10-21-16 Multiple States:
Laws on sex offenders in nursing homes
California: If a person on the sex offender registry is being released into a nursing home, the Department of Corrections or other government agency must notify the home. Otherwise, the registered offender must self-report before becoming a client of any care facility. Homes must notify all residents and employees.
Illinois: Nursing facilities must do a “needs” screening prior to admission that includes a mental evaluation and a criminal background check. That assessment is reviewed by a forensic psychologist who creates an “Identified Offender report” detailing risk level and security concerns. That report goes to the home, local police, an ombudsman and the Department of Public Health, which must track offenders in nursing homes and report to lawmakers annually. Sex offenders can’t have roommates in care facilities.
Iowa: A bill to require notification of nursing home residents about sex offenders died in legislature. Another to create a specialized facility for Tier II and Tier III offenders was introduced in 2015 but hasn’t moved out of committee.
Massachusetts: Law bars anyone classified as a level III offender — based on a risk assessment — from living in any care facilities. At least one resident has successfully challenged this law in court.
Minnesota: Registered offenders must notify nursing homes of their status. Additionally, a law enforcement officer must prepare a “fact sheet” for the facility stating the offender’s criminal history, risk level, and profile of likely victims. That sheet must be distributed to all residents if the offender is admitted.
Ohio: Nursing homes must check the sex offender registry before admitting a new resident and must notify other residents or their family members about the care plan for that offender.
Oklahoma: Passed law in 2008 to create specialized nursing home for offenders, but no bids were submitted and it was never built. Notification law requires homes to check registry, notify the state health department if an offender is moving in and post conspicuously a notification that a resident is a registered sex offender.
Oregon: Registered sex offenders must inform a nursing home of their status prior to admission.
Virginia: Care facilities must register with the state police to recieve notifications if a sex offender moves within the same or contiguous ZIP code; determine prior to admission if a potential resident is a registered offender; and have every resident sign an acknowledgement that they know how to check the registry. There is no law that requires a home to tell residents about offenders being admitted. In a fact sheet, the department of health said, “If a facility determines that a sex offender is already a resident of the facility, affirmative notice to other residents is not required by law; nor is it advised.”
Ohio lawmakers want to take a closer look at how the state monitors sex offenders living in nursing homes, and some advocates support changes to how those on the offender registry are classified.
“You brought a problem to light that I really didn’t think about. I just want to look at what other states are doing and what Ohio can do to protect the other residents of the nursing homes and also to protect the individual that’s (on the registry),” said state Rep. Ron Maag, R-Lebanon.
A Dayton Daily News investigation published last week found that 136 sex offenders are living in 43 nursing homes in Ohio. The newspaper identified failures in the safety net intended to balance the needs of all patients with a responsibility to shield them from danger.
Others responding to the investigation said it’s a complicated issue in need of more study.
“The question is what do we do with these people,” said state Sen. Peggy Lehner, R-Kettering. “You obviously have people who are in need of nursing home care who happen to be sexual predators. And what is the alternative for them?”
The investigation explored an idea other states have proposed but none have implemented — creating specialized nursing homes for those on the sex offender registry.
Critics said that approach would isolate offenders from family and friends while creating a prison-like setting.
“I’m of the belief that when a person serves their time that should be the end of it,” said Derek Logue, who is on the Ohio registry for a first-degree sexual abuse conviction involving a juvenile in Alabama. He advocates for the rights of those on the registry through his website OnceFallen.com.
“(Registered citizens) should go to the same place everybody else gets to go,” when it comes time for nursing home care, he said.
State Rep. Jim Butler, R-Oakwood, said he’d like to explore changes that could address safety concerns without creating totally separate facilities, including potentially a higher licensure level for homes housing the most at-risk offenders.
“Those would have increased security and oversight, and there might be a higher level of reimbursement for those facilities,” he said.
Logue, who lives in Cincinnati, argues for doing away with the registry completely. Other advocates for reform say there are best practices that would decrease the number of offenders publicly labeled for life, while ensuring that those who pose the greatest dangers are properly monitored.
“I think the push has to be for more and better information on fewer registrants,” said Barb Wright, a member of the Ohio chapter of Reform Sex Offender Laws.
Risk levels
The reform group has pushed for a model similar to those used in Minnesota and Massachusetts, where offenders are placed into tiers not based solely on their crimes, but on an assessment of a number of risk factors.
Minnesota assigns registered individuals to levels I (low risk of re-offending) to level III (high risk) based on an assessment performed when they leave prison or move in from another state.
A committee considers multiple factors including criminal history, behavior while incarcerated, and relationship to the victim. They also can consider “whether the offender demonstrates a physical condition that minimizes the risk of re-offense, including but not limited to advanced age or a debilitating illness or physical condition,” according to the state statute.
An offender may appeal the decision or request that their risk level be changed after three years, so those who become ill or disabled can petition to get a lower level assignment.
Only those labeled as level III, or most at risk of re-offending, are listed on Minnesota’s online public registry and are subject to community notification.
According to the Minnesota Department of Corrections, about half of all registered offenders living in the state have been assigned risk levels. Of those, approximately 57 percent are level I; 31 percent are level II; and and 12 percent (about 360 individuals) are level III.
“It’s sort of a problem I think we have with dealing with sexual predators in general. There’s such a wide range of behavior that what might be appropriate for one group is not appropriate for others,” Lehner said of the current tier system in Ohio, which puts offenders into tiers I through III based solely on the crime they committed.
Crime details
Ohio used to perform a risk assessment to determine whether a sex offender was likely to repeat an offense, said Wright. In 1997, Ohio began listing offenders according to offense.
“So a teenager who has consensual sex with his minor girlfriend is listed on the same register as a serial rapist,” she said.
Minnesota’s public registry gives more detailed descriptions of criminal histories than Ohio’s.
For example, instead of just listing the offense of criminal sexual conduct with a minor, one man’s profile says “Offender has a history of sexual conduct and contact with minor male victims (age 9-12). Contact included sexual touching and penetration. Conduct included taking photos of victims in various stages of undress. The offender was previously known to some victims and unknown to others.”
Massachusetts’ system is similar, with offenders placed into tiers I through III based on a risk assessment.
Only those in tiers II or III are on the public registry in that state. Massachusetts also passed a law that bans tier III offenders from living in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, but it’s been challenged successfully in court at least once.
Supporters of reform say these risk-based approaches would give nursing homes more information about a potential resident, while making sure that only those who pose the greatest risk to others are subject to the public stigma and collateral damages of the registry — including patients in need of care being rejected from nursing homes.
Rep. Butler said he’d like to see more details on the registry, including age ranges of victims.
In one case examined by this newspaper, a Stark County nursing home acknowledged it would have handled the care of a registered sex offender differently if staff had known that he previously attempted to rape a 92-year-old in a Cleveland facility. One week into his stay at the second home he raped an 85-year-old resident and is now in prison.
Butler also approves of a more risk-based tier system and said the Ohio Criminal Justice Recodification Committee currently is studying something similar. The committee is expected to make recommendations for changes to Ohio’s criminal code early in 2017.
“It’s better to have the judge or corrections officials, who know the situation, have the discretion so it’s not a cookie-cutter type approach,” he said.
Unsafe homes?
Roger Evans, of Brookville, said he’d never thought about the issue of sex offenders in nursing homes, but has seen how vulnerable his loved ones have become as they age while he’s navigated the complicated world of nursing facilities.
“We’re still working our way (as a society) through how to deal with aging,” Evans said.
His father spent the last year of his life in a VA nursing facility and his mother-in-law is currently a resident at Walnut Creek Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Kettering.
Evans, 70, worries that the rising costs of high-quality facilities mean many without the economic means are left in understaffed, and possibly unsafe, homes.
The newspaper’s investigation found nearly half of the Ohio homes that currently house sex offenders have a rating of 1 (on a 5-point scale) on the Medicare.gov nursing home comparison tool. Lower ratings indicate repeated health and safety citations on state inspections and can indicate inadequate staffing levels.
Although there are many regulations in place designed to hold nursing homes accountable for quality care, Evans wonders how much monitoring actually is going on when most homes are understaffed.
“You’ve got 25-to-30 people on a floor and each of them needs, in some cases, 24-hour care,” he said.
Rep. Maag also questioned what can be done to make sure those who could pose a risk are properly monitored.
“OK, so I know this person’s a sex offender, I’ve notified the residents of the home, but it looks like there should be some other method of monitoring that patient to make sure they don’t (re-offend),” he said.
“That sounds good when they say they’re doing (hourly checks) but they’re not doing that, I’m sure, because they’re not getting paid for it.”
Staying with the story
I-Team reporter Katie Wedell conducted a months-long investigation that uncovered problems involving sex offenders living in nursing homes. We will provide updates on this issue as lawmakers explore potential changes to Ohio law.
Laws on sex offenders in nursing homes
California: If a person on the sex offender registry is being released into a nursing home, the Department of Corrections or other government agency must notify the home. Otherwise, the registered offender must self-report before becoming a client of any care facility. Homes must notify all residents and employees.
Illinois: Nursing facilities must do a “needs” screening prior to admission that includes a mental evaluation and a criminal background check. That assessment is reviewed by a forensic psychologist who creates an “Identified Offender report” detailing risk level and security concerns. That report goes to the home, local police, an ombudsman and the Department of Public Health, which must track offenders in nursing homes and report to lawmakers annually. Sex offenders can’t have roommates in care facilities.
Iowa: A bill to require notification of nursing home residents about sex offenders died in legislature. Another to create a specialized facility for Tier II and Tier III offenders was introduced in 2015 but hasn’t moved out of committee.
Massachusetts: Law bars anyone classified as a level III offender — based on a risk assessment — from living in any care facilities. At least one resident has successfully challenged this law in court.
Minnesota: Registered offenders must notify nursing homes of their status. Additionally, a law enforcement officer must prepare a “fact sheet” for the facility stating the offender’s criminal history, risk level, and profile of likely victims. That sheet must be distributed to all residents if the offender is admitted.
Ohio: Nursing homes must check the sex offender registry before admitting a new resident and must notify other residents or their family members about the care plan for that offender.
Oklahoma: Passed law in 2008 to create specialized nursing home for offenders, but no bids were submitted and it was never built. Notification law requires homes to check registry, notify the state health department if an offender is moving in and post conspicuously a notification that a resident is a registered sex offender.
Oregon: Registered sex offenders must inform a nursing home of their status prior to admission.
Virginia: Care facilities must register with the state police to recieve notifications if a sex offender moves within the same or contiguous ZIP code; determine prior to admission if a potential resident is a registered offender; and have every resident sign an acknowledgement that they know how to check the registry. There is no law that requires a home to tell residents about offenders being admitted. In a fact sheet, the department of health said, “If a facility determines that a sex offender is already a resident of the facility, affirmative notice to other residents is not required by law; nor is it advised.” ..Source.. by Katie Wedell Staff Writer
October 21, 2016
Lawmakers: Sex offenders in nursing homes issue begs for answers
October 16, 2016
Convicted rapist says his care hurt by his offender status
10-16-16 Ohio:
Sex offender who lives in Columbus nursing home talks about difficulties in getting housing.
COLUMBUS — Carlos Campos has long suspected his status as a registered sex offender contributed to problems getting quality care.
Campos in 1979 was convicted of kidnapping, rape, attempted rape and having a weapon under disability.
In her testimony during his trial, the 15-year-old victim recounted how Campos and another man forced her into their car and assaulted her for two hours, according to news accounts. He spent 22 years in prison, followed by several additional stints for parole violations.
Campos, 68, is now a resident of Bryden Place, one of a handful of nursing homes in Ohio that house multiple sex offenders. He uses a wheelchair due to a gunshot wound to his spine in 1973, and has been in and out of nursing homes because of body sores that become infected.
He shares a room at the Columbus home where he has lived since August 2015.
Speaking from his bed in early September, Campos acknowledged Bryden Place wasn’t his first choice of nursing homes. It is far from his home in Wood County and he has other complaints about the conditions, care level and menu.
“I had better food in prison,” he said.
Still, he’s grateful they were willing to take him.
“No nursing homes in Wood County would accept me so they sent me here,” said Campos, who wanted to be closer to family in northeast Ohio. “But thank God I’ve got a place to stay out the weather. I’ve got hot water and soap to wash up and clean clothes.”
Offenders like Campos — some with far more serious medical needs — have few options in Ohio. As their numbers continue to grow, the state is faced with a vexing issue: how to balance providing care to those who need it while protecting a vulnerable population from someone in the next room or down the hall whose criminal history might include child molestation, sexual battery or rape.
At least one state — Oklahoma — tried creating specialized facilities for sex offenders in 2008 when its legislature passed a measure calling for bids to operate a secure facility that would keep offenders separated from other residents.
However, no bids were submitted and the facility wasn’t built, according to Wes Bledsoe, an advocate for quality nursing home care in that state.
In Ohio, about 44 percent of the 136 sex offenders living in nursing homes reside at just five facilities — two of them with an overall rating of 1 (far below average) or 2 (below average) on the 5-point scale Medicare.gov uses to compare nursing homes. Two others were given a rating of 3 (average) and one — Scenic Pointe Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Millersburg — received a 5, the highest rating.
Bryden Place, where Campos lives, has an 1 rating, though many of its cited deficiencies have been corrected, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which operates the website.
Bryden Place, with 18 registered sex offenders, has more residents on the registry than any other nursing home in Ohio.
The former Carlton Manor in Washington Court House previously had the largest sex offender population, but it was shut down in 2014 following multiple failed inspections.
Carlton Manor’s demise demonstrates the compounding issues homes fear can happen if they take in sex offenders, advocates for the nursing home industry say.
“The places that are going to be willing to take the difficult patients are those that may struggle to attract less difficult people,” said Peter Van Runkle, executive director of the Ohio Health Care Association. “What you find is that in addition to sex offenders, they probably have folks with other behavioral issues in those facilities. When the surveyors come in they’re going to find issues because of that population, so that causes them to get a bad survey, which drives down their star (Medicare rating).
“It’s a circular sort of thing.”
Some have suggested protective measures that include placing offenders on locked floors or in units used for dementia patients and others who are at risk of wandering off.
But others question whether such a precaution would put even more patients at risk.
“If a facility says we’ll take the sex offenders and we’re going to put them in our locked unit, well if the residents in the locked unit have dementia and are less able to report and prevent and defend themselves, I would think that would not be the right choice,” said Bev Laubert, Ohio’s Long-Term Care Ombudsman.
The ACLU of Ohio said separate, locked facilities are not a practical solution because the people housed there would be kept further from their home, friends and relatives.
Gary Daniels, chief lobbyist for the ACLU, said the offender database should be purged to eliminate the profiles of people who no longer pose a danger to others.
“What this really calls for is a change in our statewide sex offender laws,” he said. “There should be allowances … flexibility in the law that allows somebody, perhaps a judge, to go back in and revisit.”
Campos was told in August he no longer needs to register. His profile, including the details of his crime, has been taken off the Ohio online registry.
Campos said he didn’t mind complying with the registry requirements but feels the law shouldn’t continue to punish those who have served their time.
“They are made to keep you in check and make sure that you’re doing the right thing,” he said. “The laws weren’t made to adversely affect you.” ..Source.. by Katie Wedell - Staff Writer
>> RELATED: Search where sex offenders live in Ohio nursing homes
>> RELATED: 5 things to know about sex offenders in Ohio nursing homes
October 13, 2016
Ohio’s sex offender registry missing critical information
10-3-16 Ohio:
A nursing home that admitted a rapist said they didn’t see details of his history on public registry.
Editor’s note: This is part of a series examining the issue of sex offenders living in nursing homes. Check back on our websites this week for more, and pick up Sunday’s Dayton Daily News for a special report.
Scott Russell Cook, 48, is in prison after pleading guilty to rape for the assault of an 85-year-old woman in the northeast Ohio nursing home where they both lived.
Officials at Roselawn Gardens in Alliance said they had no idea Cook previously had attacked a 92-year-old woman at a Cleveland nursing home.
Matt Dapore, COO of Roselawn owner Hillstone Healthcare, said a notation on the state sex offender registry that included details of Cook’s previous crime either wasn’t on his entry when the home checked before admitting him, or they missed it.
Cook pleaded guilty on Oct. 5 and was sentenced to 25 years in prison for the March incident.
Roselawn has since adjusted its policy for checking registrations to include noting the age of previous victims. It also no longer admits sex offenders whose crimes were against those 55 or older.
But an I-Team examination of the 136 nursing home residents on Ohio’s sex offender registry shows it is missing critical information on some offenders, including victim age and the type of crime committed.
>>RELATED: Searchable database shows what nursing homes have offenders
>> RELATED: Despite law, sex offenders live near schools
State law requires the public registry to include: name, photo, address, offense, date of conviction, tier or classification, supervision status, address of any school attended or place of employment, and license plate number of any vehicle.
Information about a victim’s age is not required, though that information could be useful to determine whether certain offenders pose a risk to other nursing home residents. Although most of the records list whether a victim was a juvenile, few indicate the age of adult victims.
Most also included little or no information about an offender’s actual crime, and virtually none listed the county where the offender was convicted.
The actual tier designation — I, II, or III — was omitted in 21 of the 136 registrations.
The incomplete registry is one of numerous failures our investigation uncovered in the safety net designed to protect vulnerable nursing home residents from sex offenders increasingly living in those facilities.
Patient advocates worry that this dearth of information keeps nursing homes in the dark about potential threats.
“Facilities need to assess individuals and decide if they can meet their needs before admitting them, and if you don’t have all the information, you can’t make a good, informed decision,” said Robyn Grant, director of public policy and advocacy at the National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care.
A 2014 state law requires that nursing homes check the registry, notify other patients and their families if a sex offender moves in, and create and share the care plan they’ll use to monitor that person.
No homes have been cited for failure to comply with the notification law, Ohio Department of Health spokeswoman Melanie Amato said.
Responsibility for enforcing sex offender laws and ensuring that offenders provide accurate information to the registry rests with sheriff’s departments.
But nursing homes should do their part, too, said Gene Fischer, Greene County sheriff and past president of the Buckeye Sheriffs’ Association. Fischer said the transient nature of many offenders makes it difficult to track some of them. Instead of relying solely on the registry to determine an offender’s history, nursing homes should conduct their own investigations, he said.
Nursing home advocates acknowledge that’s not happening. Most nursing homes don’t run background checks on incoming patients beyond the required sex offender registry check, said Peter Van Runkle, executive director of the Ohio Health Care Association, a nursing home industry advocate. He said staff likely wouldn’t have time to track down details that aren’t included on the registry.
Critics say the incomplete registry is just part of the problem.
Former state Rep. Courtney Combs, R-Hamilton, said the nursing home lobby has resisted stronger laws, hoping to protect a guaranteed Medicaid payment for qualified residents.
“They know they’re going to get their money, so they don’t care,” he said.
But Van Runkle disputed that homes are profiting off sex offenders.
“Medicaid doesn’t pay us the amount it costs to care for a Medicaid patient,” he said. Those who do accept those patients have a calling to provide care, he said.
Combs said full histories on sex offenders are publicly available: “There’s public record. You can contact your local sheriff.”
Critics of the registry system say even if all required information is listed, it’s still not an accurate reflection of a person’s threat level.
“Listing the crime is often not helpful … the offense does not equal the risk,” said Sandy Rozek, communications director for Reform Sex Offender Laws.
The group believes there is no evidence that public registries and residency restrictions reduce sex crimes.
Lifetime registration in particular is unfairly punishing aging individuals who have served their time and struggle to find quality nursing care because of the stigma, Rozek said. ..Source.. by Katie Wedell, Staff Writer
October 10, 2016
Special report examines dangers of sex offenders in nursing homes
Hopefully the upcoming report will include: 1) No. of sex offenses committed in the nursing home; 2) No. of former sex offenders residing in the nursing home; 3) No. of felons (excluding former sex offenders) residing in the nursing home; 4) Whether any sex offense committed in the nursing home was committed by a former sex offender, a felon, or other person (employee or otherwise).10-10-16 Ohio:
Nursing homes residents are among our most vulnerable citizens and safeguards are in place to protect them. But an investigation by this newspaper found that many seniors are not always safe from registered sex offenders who might be living down the hall.
The I-Team found that about 140 sex offenders reside in 43 nursing homes across Ohio. That number likely is higher because reporting requirements for offenders have changed in recent years.
We uncovered stories about assaults and attempted assaults in nursing homes across the state – from a 48-year-old paraplegic who raped an elderly woman; to a man who paid a developmentally disabled woman 75 cents to perform sex acts on him; and even a 45-year-old sex offender who attempted to rape a nurse.
Some sex offenders in nursing homes are barely mobile and not capable of harming their neighbors, but many remain capable of committing crimes.
“There isn’t something that happens to someone when they turn 50, 60 or 70, that they become this perfect grandparent,” said Doug McGarry, executive director of the Area Agency on Aging. “If someone has deviancy when they were younger, it doesn’t necessarily go away because they’ve had a birthday.”
We’ll explore this important topic this week on our websites. A special report will be published in Sunday’s Dayton Daily News. ..Source.. by Katie Wedell - Staff Writer
December 12, 2014
Pasco sex offender proposal would increase buffer
12-12-2014 Florida:
WESLEY CHAPEL — Registered sexual offenders in Florida are not allowed to live within 1,000 feet of schools, day care centers, playgrounds or other places where children congregate.
An ordinance proposed by Pasco County Commissioner Mike Moore and supported by Sheriff Chris Nocco would force sex offenders in the county to live 2,500 feet away from kid facilities.
Similar measures were implemented in Miami-Dade County in 2010 and Lake County in 2012.
“This will limit their contact with children and vulnerable seniors, and help prevent them from committing new offenses,” Moore said. “We want to make it as difficult as possible to return or relocate back to Pasco to commit what, to me, are pretty sick crimes.
“Quite a few municipalities (in Florida) have done similar things. I’m including bus stops, schools, day care centers, playgrounds, libraries, assisted living facilities and nursing homes. A lot of older people who are disabled or infirm are just as vulnerable as kids.”
The proposal would not apply to registered sexual offenders with legal permanent addresses established before the proposed ordinance is enacted, said Moore, adding that he hopes county commissioners will consider the ordinance in January.
There are 872 registered sex offenders in Pasco; of those, 92 are considered sexual predators and five are juvenile offenders, according to the sheriff’s office.
“Why should we wait for someone to be a victim for us to react? These are necessary steps,” Nocco said. “We don’t want to go to a mother or father and tell them that their child has been the victim of a heinous crime.
“This is not a be-all, end-all, but it’s another safeguard, another step forward. We can’t put a shield on all our children, but if we can do something to make them a little bit safer, I think that’s a good idea.”
The 2010 ordinance in Miami-Dade was created after nearly 100 offenders were forced out of squalid living conditions under the Julia Tuttle Causeway, the Miami Herald reported.
One consequence was that the 2,500-foot law left sex offenders with fewer living options.
In October, the national chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit in federal court reasoning that Miami-Dade and the state Department of Corrections violated registered sex offenders’ basic rights to personal safety and to maintain a home, the Herald reported.
The Lake County ordinance of 2012 banned sex offenders from living within 2,500 feet of day care centers, public and private parks, playgrounds and schools — and prohibited them from living with each other unless they were related, according to the Orlando Sentinel.
Lake County added a stipulation that sex offenders also could not live within 500 feet of another sex offender, the newspaper said.
Proposed expansions of the 1,000-foot law have been considered by several municipalities around the Tampa Bay area.
Zephyrhills considered a 2,500-foot buffer in 2006 but decided against it, as did Tampa in 2008.
In 2010, the San Antonio City Commission adopted a 1,500-foot ordinance, practically making the entire small city off-limits to sex offenders.
Moore, the county commissioner, said he isn’t worried about housing issues for convicted sex offenders.
“They should live outside of our proposed ordinances. We don’t want to be a safe haven for these criminals,” Moore said. “If they can find a place to live outside that area, fine, but we can’t be fearful of backlash or possible lawsuits.
“Our No. 1 priority is looking out for vulnerable citizens.” ..Source.. by GEOFF FOX
October 10, 2014
State Nursing Home Tries to Claim Sovereign Immunity to Avoid Liability
Another significant nursing home litigation case has gone up to a state Supreme Court, this time in Connecticut. And this time, there are somewhat novel and complicated legal issues of sovereign immunity. Interestingly, this case surrounds a private nursing home providing care to mental patients and state parolees. The nursing home facility is owned by iCare Management LLC as well as two subsidiaries called SecureCare Realty LLC and SecureCare Options LLC. These owners argue that they have what is called sovereign immunity which exempts them from zoning restrictions as well as property taxes.
The concept of sovereign immunity goes way back in the history of our modern laws. It is a legal theory and practice in which the state itself is immune from prosecution or lawsuits in criminal and civil courts. It is a concept that goes back as far as the old monarchies of Europe where a king or queen would basically exempt the crown from being subject to the jurisdiction and decisions of the courts. Today, states governments can assert sovereign immunity under the Eleventh Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, meaning specifically that states generally cannot be sued in federal courts without the states’ own respective consent to being a defendant (and thus leaving it up to a state’s laws and its own courts to deal with such matters). The federal government furthermore can only itself be sued in certain circumstances such as under the Federal Tort Claims Act. Otherwise, without any consent by statute or otherwise, the federal government cannot be sued.
The Latest Case
In this particular case, as reported by the Hartford Courant, the nursing home in question has sought to operate in a particular area without paying taxes or obeying local zoning rules. Some of those rules are particularly serious, as the nursing home has tried to operate in a neighborhood with single-family homes and apartments in spite of the fact that several individual employees of the nursing home are listed on the state’s sex offender registry for the commission of sex crimes. In this instant the zoning rules are meant to protect families and children from being close to sex offenders. The case was filed by the local town against the nursing home to prevent it from operating in this neighborhood, and although dismissed originally, has been resurrected on appeal.
The nursing home originally came into operation under state law. By rule long-term care provided by fully state-run facilities cannot receive reimbursements through the federal Medicaid program for the care of parolees and mental patients. Thus the commissioners of the corrections department, social services, and the mental health and addiction services arranged to farm out the work through a services contract to a private entity – in this case the above-mentioned companies that own the facility in question.
Through such an arrangement Connecticut could get back 50% of the costs of the facility through Medicaid, which obviously is more than nothing. Based on this arrangement, the private facility has argued that due to its partnership with the state under state law to manage the nursing home intended for the public benefit, it should enjoy the benefit of immunity from zoning laws that the state itself would. However, on the other side of this is the argument that the nursing home’s assets are privately owned and thus not truly state property, meaning that it would not meet the requirements to legitimately claim sovereign immunity. This is a fascinating question for those interested in legal precedent, and moreover has significant implications for the future of private-public arrangements when it comes to nursing homes or long-term care facilities. ..Source.. by Levin & Percoti
August 1, 2014
From convicted sex offender to millionaire, man gets new life
Michael Phillips has been spending most of his time these days living in a tiny room in a no-frills northeast Dallas nursing home.
Until recently, he had a roommate who slept in a bed 2 feet away, and staff brought him three square meals a day.
Only a few hours passed each day in which he didn't think about his burden of four decades: being a convicted sex offender.
That was before Friday, when Phillips was officially exonerated by Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins' Conviction Integrity Unit, which determined via DNA testing that he was falsely convicted. The state will now pay him handsomely for its mistake.
It was a first-of-its-kind exoneration in that Phillips wasn't clamoring for vindication. As was the case when he accepted a plea deal in 1990, he felt that his race would preclude him from getting a fair shake in the justice system, so he just accepted his plight.
After entering his plea, Phillips, a 57-year-old African-American who grew up in New Orleans, served 12 years in a Texas prison for the rape of a 16-year-old white girl at a Dallas motel where he'd worked as a maintenance man.
Confined to a wheelchair due to his battle with sickle cell anemia, Phillips has been out of jail since 2002. He has been living in nursing homes the past few years as his health has spiraled downward.
Though he's been out of prison for 12 years, he considers his life one long sentence, as he was forced to wear the branding of a convicted sex offender.
In his first week as a free man, Phillips is overjoyed and struggles to put his emotions into words, instead pointing to the spirituality that helped him cope all these years.
"A-W-E doesn't describe the feeling. I don't know if they got a word that describes how I feel. To have a leash taken off my neck and off my ankle, I know how my ancestors felt when they got free," he said.
Falsely Accused
According to the Dallas Police Department report from September 28, 1990, the victim was awakened by a man wearing a black and white ski mask.
While struggling with the man and biting his hand several times, the victim told police, she pulled up her assailant's mask and recognized him as Phillips, a man she had seen living at the motel.
The following month, detectives showed the victim a six-picture lineup, and she again identified Phillips as the man who raped her. ..Continued.. by Jason Morris, CNN
July 10, 2012
Sex offenders challenge Lynn's residency ban as unconstitutional
7-10-2012 Massachusetts:
a court challenge to a Lynn ordinance that bans Level 2 and 3 sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of a school or park could impact 43 other cities and towns across the state that limit where sex offenders can live or go.
The suit in Essex Superior Court by the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts alleges that Lynn’s residency ordinance violates both the state and federal constitutions because it unlawfully restricts offenders’ freedom. The complaint also claims that Lynn’s ordinance violates the Massachusetts home rule amendment, which forbids municipal laws from interfering with state policy.
John Reinstein, one of the Massachusetts ACLU lawyers representing the offenders, says they chose to bring the suit in Lynn because of the city’s size, the large number of offenders living there, and the scope of the restrictions. The suit alleges that about 95 percent of residential properties in the city are covered by the ordinance’s regulations prohibiting offenders from living in proximity to the city’s many parks and schools.
“There’s really nothing left after you get through drawing the circles around the facilities,” says Reinstein.
State law regarding sex offender management currently bans Level 3 offenders from living in nursing homes, rest homes, or intermediate care facilities for the mentally disabled. These restrictions are in addition to the state’s role in registering sex offenders and publishing Level 3 offenders’ information online. The Sex Offender Registry was the focus of a feature in CommonWealth’s spring issue.
A growing number of municipalities are taking the additional step of placing restrictions on where sex offenders can live, travel, or both. In cities such as Revere, Fitchburg, and Everett, sex offender residency ordinances typically prevent an offender from establishing a residence within a certain distance of a location frequented by children, such as a school or park.
Other restrictions involve banning offenders from visiting places where children may be present, like the public library. These restrictions are often deemed “child safety zones” and are found in communities such as Lowell, Fall River, and New Bedford. Some municipalities, such as Lynn and Springfield, combine the two and ban offenders from both setting up a residence near child safety zones and visiting them. The ordinances have so far been untested by Massachusetts courts, and a decision on Lynn’s rule could open the door for challenges in other places or reinforce the restrictions communities have passed, according to legal experts.
The Lynn ordinance has already had an impact on at least one individual not involved in the lawsuit. Late last year, Richard Galzerano, a Level 3 sex offender, moved into a house on Daytona Road in Lynn near Shoemaker Elementary School, a move that represented the first cited violation of Lynn’s amended ordinance. Galzerano had been convicted in 2008 enticing a child under 16, according to the Sex Offender Registry Board’s website.
In early January, amid public outrage, the city started fining Galzerano $300 per day until he moved out later that month, according to news reports. The Sex Offender Registry Board’s website indicates Galzerano now lives in Peabody, which does not have a residency ordinance. For the rest of this story: by Christina Prignano
April 11, 2012
Nursing homes would have to report sex offenders under proposed law
As long as the Public Registry exists, there is NO reason for this proposed law, except to make a Politician look good. Operators of Nursing homes today could simply access the registry for their own address, and find any newly admitted registrant, and act accordingly. They do not care because they have already assessed the needs of anyone admitted.4-11-2012 South Carolina:
COLUMBIA, SC (WCSC) - A proposed law would require nursing homes in South Carolina to notify residents and loved ones if a registered sex offender moves in.
As part of a Live 5 News investigation in February, 2012, we learned there is no state law forcing nursing home operators to tell residents or their guardians if a sex offender is living there.
Three members of the House of Representatives have filed a bill to change the law when it comes to reporting sex offenders in nursing homes.
"It is absolutely a safety issue," Berkeley County Representative Joseph Jefferson said Monday. Jefferson is one of the bill's co-sponsors.
"We put these fellows in facilities without realizing the impact that they may bring harm to others who are not totally aware of their habits," Jefferson said.
Under the legislation, the operators of nursing homes would be required to notify other residents and legal guardians within 24 hours, in writing, that a registered sex offender is moving in.
The operators also would have to reveal the offenders name to residents.
"It is their duty, their obligation to make sure that everyone is aware that we are getting ready to bring in a sex offender, so they can avoid this person at all costs, at all times," Jefferson said.
Right now, the bill is stuck in the House Judiciary Committee. Jefferson said it may be too late for it to become law before the legislative session ends in June. ..Source.. by Harve Jacobs
April 10, 2012
Society's lepers
4-10-2012 Massachusetts:
The state classifies 2,400 sex offenders as dangerous and likely to reoffend, but some question the accuracy of those judgements
on a chilly night in early February, the Massachusetts website that informs the public where the state’s most dangerous sex offenders are living indicates 41 of them are staying at Boston’s Pine Street Inn. The homeless shelter’s guests, according to their website profiles, include men who have raped and abused children, committed indecent assault and battery on children, raped women, and engaged in incestuous intercourse.
But the state website’s tally is wrong. Most of the sex offenders are not at the Pine Street Inn that night, and it’s unclear where they are. At the request of CommonWealth, the homeless shelter checked its guest list against the 41 names from the state website and found only 10 were actually at the homeless shelter or an affiliated facility that night. Some of the others had stayed at Pine Street Inn in the previous 30 days, but quite a few hadn’t been there in more than a month and one had never been there, according to the shelter’s records.
Officials at other homeless shelters across the state report similar experiences. They say homeless sex offenders often register with the state as living at a shelter, but then move on after staying there for a day or two.
“Where are they?” asks Lyndia Downie, executive director of the Pine Street Inn. “This whole system of monitoring sex offenders seems to be creating a false sense of security. It represents that we know where these people are and we’re watching them. But if you don’t know where half or more of them are, then you’re not really watching them.”
Sex offenders are the lepers of 21st century American society. Their crimes are so repulsive that states not only prosecute them and put them in jail but track them after they get out. Massachusetts posts the descriptions and locations of the most dangerous sex offenders on the Internet. A growing number of Massachusetts communities are passing ordinances restricting where sex offenders can live. Sex offenders are also barred from federally subsidized housing and state law prohibits them from staying at nursing, convalescent, and rest homes.
But a small yet influential group of researchers, treatment providers, and attorneys is questioning whether the shunning of sex offenders is doing anything to enhance public safety. They say the system Massachusetts uses to identify the most dangerous sex offenders is dated and flawed, and they claim the growing restrictions on where sex offenders can live is having the effect of driving them underground where they are more likely to reoffend.
Fred Smith, the director of program development, research, and evaluation at St. Francis House in Boston, has made outreach to sex offenders a part of his organization’s mission to offer shelter and training to poor and homeless people. He says he doesn’t want to be portrayed as a sex offender sympathizer, but he pulls no punches in his assessment of the way the state classifies sex offenders. He says the system “borders on voodoo” and questions the value of posting an offender’s picture and information on the web.
For those who discover a sex offender living in their neighborhood, he asks: “What do you do with that information? Most people just become anxious or discriminate. It does nothing to enhance public safety. In fact, it may be doing just the opposite.” ..For the remainder of this story: by Bruce Mohl and Christina Prignano
February 27, 2012
The Vanishing Mind: Life, With Dementia
Unfortunately with dementia often comes inappropriate sexual acts and further prosecution for those acts. Long term, prisons may become a major factor in the growth of sex offender registries nationally. There has to be another way to deal with sexual acts of folks with dementia, but what is it? These acts are the Romeo & Juliet crimes of elderly.2-27-2012 National:
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — Secel Montgomery Sr. stabbed a woman in the stomach, chest and throat so fiercely that he lost count of the wounds he inflicted. In the nearly 25 years he has been serving a life sentence, he has gotten into fights, threatened a prison official and been caught with marijuana.
Despite that, he has recently been entrusted with an extraordinary responsibility. He and other convicted killers at the California Men’s Colony help care for prisoners with Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia, assisting ailing inmates with the most intimate tasks: showering, shaving, applying deodorant, even changing adult diapers.
Their growing roster of patients includes Joaquin Cruz, a convicted killer who is now so addled that he thinks he sees his brother in the water of a toilet, and Walter Gregory, whose short-term memory is ebbing even as he vividly recalls his crime: stabbing and mutilating his girlfriend with a switchblade.
“I cut her eyes out, too,” Mr. Gregory declared recently.
Dementia in prison is an underreported but fast-growing phenomenon, one that many prisons are desperately unprepared to handle. It is an unforeseen consequence of get-tough-on-crime policies — long sentences that have created a large population of aging prisoners. About 10 percent of the 1.6 million inmates in America’s prisons are serving life sentences; another 11 percent are serving over 20 years.
And more older people are being sent to prison. In 2010, 9,560 people 55 and older were sentenced, more than twice as many as in 1995. In that same period, inmates 55 and older almost quadrupled, to nearly 125,000, a Human Rights Watch report found.
While no one has counted cognitively impaired inmates, experts say that prisoners appear more prone to dementia than the general population because they often have more risk factors: limited education, hypertension, diabetes, smoking, depression, substance abuse, even head injuries from fights and other violence.
Many states consider over-50 prisoners elderly, saying they age up to 15 years faster.
With many prisons already overcrowded and understaffed, inmates with dementia present an especially difficult challenge. They are expensive — medical costs for older inmates range from three to nine times as much as those for younger inmates. They must be protected from predatory prisoners. And because dementia makes them paranoid or confused, feelings exacerbated by the confines of prison, some attack staff members or other inmates, or unwittingly provoke fights by wandering into someone else’s cell.
“The dementia population is going to grow tremendously,” says Ronald H. Aday, a sociologist and the author of “Aging Prisoners: Crisis in American Corrections.” “How are we going to take care of them?”
Some prison systems are confronting that now. Many would like to transfer demented inmates to nursing homes, but their often-violent crimes make states reluctant to parole them and nursing homes reluctant to take them.
New York has taken the top-dollar route, establishing a separate unit for cognitively impaired inmates and using professional caregivers, at a cost of about $93,000 per bed annually, compared with $41,000 in the general prison population. Pennsylvania and other states are giving mental health workers special dementia training.
But some struggling prison systems, including those in Louisiana and California, are taking a less expensive but potentially riskier approach. They are training prisoners to handle many of the demented inmates’ daily needs.
“Yeah, they did something horrible to end up here,” said Cheryl Steed, a psychologist at the California Men’s Colony, where prisoners who help inmates with dementia are called Gold Coats because their yellow jackets contrast with the standard-issue blue. But without them, she said, “we wouldn’t be able to care for our dementia patients very well.”
After escorting Joaquin Cruz to an appointment, James Evers, a Gold Coat, was returning him to their adobe-colored cellblock when they encountered corrections officers strip-searching inmates for missing tools.
Mr. Cruz, 60, who barely recalls that he is in prison for killing someone who sold him fake cocaine, grew confused and resistant when guards tried searching him. “He has Alzheimer’s,” Mr. Evers managed to explain. “It’s not that he’s refusing to do what you’re asking.”
At the prison, shadowed by seacoast mountains, Gold Coats are paid $50 a month and have better knowledge of impaired prisoners’ conditions than many prison guards. Gold Coats, trained by the Alzheimer’s Association and given thick manuals on dementia, were the first to notice when Mr. Cruz began putting his boots on the wrong feet and “started pulling down his pants and going to the bathroom wherever he was,” said Phillip Burdick, a Gold Coat who is serving a life sentence for beating a man to death with a hammer.
Gold Coats report these changes, often at weekly support group meetings with Dr. Steed. They identify “different tricks and strategies to get guys to do what they need to do,” she said.
Before the program was started in 2009, demented inmates frequently caused fights, hitting those they considered threatening or disturbing other prisoners by encroaching on their turf. “The whole atmosphere was hostile,” said Bettina Hodel, a psychologist who started the program and once narrowly avoided being struck herself. Now, Gold Coats absorb much of that behavior. ..For the next three pages of this NY Times special: by PAM BELLUCK
April 13, 2011
Life on the List
4-13-2011 National:
Does publicly posting names of convicted sex offenders actually reduce the number of sexual offenses?
You could say it started with three small-town Minnesota boys riding their bikes to a convenience store on an October night in 1989. As they were returning home on a dark stretch of road, a man stepped out of the darkness holding a gun. He told them to lie face down on the ground and then directed two of them -- Trevor Wetterling, age 10, and Aaron Larson, 11, to run into the woods and not look back or he'd shoot them. That was the last that they, or anyone, would see of 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling.
The subsequent fruitless search led President Bill Clinton to sign a law in September 1994 designed to help police quickly locate potential perpetrators of sex offenses. The Jacob Wetterling Act required states to create sex-offender registries accessible to police, though not to the public. But that same year, 7-year-old Megan Kanka of Hamilton Township, New Jersey, was lured across the street, then raped and murdered by a neighbor who -- unbeknownst to her parents -- had served six years in prison for aggravated assault and attempted sexual assault on another child. The Kankas maintained that, had they known a convicted sex offender lived nearby, they could have protected their daughter. So in 1996, Clinton signed Megan's Law, which required states to open up their sex-offender registries to the public.
Megan's Law launched America's practice of notifying neighborhoods of where sex offenders live. Though the law is well intentioned, it's not clear whether it has reduced the number of sex offenses; rather, public notification appears to destabilize offenders' lives, increasing the risk they'll commit another crime. There is also ample evidence that since the law passed, vigilantes have used sex-offender registries to threaten, harass, and inflict violence on hundreds of offenders and their families.
In the decade and a half since Megan's Law was passed, public-policy researchers, corrections officials, and treatment professionals have begun to recognize the faulty premises and poor outcomes the law has created. A few states, recognizing the problems with public registries, have tried to develop legal solutions that both protect offenders from abuse and reduce sexual violence. But a new federal law -- the Adam Walsh Act, signed by President George W. Bush in 2006 and set to take effect this summer -- threatens to shut down those innovations; states not found in compliance by July 26 will lose critical federal crime-fighting funds. At a time when criminal-justice policies are increasingly adopting a "smart on crime" approach grounded in research on what works, the legal treatment of sexual offenders is moving in the opposite direction.
"Jeff" isn't his real name. When he talks about the June day in 2005 that the beer bottle shattered his front window, his voice quavers. "I'm sorry -- all of this just makes me so angry," he says. He was convicted in 1995, as a 23-year-old, for having what he says was consensual sex with a 15-year-old girl he met in a bar. That onetime liaison came to light, Jeff says, when the girl became pregnant (he says DNA later showed he wasn't the father) and her parents reported the episode to the police, with the girl as a cooperating witness. He spent five years in prison, but even after his 2000 release, state law required that he be placed -- for life -- on the state registry, which shows his photo, address, and the details of his conviction.
Jeff says the bottle thrower on that June day was a neighbor -- someone with whom he'd been friendly -- who had found Jeff on the registry and appeared on his lawn with two biker buddies, shouting threats. When Jeff went out to talk to the group, the men formed a semicircle, pushing and spitting on him. He retaliated with punches, and the resulting fight ended with both sides bloodied and a hole in a wall when they pursued him as he retreated into the house.
A month later, Jeff recalls, his tool shed was broken into and the equipment for his logging business stolen. Not long after, a second neighbor plugged a culvert they shared so that Jeff's basement flooded in the next storm; Jeff says the man told him he'd done it "to get the sex offender out of my neighborhood." Jeff has changed his phone number a dozen times after repeated threatening calls.
In 2003, Jeff married a lifelong acquaintance who knew his history. She worked as a nurse at a hospital, and shortly after their marriage, a manager told her that she had to choose between her job and her husband. Jeff attributes their 2005 divorce to his status on the sex-offender registry: "We were looking at each other, and it was like, 'I'm destroying your life.'" Even the two girls he parents, ages 13 and 14 (one from a previous partner and the other for whom he serves as guardian), started being teased in school and were excluded from social, school, and church events. "What have my kids ever done to anybody?" Jeff says. "In reality, sometimes I wonder if maybe killing myself may not be the best thing I can do for them."
About 700,000 sex offenders appear on registries in the 50 states and other U.S. jurisdictions. But their crimes vary widely, from chronic violent sexual predation down to voyeurism and even public urination. Researchers estimate that the vast majority of these offenders are at low-risk for repeating their crimes. Nonetheless, the public is overwhelmingly concerned: In a 2005 Gallup poll, 66 percent of respondents said they were "very concerned" about sex offenders, while 36 percent said the same about terrorism.
Giving a nervous public instant access to the addresses and photos of sex offenders produces none-too-surprising results. Though no reliable national statistics exist on vigilante violence against sex offenders, a few studies indicate widespread abuses. In a 2005 study by University of Louisville criminologist Richard Tewksbury in the Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 47 percent of 121 sex offenders reported they'd been harassed as a result of being on a state registry, and 16 percent said that they'd been assaulted; among nearly 600 immediate family members of offenders that Tewksbury and Lynn University researcher Jill Levenson surveyed, 44 percent said they'd been threatened or harassed by neighbors as a result of their relative's sex-offender status, 27 percent that their property had been damaged, and 7 percent that they'd been physically assaulted or injured. A 2005 study in the same journal by Levenson and Leo Cotter, who directs a Florida sex-offender outpatient program, reported that 21 percent of 183 offenders had their property damaged by a person who found out about their status.
Recent incidents illustrate those findings. In April 2010, a man used a printout from California's sex-offender registry to try to rob the homes of two registered sex offenders in Grover Beach. In November, a registered sex offender from Orlando was assaulted in front of his home by three teens who told him they knew he was a sex offender; they punched and kicked him repeatedly and stomped his dog to death before running off. That same month in the Virginia town of Hopewell, police charged 19-year-old Daniel Narron with attempted murder for using his SUV to try to run down 52-year-old Rudolph Ellis, who is on Virginia's sex-offender list. Since 2005, at least six sex offenders nationwide have been murdered by people who used a state registry to track their victims.
The problems with the sex-registry laws are myriad, starting from their very premises. One of the basic assumptions behind Megan's Law is that parents who know that a sex offender lives nearby will take precautions; after a decade and a half, however, there's little research to show that's happened. A second premise is that sex offenders are somehow different from other criminals and can't change, but a 2003 study found that sex offenders had a three-year recidivism rate of 5 percent for another sex crime; that compares with a 47 percent rate for other criminals committing another crime. Finally, the law assumes sex offenders will be less likely to commit another crime if they know they're being watched. Again, the research is weak: In 2009, analysts at the Washington State Institute for Public Policy looked at seven studies on recidivism by registered sex offenders that had been conducted since the first registry law was passed. Two showed that being on a registry decreased recidivism, one showed an increase, three indicated no effect, and one didn't measure the effect. "Though the research differs somewhat from state to state and study to study, overall it does not appear that registries have resulted in a significant decline in sex crimes in general or in recidivistic sex crimes more specifically," says Levenson, perhaps the leading researcher on the effects of sex-offender registries.
Still, probably the biggest issue with registries is who gets on them and what happens to those who do. As originally conceived in the Wetterling Act, registries were to be accessible only to law enforcement. It was raw public pressure, rather than criminological research results, that turned those lists over to the public. And, like many policies driven by public furor, the enabling laws overreached. Today, most registries include offenders busted for a range of acts, from offensive or vulgar behavior to heinous crimes. A 2007 Human Rights Watch study reported that at least five states required those convicted of offenses related to adult prostitution to be registered, 11 states did the same for those guilty of public urination, and 25 did so for public exhibitionism. "Most people assume that a registered sex offender is someone who has sexually abused a child or engaged in a violent sexual assault of an adult," noted the study's authors. Registries, that is, create the impression that neighborhoods are thick with recidivist sexual predators, making it impossible for parents to discern who actually is dangerous.
Sex-offender registries also now include people who have committed no sexual crime: Forty-one states put those convicted of falsely imprisoning or kidnapping a minor on their sex-offender registries -- whether or not the crime was related to sex. Last March, for example, the Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld a ruling that a 17-year-old boy who forced another 17-year-old to go with him to collect a drug debt could be made to register as a sex offender, though the crime involved nothing sexual. The court majority argued for the wider net because "Wisconsin's sex offender registration statute 'reflect[s] an intent to protect the public and assist law enforcement.'" As the dissenting justices noted, under that reasoning, convictions for violating most provisions of Wisconsin law could trigger mandatory sex-offender registration.
Sweeping everyone onto a single list produces some absurd outcomes. Fred Berlin, who founded the Sexual Behaviors Consultation Unit at Baltimore's Johns Hopkins Hospital, worked with a patient in his 80s who had Alzheimer's and was living in a nursing home. The man also was on the sex-offender registry for fondling a child in his family. Berlin says the man's offense probably was related to the onset of his dementia. But that didn't stop the nursing home's neighbors, who found his name on the registry, from successfully demanding he be moved to another facility.
A raft of research shows that such disruptions increase offenders' risk of committing another sexual crime. For example, three studies conducted between 2000 and 2007 indicate that being listed on a sex-offender registry leads to a loss of positive community supports and to barriers in getting housing and employment, both problems linked to increased recidivism. Betsy Mata and her husband Jose know that well. They're co-pastors at Holy Ground Christian Fellowship in Anaheim, California, where they run a 12-step residential treatment program for sex offenders under a contract with the state parole agency. After a registered sex offender was convicted of murdering two teens 90 miles south of their facility, someone looked on the state registry and found out that the program was housing 11 sex offenders in two rented houses. Two hundred fired-up citizens attended a community meeting. Betsy Mata started getting threatening calls -- one caller said he'd castrate the men. When the story broke in The Orange County Register, one of the landlords canceled the program's lease, and the parole agency stepped in to shut down the second house to avoid the publicity. As a result, eight of the 11 men ended up on the street.
That outcome isn't surprising: A state task force report issued last November documented a 750 percent increase in California's population of homeless sex offenders since a restriction on offenders living within 2,000 feet of schools or parks went into effect four years ago. Last November, the Oklahoma town of Sand Springs took advantage of that state's 2,000-foot law by announcing plans to build a new town park close to a trailer park where 23 sex offenders live, which will force the offenders to move. Nationally, a 2008 U.S. Department of Justice report concluded that cases of offenders being forced into homelessness have been "widely reported."
Sex-offender policies, meanwhile, are growing ever more punitive, including tightened residency restrictions, lifetime placement on sex-offender registries for even minor offenses, and even the expanded use of the death penalty for certain non-homicide sex offenses. Treatment professionals say no other group of ex-convicts who have done their time are the target of such systematic vitriol. "Drunk drivers can be dangerous -- they get in cars and kill innocent people, but we still see them as human beings deserving of help," Berlin says.
***
In recent years, however, a few states have taken the lead in using their registries more judiciously in response to research showing the link between public notification and vigilantism and discrimination against offenders, including those who are lower-risk. One state leading that effort is Washington, which created the country's first public sex-offender registry, in 1990, after three highly publicized murders, two involving children. Washington has invested heavily since then in evaluating and improving its practices. Before an offender is released from jail, a multidisciplinary committee uses an actuarial risk-assessment tool to determine his likelihood of committing another crime, looking at factors like whether the offender has a history of sex offenses or has completed a treatment program. On that basis, offenders are placed into one of three tiers. Those in tier 1 -- judged the least likely to re-offend -- are listed on a registry accessible to law-enforcement eyes only. Those in tiers 2 and 3 must submit to the state's public registry, and police must distribute notification flyers in the offenders' neighborhoods before their release.
The police, though, do more than notify. Given resources by the state's association of sheriffs and police chiefs, local cops also educate. Before a tier-2 or -3 offender moves into a neighborhood, police hold a public meeting. A parole officer and a sex-offender treatment provider talk about the characteristics of the offender, how the neighborhood can stay vigilant, and how the parole officer monitors offenders. An advocate for sexual-assault victims offers context, including that most assaults are committed by people whom victims know, and discusses strategies parents can use to communicate with kids about what to watch out for. Police also make clear that harassing sex offenders often puts them more at risk of committing another crime. "We will not accept any vigilantism any more than we would accept a sex offender re-offending," a Seattle police detective said at one meeting. Having a team of presenters "allows the community to see that many players are part of sex-offender management," says Lindsay Palmer of the King County Sexual Assault Resource Center.
There are still problems -- tiering and community notification practices can differ from county to county -- but overall the state's results have been positive. After a 1997 state law mandated the current protocol for community meetings, the five-year recidivism rate for released felony sex offenders dropped by half (though researchers note that state and national crime rates generally fell during that period). A 2006 Washington State Institute for Public Policy study of recidivism among Washington's convicted sex offenders showed a re-offense rate of less than 3 percent, compared with the national rate of 5.3 percent reported in a 2003 U.S. Department of Justice study.
Other states that are instituting reforms also have shown promising results. Like Washington, since 1997 Minnesota has held community education meetings and included only higher-risk offenders on its state registry. A 2008 study of those practices showed lower recidivism rates for sex offenders subject to them than for matched comparison groups of sex offenders. In Vermont, the Department of Corrections launched a "circles of support" initiative in 2005 that links ex-offenders with trained community volunteers. Though the state hasn't yet formally evaluated the project's impact, the department's David Peebles says that offenders who participate have so far shown more success than others in reintegrating and avoiding new crimes. In Colorado, the head of the state sex-offender management board says the state's community-education efforts have helped reduce re-offense rates while avoiding vigilantism: A 2008 evaluation of 101 high-risk paroled offenders there showed a recidivism rate of less than 1 percent.
But innovative approaches like those could be undermined by the Adam Walsh Act. After passage of Megan's Law, missing-children's advocates became concerned about offenders using differences in state registries to slip across state lines to jurisdictions with looser requirements. They lobbied for a uniform national registry, and in 2006, President Bush signed the act, named for a 6-year-old boy kidnapped and murdered in 1981 by a serial killer. The law mandates a uniform structure for state registries and links them to create a single national registry. It also requires that states adopt identical risk-assessment systems that automatically classify offenders based on their crime of conviction.
The implications of that apparently technical change are enormous. According to an internal memo of Washington state's Sex Offender Policy Board (SOPB), which develops guidelines for state practice, about 70 percent of the state's sex offenders are now classified as lower-risk, in tier 1, while the other 30 percent are grouped into the higher-risk tiers 2 and 3. The new law would roughly invert those statistics. Worse, the law would prohibit the state's practice of not making public the names and addresses of tier-1 offenders. According to SOPB member Brad Meryhew, within two months of implementing the law, neighborhoods would be flooded with notification flyers about high-risk sex offenders living in their neighborhoods -- offenders who previously were classified as low-risk under Washington's system. "The hysteria and the impact on people's lives would be astounding," Meryhew says.
That's a concern for one key advocate for missing children -- Patty Wetterling, Jacob Wetterling's mother. In 1990, she started the Jacob Wetterling Foundation to help communities protect children and teens. Wetterling believes the highest-risk offenders should never be released. But for others convicted of sexual crimes, she opposes get-tough laws like restricting where they can live. "We need to keep in mind the goal -- to have no more victims," she says. "If you go down that path, then you have to find the things that every human being needs in life. You need housing. You need a job. You need family support, community support. ... Everyone on the registry is somebody's brother, somebody's son, somebody's father." ..Source.. by Steve Yoder
