be affected by the living restrictions.
Witherow, the former offender, approves.
"He's beginning to see," he says. "He's someone who trusted a nanny and he's been looking at every sex offender as if it was that nanny."
But Book and Witherow will probably never see eye to eye on the offenders. Witherow showers God's love on them. Not Book.
"I go under that bridge to see them," says Book. "I'm trying to see that they are not homeless, but that doesn't mean I have to like them." ..Source.. by JOHN LANTIGUA, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
June 18, 2009
NJ- Don't rely on help from sex offender restriction
6-18-2009 New Jersey:
I am troubled for reasons that go beyond reactions to the state Supreme Court's decision to ban local ordinances barring child molesters from coming within a certain number of feet from schools, playgrounds, and other areas highly populated with children. My feelings date back to my disenchantment of the original proposal of Megan's Law and the public's overwhelming willingness to embrace lame laws that disguise rather than address the heart of the problem.
I am not an advocate for sexual predators, and I am among the group that feels they gave up their individual rights when they chose to violate those of their victims. However, I was never a proponent for Megan's Law, as I feel it gives a false sense of protection to communities, places an undue burden on parents, and offers far too little a solution in deterring crimes against children.
Registering sex offenders is a noble practice in theory, but in reality how much of a benefit is it to you and your child? If you live in a town where there are no registered sex offenders, what is to stop a child molester in another town from exercising his freedom, entering your neighborhood, and roaming about until he is able to kick his feet in your child's sandbox? And if an offender does live in your town, are you supposed to keep your children locked up in the house all day?
If your child was molested after you received community notification, are you to share the blame, because after all, you knew this guy was lurking about? You can't throw eggs at the predator's home or threaten him in any way without risking arrest yourself. So are you to sell your home and move elsewhere? If so, are you obligated to tell the new buyers that a sexual predator lives in the area?
As for restricting a predator's whereabouts, how can you realistically bar someone from coming within feet from a child when children exist everywhere? They are not limited to schools and playgrounds. Pedophiles become clever at their "craft." They will find new ways to approach children at places where parents will least expect it rather than areas that are heavily supervised.
The real issue is if child molesters pose such a risk that they must be monitored and restricted, then they shouldn't be released to the general public in the first place. Many believe pedophiles cannot be rehabilitated, and far too often a child is murdered at the hands of a repeat offender.
A better solution is to keep them in work programs behind bars, place them in a controlled environment, or release them in the care of someone willing to take responsibility for their actions at all times. There should be more support groups available for pedophiles to seek help before they commit an unthinkable crime, and there should be greater distinctions between the penalties for molestation, rape, and murder.
If a pedophile molests or even rapes a child, but then let's the child live, there is still hope for the child. So there should be some hope for the pedophile to redeem himself behind bars. Murder, however, offers no hope, and penalties should be severe enough for child sex offenders to think twice.
So make your voice known to legislators who will protect our children and communities. Just be sure you are asking them to spend their time and energies in establishing laws that can offer the best possible solution. As it is now Megan's Law and community ordinances promise too much, too little, too late in child protection. ..Source.. by CentralJersey.com
April 19, 2009
FL- Tougher laws leave sex offenders with no options
4-19-2009 Florida:
Here's where most respectable people want convicted sex offenders to live: Anywhere but near them.
Here's where sex offenders are allowed to live, after a wave of get-tough residency restrictions imposed by South Florida localities: Almost nowhere.
And here's where George Horne has lived most of the last six months since being released from prison: Beneath a roadway overpass, overlooking a canal, surrounded by broken glass and forced to sleep with a stick to beat back rats.
Sex offenders don't usually evoke much sympathy, but is this really what we want in a civilized society?
"I'm living like an animal," Horne, 46, said last week. "I had it much better in prison."
I first met Horne in December, when he showed off the mattress he fashioned from a piece of Styrofoam that fell off a truck.
I found him again last week, after he was evicted from a flop house for sex offenders in the unincorporated Broadview Park neighborhood.
Following the lead of other cities and counties, Broward County Click here for restaurant inspection reports commissioners last week enacted tougher restrictions for unincorporated areas. Sex offenders won't be able to live within 2,500 feet of schools, parks, playgrounds or school bus stops. Current resident offenders might be grandfathered in.
Horne, who spent eight years behind bars for a sexual battery on his girlfriend's young daughter he says he didn't commit, is caught in the crossfire.
Longtime Broadview Park residents watched in horror in recent months as the number of sex offenders grew from a few dozen to more than 100. The neighborhood is bordered by State Road 7, Interstate 595 and Florida's Turnpike.
"We don't want this to become Pervert Park," said Lee Charbonneau, who's lived there 10 years.
She told me her story: One night earlier this year, her dog began barking when a Lee County sheriff's cruiser pulled up in her driveway. The deputy wanted to drop off a sex offender who'd been released from jail.
"He had the wrong address," Charbonneau said.
That's how she discovered a haven for sex offenders had sprouted on her block. An enterprising offender from Orlando, Randy Young, bought a foreclosed home. Soon there were 14 people living there.
Young set up other houses in the neighborhood, including a five-bedroom house that crammed in 25 offenders. According to one offender, they each paid $500 a month. After code enforcement became involved, only five offenders live there.
Horne spent six weeks at that house but was evicted last week.
Horne said he was steered to the overpass by his probation officer after his Nov. 1 release. A spokeswoman for the state Department of Corrections said probation officers try to assist in finding housing, but there's often no place for offenders to go. "It's a very difficult situation," said Gretl Plessinger.
With more like Horne on the horizon, Broward might soon have its own Bridge of Shame, like the Julia Tuttle Causeway in Miami-Dade, where nearly 60 sex offenders have set up camp.
How this makes us safer, with more desperate people poised to do desperate things, I have no idea.
"It puts the community at great risk," said Lori Butts, a Davie-based psychologist who counsels sex offenders. She said it's time to rethink the Draconian residency restrictions, saying they are counterproductive and give the people a false sense of security, since unsupervised offenders can roam freely during the day.
"It's not about being sympathetic to sex offenders. It's about doing what's best for the community," Butts said.
Broward County Commissioner John Rodstrom said the county is exploring allowing halfway houses in industrial areas.
There has to be a reasonable medium between offenders descending on certain neighborhoods, living 25 to a single-family home, and living beneath bridges like animals. ..News Source.. by Michael Mayo
March 25, 2009
NY- Riverhead Town sues Suffolk County over trailer
Isn't infighting wonderful, so productive. Neither of these parties have a single ounce of proof that RSOs, living within a proscribed area commit crimes at the proscribed place, in fact there is evidence of the contrary that RSOs do not commit such crimes. But, evidence is not what drives these laws, its public perception -a false sense of safety- based on hypothetical facts not reality.
3-25-2009 New York:
Riverhead Town officials made it clear at a press conference Friday that they will not stop fighting Suffolk County’s decision to permanently place a trailer that can provide temporary housing for more than 20 homeless sex offenders on the grounds of the Suffolk County Jail in Riverside.
Two weeks ago, Riverhead Town Attorney Annemarie Prudenti filed a lawsuit in Suffolk County Supreme Court, on behalf of the town, alleging that the county is violating its own law, as well as state law, by placing the trailer at the site because the facility is too close to a playground and library. Both are places where children tend to congregate.
The county placed the trailer in Riverside in 2007 before replacing it with a larger one in 2008. A second and smaller trailer, one that can house up to eight sex offenders at one time, is located on Old Country Road in Westhampton, near the Suffolk County Police Academy shooting range.
“Stop dumping on us as if we don’t exist and as if our needs are trivial,” said Riverhead Town Councilman James Wooten during Friday’s press conference, held outside of Riverhead Town Hall on Howell Avenue in Riverhead. He then listed the laws that the county allegedly broke by placing the trailer on jail property.
The average number of homeless sex offenders staying at the Riverside trailer, which is located on the perimeter of the jail property, has varied between 17 and 18 for the first two-plus months of 2009, according to Roland Hampson, a spokesman for the Suffolk County Department of Social Services, which operates the trailer.
In its recently filed lawsuit, Riverhead Town alleges that the county violated its own law by placing the trailer in Riverside because it sits less than one quarter mile from the George Lindgren Schmelzer Riverfront Park, and just over one quarter mile from the Riverhead Free Library. Riverhead Town is seeking an order from the Supreme Court that would force the county to move the trailer from that location, Riverhead Supervisor Phil Cardinale said.
But county officials contend that the park was established by the town only after the trailer’s arrival, so Riverhead officials could dispute the placement of the trailer. The Schmelzer park was officially named a park in 2007.
“Even if we bought the park in 2009, it’s still a park, and the county has to respect that it’s there,” Mr. Cardinale said.
Suffolk County officials disagree with that assessment.
“Before this was called a park, this tiny, indistinguishable area was used as a parking area by the public for adjacent buildings,” Mr. Hampson said. “It’s obvious to us that by simply plopping down two picnic benches and putting up a sign that says ‘park,’ the town labeled this a park for the sole purpose of allowing the town to claim that the trailer violated the residency restriction on sex offenders.”
The county residency restriction prohibits sex offenders from living within one-quarter of a mile a school, licensed day care center, or playground. Mr. Hampson said county officials could not comment on the details of the lawsuit.
At Friday’s press conference, Mr. Cardinale said his town had allocated funds to purchase the park in 2003, long before the trailer was placed on the grounds of the jail.
“This is illegal,” Mr. Cardinale said. “[Suffolk County Executive] Steve Levy is not above the law.”
Suffolk County Legislator Ed Romaine, whose district covers the entire North Fork and Riverhead Town, also opposes the county’s placement of the trailer, arguing that such a facility puts community members in jeopardy.
“The county thinks might makes right,” Mr. Romaine said. “But, in the end, we’ll show that might does not make right.”
Mr. Romaine said he is confident that the town will prevail in its suit against the county.
The lawsuit also charges that the county’s decision to place the trailer at the Riverside jail violates state law. Sections of state law prohibit large concentrations of registered sex offenders from residing in a single municipality, on a certain property, or near “vulnerable populations.”
“The children and elderly, who are residents of the Town of Riverhead, are included in the ‘vulnerable residents of the County...,’” the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit adds that the county “established a homeless sex offender trailer on the County parcel without reference to any rules” set forth by the New York State Division of Parole.
In response to these allegations, Mr. Hampson said the “entirety of the jail premises must be deemed exempt from the residency restriction law.” In other words, he said that the residency requirements set forth by the county—such as those prohibiting sex offenders from living within one quarter mile of any school—do not apply to the trailer.
“There are limited alternatives available because of restrictions and regulations,” Mr. Hampson said. “The county can’t think of a better-suited location than on the premises at the jail.”
On Friday, Riverhead Town and certain county officials urged Suffolk County to consider placing the trailers for the homeless sex offenders at local police precincts, such as the 7th Precinct on the William Floyd Parkway in Shirley, the 4th Precinct in Hauppauge and the 1st Precinct in West Babylon.
“The trailers should be housed throughout the county,” Mr. Wooten said. ..News Source.. by Jessica DiNapoli
February 20, 2009
GA- After Prison, Few Places for Sex Offenders to Live
Georgia, second only to Florida, proves their legislators lack insight into solving problems of society in a way that keeps everyone in society working together for the better good. Legislators have only one thing in mind, banishment and keeping the general public in a state of hysteria over false beliefs. Their residency laws, allegedly creating safe zones for children, actually create danger zones as well, and legislaotrs are too blind to see their error. Finally, if one creates a protected place, that also means, outside of that place is a unprotected place. Stupid is as stupid does (Forest Gump).
2-20-2009 Georgia:
Georgia's Rules That Keep Some Convicted Felons Far From Children Create Challenges for Compliance, Enforcement
CEDARTOWN, Ga. -- After two years of fitful searching, Christopher Noles and his family finally found a modest three-bedroom house in rural Georgia. The bedrooms are cramped, the kitchen plumbing leaky. There isn't a neighbor in sight.
But the lonely old house is a last refuge. Mr. Noles is one of nearly 16,000 sex offenders convicted in Georgia who, under state law, can't live or work within 1,000 feet of a church, school, day-care center, skating rink, park, swimming pool or any other place where children gather. Failing to register an address could mean 30 extra years in prison for a convicted sex offender.
The crime that placed Mr. Noles, now 31 years old, in Georgia's database of sex offenders was having sex in August 1996 with his girlfriend. He was then 17, while she was 14. Both said the sex was consensual, and they later wed. But state law at the time said it was statutory rape for either an adult or a minor to have sex with someone under the age of 16. After the girl became pregnant, a family member reported the liaison to police. Mr. Noles pleaded guilty and spent three months at a prison boot camp.
He thought he paid his debt to society. But under a 2006 Georgia law, Mr. Noles and nearly every person convicted of any of dozens of crimes considered sex offenses must be listed on a publicly available database. They must keep police notified of their address at all times and can never reside or work near any banned area.
An additional requirement prohibits any convicted sex offender from volunteering at church. Mr. Noles says he skips all church activities -- including a play in which his 11-year-old daughter performed at Pleasant Valley South Baptist Church in Silver Creek, Ga. "I'd rather be able to tuck my kids into bed every night than to have to dream about them from prison," he says.
Laws cracking down on sex offenders enjoy broad public support across the U.S. All states require offenders to report to law enforcement, but Georgia's statute is considered to be among the toughest such laws in the U.S. for its living restrictions and sentences. The law has set off messy conflicts between politicians and others who argue sexual criminals should be aggressively tracked and isolated and those who say lawbreakers -- especially juveniles and nonviolent offenders -- deserve a second chance.
Among the most vocal critics of the laws are police. Some sheriffs say the crackdown on sex offenders forces them to divert substantial resources from investigating active criminals to monitoring and tracking offenders who aren't threatening. Enforcing the additional restrictions from the 2006 law cost sheriffs' offices about $5 million in 2007, says the Georgia Sheriffs' Association.
Some states also object to a recent federal law requiring states to impose strict standards for registering sex offenders, arguing it's too costly and no more effective than their own state laws.
"Oh, my God, it's overwhelming," says Capt. Ronald Applin, who works in the Fulton County sheriff's warrant-service division that tracks down anyone deemed too close to children for comfort. Monitoring more than 1,500 sex offenders in the state's most-populous county requires four deputies full time, he says.
It's not clear whether the laws have had any effect on the frequency of sexual offenses in Georgia. Only 90 of the 15,800 people listed as sex offenders are classified by law-enforcement officials as dangerous "predators," which the state defines as someone who is at risk of perpetrating a future sexual offense. The number of rapes in the state increased slightly between 2006 and 2007, but the laws haven't been in effect long enough to establish clear statistical patterns, experts say.
Law-enforcement officials say the law has forced many sex offenders to move. According to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal of records compiled by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, more than 8,400 of the sex offenders on the registry, or 68%, moved between June 2006 and November 2008 -- far higher than in previous periods. More than a hundred left the state entirely.
Still hanging over those listed on the Georgia registry is a provision approved as part of the 2006 law forbidding them from living within 1,000 feet of a school bus stop. But enforcement of that requirement was stayed by a federal judge in response to a lawsuit filed by several sex offenders. If the measure ultimately goes into effect, the vast majority of Georgia would be legally uninhabitable to anyone on the registry, according to sheriffs across the state.
Defenders say residency restrictions are one of the few ways society can protect itself from repeat sex offenders. "Nothing is going to be 100% effective unless every single offender goes to jail," says Monica Lukisavage, a day-care operator in Stevens Point, Wis., whose daughter was abducted at age 13 by a neighbor in 1995, held in captivity for three months and repeatedly raped and beaten. "But these restrictions are a step in the right direction."
Laura Ahearn, executive director of Parents for Megan's Law and The Crime Victims Center, based in New York, says employment and residency restrictions are necessary, because therapists and treatment organizations can't guarantee a sex offender won't re-offend. "Residency restrictions can give the community more security and safety when they know offenders are being monitored," she says.
More than 30 states, including California, Michigan and Ohio, already ban sex offenders from residing in certain areas, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Several states have also dramatically tightened their registry requirements.
Georgia first imposed residency restrictions in 2003, banning sex offenders from living near schools, day-care centers and parks. But the issue only exploded onto the public radar in February 2005, when 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford was kidnapped from her family's home in Homosassa, Fla. The girl was raped and killed by being buried alive just 150 yards from her home.
Stirred by the Lunsford case, Georgia State Rep. Jerry Keen introduced sweeping revisions to strengthen the Georgia registry law. The changes banned offenders from working near those locations and added churches, swimming pools and school bus stops.
But soon there were signs that the newly strengthened law might have gone even further than intended. Law-enforcement officials were required to order hundreds of people to move. The requirements make no distinction between the most heinous sex offenders -- such as child rapists -- and those who had consensual sex with an underage girlfriend. More than 800 of those on the Georgia list committed their offenses before they turned 19 years old, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. Since then, exceptions have been added to Georgia's statutory-rape laws reducing the charges against minors having sex.
Generally, offender names are on the list for life or can't be removed until at least 10 years after probation. It's unclear how many of the nearly 16,000 offenders tried to have their names removed since the law went into effect, but the petitioning process is difficult. Between 2006 and 2008, 70 records were deleted from the registry based on court orders, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. In 2007, Georgia's Supreme Court ruled that the new 1,000-foot restrictions violated property rights. But state lawmakers circumvented the court's decision by allowing offenders who had long owned their property to remain in their homes.
Former Polk County Sheriff's Office Maj. Mike Sullivan says the proximity-based employment and residential restrictions create a false sense of public safety. None of the 78 offenders he was tracking before he retired committed their crimes on victims they lived or worked near, he says. Instead, he worries that the residency laws destabilize past offenders by forcing them to move or lose their jobs and that pushing sex offenders to cluster together in the few livable areas of the state could ultimately encourage illegal behavior.
At the time the 2006 law took effect, Mr. Noles, then a truck driver, was busy dropping off loads at Davenport Lumber Company in Rockmart, Ga. After getting divorced from his first wife of seven years, he was raising his newborn son with his second wife, Rita. The sheriff told him to stop delivering to the lumber company because its grounds bordered a church. It made no difference that Mr. Noles didn't work on Sundays, rarely was at the lumber yard and had letters from his boss begging a probation officer to let him stay, citing a clean, two-year work history. For the last two years, he has been unemployed the majority of the time, scraping by as a freelance construction worker.
"I'll do any job I can, but the law is forcing me out of the county," he says. "And there just aren't that many job opportunities out here."
It took two years of scavenging real-estate ads and dozens of nights in motel rooms for the Noles family finally to locate and rent a home that didn't violate the sex-offender statute. Mrs. Noles says she is tired of repeatedly uprooting her life to comply with the law. Now, with many acres of wide pastures surrounding the new home, she is hopeful. "This time, it's for real," she says. "We're staying." ..News Source.. by STEPHANIE CHEN
February 10, 2009
ND- N.D. Legislature: Sex offender ban ... Too much time, money
2-10-2009 North Dakota:
Sex offender ban bill dies
The House defeated a bill Monday that would have restricted convicted sex offenders from living near or being near schools, day care centers and other areas with children.
Those who opposed the bill said the state’s police departments and sheriffs testified against it, because it did not offer the protection it seemed to while making it harder for sex offenders to find a place to live.
Law enforcement said that sex offenders barred from living near a school could nevertheless be allowed to live next door to apartments in which several children may live, and whose parents may be gone to work every day.
The bill died on a 65-28 vote. ..News Source.. by Janell Cole, State Capitol Bureau
January 23, 2009
WI- 'We're calling on you to protect us'
1-23-2009 Wisconsin:
Citizens ask for sex offender ordinance; officials argue such are 'based in fear, not fact'
MANITOWOC — The room was crowded and the mood was intense Wednesday evening when nearly 50 community members showed up at City Hall to have their say about whether sex offenders should be restricted from living in certain areas of the city of Manitowoc.
Perhaps the most impassioned of pleas came from residents surrounding North 16th Street. Neighbors were outraged late last year after it was discovered a convicted sex offender had moved into a rental property there. The city's Public Property and Safety Committee called for Wednesday's informational meeting in response to a petition from those neighbors and their supporters.
"It terrified my neighborhood. Nothing prepares you for that," said Lori Tobin, who lives on North 16th Street. "Our public trust was shaken. We're calling on you to protect us."
"What we're trying to do here isn't gonna fix the problem, but if it protects one child — just one — it's worth it," Tom Maloney added to a thundering applause. "We're not talking about human beings; we're talking about animals. They're just not wired right. They're broken."
But the impassioned pleas, at least in part, fell on deaf ears. Law enforcement officials argued that ordinances restricting where sex offenders can live have the potential to do greater harm than good.
"They have all the best intentions," said Melissa Roberts, a Manitowoc native and director of sex offender programs with the Wisconsin Department of Corrections in Madison. "But they're based on a faulty premise … that sex offenders access their victims geographically."
In fact, she said 93 percent of victims already know their abuser when the offense takes place. Instead of pushing for residency restrictions, Roberts suggested parents should be aware of who their neighbors are and teach their children to be attentive to potentially dangerous situations.
But for Ann Holsen, another North 16th Street resident, that's not enough.
"I try to educate my children," Holsen said. "But how much can you teach a 5-year-old? How much can you teach a 2-year-old?"
Added a tearful Katie Stockman-Daffner: "I'm not going to let my 3-year-old or my newborn outside, ever … knowing (an offender) can look out the window at them. I really hope that something changes. This summer, I hope that we can play outside again."
Manitowoc County currently is home to 175 registered sex offenders, 99 of whom are off supervision, Roberts said. Those who have fulfilled the supervision period imposed by the courts are free to live where they choose, but most are required to register their addresses for the rest of their lives.
Roberts said sex offenders living in Manitowoc likely would go "underground" and stop registering if they were restricted from living in certain areas of the city. Wisconsin is home to more than 20,000 registered sex offenders, and 90 percent of those currently are compliant with the registry, she said.
Seventy-two municipalities have enacted ordinances restricting where they can live. Such laws, Roberts said, "tend to be based in fear, not in fact," and give communities "a false sense of security."
District Attorney Mark Rohrer agrees. He said nearly all offenders living in Manitowoc County consistently register their address changes, and he believes an ordinance would make that number drop.
In reaction to that, Manitowoc resident Phillip Hoff spoke out against residency restrictions.
"What would hurt is if more people were encouraged not to register," Hoff said. "The not knowing is the dangerous part. We don't want to create potential solutions that in fact make Manitowoc children less safe."
John Schroeder, who lives on Ray Street, agreed.
"Wherever you herd these people in the city, you're gonna have children," Schroeder said. "Do-good plans are not gonna solve the problem."
The ordinances themselves also appear to be a headache at the law-enforcement level. Roberts said DOC agents in Green Bay are working overtime to find residency for sex offenders being released back into a city with tight restrictions. Because most offenders must be returned to the county of their conviction, she said many there are being pushed out into rural Brown County, or to jail and transitional facilities that cost taxpayers money.
To that, Karl Koch says: "They should all be put in a coop out in Lake Michigan somewhere."
Wednesday's 2½-hour meeting closed without much closure, as committee Chairman Eric Sitkiewitz said the Public Property and Safety Committee will explore the issue further and request research from various officials before a draft ordinance is introduced. Alderman Ray Geigel offered a potential ordinance, but Sitkiewitz said that is only an example and is not applicable at this point to Manitowoc.
"You've given the committee a lot to chew on," Sitkiewitz said, adding the group will meet again in February. "The petition and input was to address the concern, and now it's time for the committee to address the ordinance." ..News Source.. by Helen Clarke • Herald Times Reporter
