Losing Track of Sex Offenders

As Laws Limit Where Sex Offenders Can Live, Many Congregate in Isolated Areas

(CBS)  It's been almost three weeks since 7-year-old Somer Thompson was abducted in Orange Park, Fla., her body found in a Georgia landfill. Authorities now are questioning sex offenders in the community. There are 159 registered offenders in a 5-mile radius of Somer's hometown.

“That’s your biggest fear, that your child is going to be missing or they’re going to die,” said Carol Jones, a resident.

That number of sex offenders in one Florida town is not unusual. There are almost 700,000 registered sex offenders in the United States: more than 51,000 in Florida; 57,000 in Texas; more than 117,000 in California, reports CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker.

In Antioch, California where kidnap victim Jaycee Dugard was held in a backyard for 18 years, allegedly by convicted rapist Phillip Garrido, there are 92 registered sex offenders just in Garrido's zip code.

Those numbers have prompted states and cities across the country to pass laws restricting where sex offenders can live. Jessica's Law here in California prohibits sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a park or a school - places children congregate.

Similar restrictions in other states are forcing sex offenders to cluster in isolated areas - like this encampment under a Miami freeway. Parole officer Mauricio Lopez monitors 20 high-risk sex offenders in one Pasadena, California neighborhood. Neighbors are fearful.

“We have neighbors who do not allow their children to ride their bikes or get out of the house at all,” said one resident.

Authorities have lost track of some 100,000 sex offenders. Critics say better tracking, not isolation, is the answer.

“The most dangerous sex offenders are highly mobile, so they will travel, they’ll move from community to community, they will seek out opportunities,” said Ernie Allen with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Next year all states will be required by federal law to closely track all sex offenders and to inform the public who are the most violent.

[SexOffenderFacts]

Correction To The Story

Unfortunately CBS has misstated an essential fact. States are NOT required to implement the new sex offender registration requirements. A state not implementiong the requirements is punished by the withholding of 10% of their Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) Program grant monies. ( www.ojp.usdoj.gov/BJA/grant/jag.html )


A little research and you will find that the cost of the implementation for many states is substantially more than the loss of the 10%.

The latest studies in various states come to the conclusion that residency restrictions have not effect on recidivism, potentially they have the opposite effect.

The high profile cases reported by the media and latched on to by politicians who want to frighten the public and turn around spouting they are for protecting children looking for votes is a disservice to the public in general. Any responsible organization, including law enforcement, will tell you that the most danger is posed to a minor are those close to that minor: family members ( including siblings ), school mates, friends, persons in authority ( including teachers, social workers, physicians, child care personnel ). Somewhere in the range of 90 - 95% of new offenses are committed by person in these categories who have never been in the system, not by registered sex offenders. Most offenses are perpetrated by persons known to the victim. With a minimal amount of research anyone can find these facts. The reality is society does not want to face these facts and deal with the problem, it would rather accept the pandering of those most likely to gain from the hysteria ( politicians and the media )rather than prevention where it counts, in the minors home and school. Until the public and politicians recognize this, the incidences will continue. There needs to be a system where persons who have the potential to commit these acts can get help before the fact. Where is the funding for better mental health and prevention where it counts?

The high profile stories and the crimes are horrendous, however they do not represent the real danger.

[oncefallen]

John Walsh lied to us. The Adam Walsh act will flood the registries with cases of teens having consensual sex with other teens. Under the Walsh Act, people as young as 14 can be registered for life. The system is broken, in large part because of John Walsh and his propaganda. The truth is, he stands to rake in millions for himself every single time the Walsh Act is funded, as a founding father of the NCMEC he gets thousands every year, a significant portion of the NCMEC's funding goes to the NCMEC board, NOT to help find missing kids. Its HIS cash cow.

Truth at oncefallen dot com

[cabpd]

Thank you for pointing out that this system is over loaded with people who may not need to register. I am a Public Defender in a small community. I have represented a guy for failure to register as a sex offender. The guy has to register because of a statutory rape about 15 or more years ago. He got his victim pregnant. He now has custody of their daughter because the victim is a drug addict and in and out out prison. He is a good father and productive citizen. It is hard on him having to register. It makes it hard for him to raise and provide for his daughter.
Does it really make sence to have this guy register for life as a sex offender when the child produced by the crime is now being raised by him? The same court that convicted him has given him custody of the child.
People can be screaned and tested to determine the likelyhood of re-offending. Why make everyone register? Sure, some will get though the screaning process, but those who don't will be better monitured with fewer in the system.

[dcinmich]

cabpd, are you kidding me? The guy raped someone and God only knows what this has done to that person's life. And you're asking why should he have to register? And what's worse is this convicted rapist now has a child and you want us to feel bad for him? I feel bas for the child and you should, too. Shame on you.

[culturechang]

Smarts dont come with sex crimes. Hysteria comes with sex crimes. Like last night, when some woman was screaming on Bill O'Rielly about sex offenders. What we seem to have is an equal number of sex hysterics as we do sex offenders.

He was trying to gracefully point out that increases in punitive measures do not seem to be working. We execute now, but the crimes continue. We need to examine the social reasons why THIS country has so many violent sex offenders.

Have you noticed that they changed the term from "rape" to "sexual assualt".....but then they tell you its not about sex. WHAT? We cannot solve this problem by hiding in terminology and refusing to accept the truth.

[johnindy15]

Bottom line is they are not afraid of getting caught as they should be. Corurt system is bunch of pansies when dealing punishment. A 10 year sentance and out in 70days doesn't quite fit the bill

[x684867]

In reply yo johnindy15...My name is Sam Caldwell. I am a registered sex offender who recieved a ten year sentence in Texas, where I served 10 years on that same ten-year sentence.

Get your facts straight, bud. The myth of 70 days on a 10 year sentence is BS in almost every state that opted to reform its prison system (as Texas did during the 1980s).

As for your statement that the court system is a bunch of pansies...I am growing more and more tired of arm-chair quarterbacks in this discussion. It is 2009. I was sentenced in 1994 and released in 2004. I have committed no crime since my release and I struggle each day to make it while the uninformed public listens to the misleading information perpetuated by the media.

Here are some facts:

(1) According to US Department of Justice statistics, only 5% of sex offenders released in 1994 were returned to prison for a new sex crime.

(2) According to the California Attorney General's office, "90% of child victims know their offender, with almost half of the offenders being a family member. Of sexual assaults against people age 12 and up, approximately 80% of the victims know the offender." (Citing "Facts About Sex Offenders," http://www.meganslaw.ca.gov/facts.aspx?lang=ENGLISH)

(3) The Texas State Auditor in 2007 released a report showing that sex offenders who completed the Texas Sex Offender Treatment Program (SOTP) were 61% LESS LIKELY to commit a new crime. I completed that same program. (see ?An Audit Report on Selected Rehabilitation Programs at the Department of Criminal Justice.? Texas State Auditor. March 2007. Report No. 07-026. Retrieved Oct 20, 2009. http://www.sao.state.tx.us/reports/main/07-026.html. )

(4) I have been free now for almost half as long as I was in prison. I am a registered voter and a taxpayer. While you are paying attention to the Phillip Garrido case, most of the former sex offenders such as myself are living successful lives while you sell our rights because THAT is easier than getting the facts.

(5) It's sad that I have to say this rather than you saying this, but crime (and specifically sex crime) has declined since 1991-1992 (before registration) and recidivism rates are dropping too. This means you are safer today than you were twenty years ago. THIS IS THE CASE BECAUSE THOSE COURT AND LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIALS YOU INSULTED ARE DOING THEIR JOBS!

[sortingitout]

This year we have Garrido and Anthony Sowell, but the one that first made me aware our sex offender system does not work was Joseph Duncan. He was a Level III sex offender that had reoffended. He wrote a hot check to make bail and spent weeks planning and preparing his murderous rampage. No one was checking on him and weeks later he had to practically turn himself in to be stopped, but not before he had brutally murdered three people in order to kidnap two children that he tortured and abused for weeks. He finally murdered one child. That was nearly five years ago and in that time we have more offenders committing more horrific crimes. And these are the attention grabbing, high profile crimes. What of the low level criminals that could be reoffending and not hitting anyone's radar. What we are doing does not work. The public is on virtual lockdown while the offenders are left to their own resources -- undersupervised and reoffending.

[Sherry719]

Although public hanging is desirable, many would protest that it has racial overtones. I myself am in favor of the firing squad which is a legal method in three states. The gallows for corporal punishment is still legal also. JUSTICE FOR SOMER!!!!!!!!

[culturechang]

We already execute for these crimes. Its not preventing future victims. Try again. We need more creative solutions that the same old method over and over again.

[abndave]

Public hanging as an option, huh?

At one time, picking pockets was punishable by hanging The hangings were public, and drew large crowds. These crowds were a favorite hunting ground of ..... pickpockets.

Curiously enough (or not curiously) the threat of dire punishment is not nearly as effective a deterrent to crime as many people think. CERTAINTY of punishment is more effective, and there was at one time in this country an idea that we should have very short sentences, but a certainty that they would be applied. The thinking was that judges would never be willing to give very long sentences, legislatures would never go for it, and the public wouldn't stand for the expense of constructing a huge prison system. What we got instead was a system where we incarcerate people for two to three times LONGER than would be the case for the same offense in most countries in Europe. The result has been that we not only incarcerate a higher percentage of people in this country than anyplace else in the world, we also incarcerate in greater NUMBERS. Think about it. We have a larger NUMBER of our citizens in prison than does China, and a greater percentage than does China, or Iran, or Russia, or any of those other places that we tend to think of as harsh and repressive.

The way we now treat sex offenders is without precedent in our legal system. It amounts in most cases to lifetime unsupervised probation. And it does NOT make you or your kids safer.

On Halloween, we had cops out giving sex offenders extra attention. We had laws saying that sex offenders (usually those on parole or probation) could not put up decorations, wear masks, and the like. One might assume that this is because Halloween is a particularly dangerous time for kids. In fact, a recent study demonstrated that there is NO DIFFERENCE WHATSOEVER between the number of sexual assaults that occur on Halloween and any other night of the year. But that doesn't mean the cops were free to concentrate on the drunk drivers and the drug dealers. Nope. Not a chance.

Yup. We could be smart about this. We ARE being incredibly stupid.

[dcinmich]

"Authorities now are questioning sex offenders in the community. There are 159 registered offenders in a 5-mile radius of Somer's hometown."

This is the thing that really gets me. I mean, how stupid is our judicial system to allow convicted pedophiles to live in our own community? If a person has done this sort of thing to an innocent child they should not be allowed to live period.

This country gives way too many rights to the wrong people. We need to get our priorities straight and crack down hard on the people who commit these type of crimes. I say the real offenders here are the people who allow known sex offenders go back to live in our society.

[xetradax7]

The problem with the whole situation about sex offenders is the type of ignorance been exhibited here. Just because you are a sex offender does not mean you are a pedophile. For example, in Ohio where I live you can become a registrable sex offender if you are caught publicly urinating! I think we can agree this is a ridiculous label to put on someone for life. It is also the very reason why the real dangerous sex offenders are slipping through because the police have to waste time checking on people like this who pose no real danger to anyone. The senselessness of banning where people can live is also ridiculous. The truly dangerous people who want to commit acts can just drive somewhere to do the crime. There isn't an invisible force field keeping them away. When a proposal in Georgia to ban sex offenders from living within 1000ft of a bus stop was analyzed they realized every single offender in the area would have to be moved. This is outrageous. Read this article for more insight and a real piece of journalism: http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14164614

[x684867]

...and yet none of those sex offenders is a suspect. We do not know WHO DID THIS?! That means, it could be someone outside her community.

[dumpDCToday]

Sex offenders are the best friend of the people that want to create a police state. By letting them out on the street, you will beg for more cops until they have taken your every right away and still not solved the problem.

While I agree with some of what abndave wrote in his excellent post regarding "what would you rather have, a live witness or a dead victim?" there is a third option - it is called a public hanging.

Sociopaths do what serves them unless it might cause them harm. Other countries don't have this problem but then after the trial, they take them out to the street and put two bullets in the back of their heads and I feel just fine about that. I would rather have a dead sex offender, keep my freedoms and feel the children are safe while they play and if some new world order types wants to take our guns and the freedom they defend, they can come and get them in person. :-) I don't see that happening since they are sociopaths as well.

[lotusblossomlise]

Here is what they need to do with sex offenders, particularly those that molest/rape small children; EXECUTE THEM! Rehabilitation is a JOKE!
You cannot give a child back their innocence, you cannot comfort the heart of grieving parents with laws, regulations, or empty promises of rehabilitation. As far as I am concerned once someone has performed such an atrocious act, their life should be forfeit. We should not be spending money to relocate them, track them, and rehabilitate them. A case of bullets is far less expensive, and it solves the problem of how to keep sex offenders away from children.

[abndave]

You need to carefully consider my other comment. A mandatory death sentence for a non capital crime is an excellent way to generate a lot more dead victims. Of course, if you don't really care about the victims, then that isn't a problem, is it.
Then there is the fact that most sex offenders have not raped small children, nor would they.
We really need a lot more smarts applied to this issue and a lot less hysteria.

[culturechang]

Smarts dont come with sex crimes. Hysteria comes with sex crimes. Like last night, when some woman was screaming on Bill O'Rielly about sex offenders. What we seem to have is an equal number of sex hysterics as we do sex offenders.

He was trying to gracefully point out that increases in punitive measures do not seem to be working. We execute now, but the crimes continue. We need to examine the social reasons why THIS country has so many violent sex offenders.

Have you noticed that they changed the term from "rape" to "sexual assualt".....but then they tell you its not about sex. WHAT? We cannot solve this problem by hiding in terminology and refusing to accept the truth.

[blpumpk9]

So, you read about say... 10, maybe 20, even 200 repeat sex offenses a year, and you have decided that rehabilitation is a joke. You ignore the fact that there are over 700,000 registered sex offenders in this country. If rehabilitation was impossible, we'd be wading through a sea of dead children. if you feel so hopless and hostile, perhaps you should use one of your bullets on yourself... Have a nice day. :)

[x684867]

Many people say sex offenders cannot be rehabilitated. However, the Texas State Auditor in 2007 released a report showing that sex offenders who completed the Texas Sex Offender Treatment Program (SOTP) were 61% LESS LIKELY to commit a new crime. That seems to show promise.

After all, in 2002, the US Dept. of Justice reported that only 5% of sex offenders released in 1994 returned to prison for a new sex crime.

Yet we spend millions on registration of more than 650,000 sex offenders in the US based on information available in the early 1990?s when research on sex offenders was poorly funded?if it was even considered.

Treatment works. The research shows this.

For more informaiton see?

?An Audit Report on Selected Rehabilitation Programs at the Department of Criminal Justice.? Texas State Auditor. March 2007. Report No. 07-026. Retrieved Oct 20, 2009. http://www.sao.state.tx.us/reports/main/07-026.html.


US Dept of Justice Report on Sex Offender Recidivism http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/rsorp94.pdf

[abndave]

There are simply too many people on the registry, and too many people that have been arbitrarily designated as "high risk" for law enforcement to be able to monitor them all effectively.

The media exascerbates the problem by generating public hysteria to gain ratings. How many times in a news story do you see a reference to the fact that sex offenders overall have one of the lowest recidivism rates of all crimes tracked by the Department of Justice?

The media concentrates on horrible, but highly rare, crimes, and presents them as the norm for sex offenses and sex offenders. Nothing more clearly illustrates this than the rapidity which which Sandra Cantu faded from the media and from public memory.

The details of Sandra Cantu's murder are as horrible and heart-rending as anything we have seen. Sandra's fate was as terrible as that of Adam or Jessica, and yet you will not see the pundits or Sandra's family campaigning for the passage of Sandra's Law.

The problem is that the circumstances of Sandra's murder do not lend themselves to simple solutions, or to posturing on the part of self-proclaimed protectors of children. Sandra was not killed by a registered sex offender, and no registry would have prevented her death. The circumstances of Sandra's murder are far more the norm for such things than are the "stranger danger" scenarios used to justify the enactment of the AWA or Jessica's Law.

Sandra was killed by someone whom she and her family trusted. Statistics show that about half of all child abductions are by a parent, and about a quarter are perpetrated by a friend or close associate of the family. These are the abductions most likely to result in the death of the child.

As for rape, before the national sex hysteria, it was almost universally recognized as a crime of violence. It's about the violence and the domination, not the sex. The most significant characteristic shared by Sowell, and Ted Bundy, and Jeff Dahmer, and John Wayne Gacy and their ilk isn't that sex happened to be part of their crime. It is that they are serial killers. Raping someone and killing them to cover up the evidence is bad enough, but killing someone and leaving the body in your living room for four years indicates a whole different level of pathology. Garrido and Sowell have almost nothing in common with the "average sex offender."

The term "sex offense" actually encompasses a vast and highly heterogeneous universe which, like the real universe, continues to expand. This suggests that the actual management of sex offenses and sex offenders may be a rather complex undertaking, not the "one size fits all" approach used by most current legislation.

Society (that means politicians and the press) has decided that we need a huge and costly - and publicly accessible - sex offender management system. They have decided that everybody needs to be on the list. Even as studies in New York, New Jersey, and elsewhere have demonstrated that Megan's Law has done nothing for public safety, there are those who will continue to cry, "if it saves one child, it will be worth it." Well, it hasn't saved one child. It is, however, taking funds and personnel away from programs that DO save children, and DO make their lives better. Virginia, for example, is cutting back on education while it continues to expand the registry. As the registry grows, and as more people on it are declared "violent" by legislative whim, more state troopers are spending their time monitoring sex offenders, not on the highway where their presence actually saves lives. In an era when states are running out of funds and cutting back on essential services, the registry remains fully funded, even as many politicians now privately admit that it has become next to useless.

There are, of course, those who will leave comments like "anyone who hurts a child should automatically get the death penalty." I am a parent of four and a grandparent of two and I would do anything it took to keep them safe. However, I do that there is a clear and well-established link between the passage of death penalty legislation for crimes short of capital murder and the creation of more dead victims. Simply put, you can only execute the guy once, and some would rather have a dead victim than a live witness. So be careful what you ask for.

There are smart ways to handle the issue of sex offenses and sex offenders. We just aren't using them.

[abndave]

There are simply too many people on the registry, and too many people that have been arbitrarily designated as "high risk" for law enforcement to be able to monitor them all effectively.

The media exascerbates the problem by generating public hysteria to gain ratings. How many times in a news story do you see a reference to the fact that sex offenders overall have one of the lowest recidivism rates of all crimes tracked by the Department of Justice?

The media concentrates on horrible, but highly rare, crimes, and presents them as the norm for sex offenses and sex offenders. Nothing more clearly illustrates this than the rapidity which which Sandra Cantu faded from the media and from public memory.

The details of Sandra Cantu's murder are as horrible and heart-rending as anything we have seen. Sandra's fate was as terrible as that of Adam or Jessica, and yet you will not see the pundits or Sandra's family campaigning for the passage of Sandra's Law.

The problem is that the circumstances of Sandra's murder do not lend themselves to simple solutions, or to posturing on the part of self-proclaimed protectors of children. Sandra was not killed by a registered sex offender, and no registry would have prevented her death. The circumstances of Sandra's murder are far more the norm for such things than are the "stranger danger" scenarios used to justify the enactment of the AWA or Jessica's Law.

Sandra was killed by someone whom she and her family trusted. Statistics show that about half of all child abductions are by a parent, and about a quarter are perpetrated by a friend or close associate of the family. These are the abductions most likely to result in the death of the child.

As for rape, before the national sex hysteria, it was almost universally recognized as a crime of violence. It's about the violence and the domination, not the sex. The most significant characteristic shared by Sowell, and Ted Bundy, and Jeff Dahmer, and John Wayne Gacy and their ilk isn't that sex happened to be part of their crime. It is that they are serial killers. Raping someone and killing them to cover up the evidence is bad enough, but killing someone and leaving the body in your living room for four years indicates a whole different level of pathology. Garrido and Sowell have almost nothing in common with the "average sex offender."

The term "sex offense" actually encompasses a vast and highly heterogeneous universe which, like the real universe, continues to expand. This suggests that the actual management of sex offenses and sex offenders may be a rather complex undertaking, not the "one size fits all" approach used by most current legislation.

Society (that means politicians and the press) has decided that we need a huge and costly - and publicly accessible - sex offender management system. They have decided that everybody needs to be on the list. Even as studies in New York, New Jersey, and elsewhere have demonstrated that Megan's Law has done nothing for public safety, there are those who will continue to cry, "if it saves one child, it will be worth it." Well, it hasn't saved one child. It is, however, taking funds and personnel away from programs that DO save children, and DO make their lives better. Virginia, for example, is cutting back on education while it continues to expand the registry. As the registry grows, and as more people on it are declared "violent" by legislative whim, more state troopers are spending their time monitoring sex offenders, not on the highway where their presence actually saves lives. In an era when states are running out of funds and cutting back on essential services, the registry remains fully funded, even as many politicians now privately admit that it has become next to useless.

There are, of course, those who will leave comments like "anyone who hurts a child should automatically get the death penalty." I am a parent of four and a grandparent of two and I would do anything it took to keep them safe. However, I do that there is a clear and well-established link between the passage of death penalty legislation for crimes short of capital murder and the creation of more dead victims. Simply put, you can only execute the guy once, and some would rather have a dead victim than a live witness. So be careful what you ask for.

There are smart ways to handle the issue of sex offenses and sex offenders. We just aren't using them.

[sbelknap01]

Thank you for taking the time to write this excellent post. It is my understanding that there is a difference between most offenders, who may have been violent once (and absolutely should be punished, their victims are still victims) but who can be safely released with counseling, monitoring, and treatment and the truly crazy people. These serial murderers and rapists are rare but medicine cannot cure them, religion will not make them redemptive, psychiatry will not stop them. They are driven and will continue the behavior. We need top-notch psychiatrists on staff at prisons and mental hospitals to identify these people (it can be done with substantial reliability) and these offenders should simply not be eligible for release. We need a special category for 'crazy' that our legal system does not allow for right now.

[dontknowitall]

Or we could just eliminate them.

[culturechang]

I agree that too many poeple are on the list. The list served a purpose at one time, but was quickly recognized as a grandstanding opportunity by politicians who pervert the listing requirements year-after-year.

A number of states have declared thier own laws "unworkable" because of so many changes and amendments.

This proves that the biggest perverts are the politicians.