CO - Complex sex offender system isn't working, say lawmakers and lawyers

Original Article

04/14/2013

By RYAN MAYE HANDY

When he was 22 years old in 2003, [name withheld #1] met a girl online. She was two months away from her 15th birthday, and he knew it.

Both were living in Colorado Springs, and after two months of chatting online, they met and had sex. The girl told [name withheld #1] that she had been sexually involved with men his age before, so he thought it was no big deal, he said.

“I kind of got myself into feeling I was her friend,” [name withheld #1] said. “If I said no, she was going to take that wrong.”

During the next couple of months, they had sex three or four times, and in June 2004, [name withheld #1] was arrested for sex assault on a child, after the girl’s parents discovered their relationship, [name withheld #1] said.

The arrest marked the beginning of a long, winding trip for [name withheld #1] through the correctional system, a trip determined by Colorado’s Lifetime Supervision Act of 1998.

Concern for public safety was at the heart of the act’s creation; it was designed to keep people convicted of the worst types of sex offenses behind bars, possibly for life, while using therapy to treat others with lesser offenses, allowing them to transition back into society and live under strict parole requirements.

But the system isn’t working as lawmakers intended.

The system has become an expensive way to warehouse sex offenders of all types, state lawmakers and lawyers say. Thousands of offenders, including [name withheld #1], are serving what are essentially life sentences in prison, where release on parole depends on the availability of money and treatment spots. Of the nearly 2,000 Colorado sex offenders sent to prison under the Lifetime Supervision Act, 168 have been released.

Costs for the treatment program are rising yearly, as more offenders require treatment and others are on a years-long waitlist, with a disproportionate amount of money supporting a relatively small prison population. A state-ordered study of the offender treatment program found that it is poorly funded and is staffed by therapists whose training is out of date and who use antiquated treatment techniques.

Without more money, Department of Corrections officials have said, the system bears little resemblance to the one lawmakers envisioned and is further threatened by the costs of lawsuits by prisoners desperate to get into the treatment program that is the key to their release.

Raising red flags

When the act was created in 1998, some lawyers immediately raised red flags, and many of the issues they predicted have come to fruition, corrections officials say. But changing the system would take more than money — it also would take a willingness to examine the way the state punishes and treats an unpopular type of offender, experts said.

“With the benefit of this hindsight, I probably wouldn’t have supported it, but back then, who knows?” Sen. Pat Steadman, head of the Joint Budget Committee, said of the act. “It’s hard to be rational and evidence-based when you are talking about sex offenders. It’s so easy to let the emotion and the fear and demonizing these guys rule the day in terms of how policy decisions get made. That’s unfortunate, and we need to try to avoid that.”

In April 2012, state lawmakers ordered a study of the sex offender treatment program that is mandated by the Lifetime Supervision Act. The findings, released Feb. 1, confirmed the most problematic aspects of the treatment program: It is inefficient, costly and poorly executed. The study showed that budget cuts have crippled the program’s effectiveness and that undertrained and often underqualified therapists, distrusted by offenders, base their treatment on outdated research.

The sentencing system for sex offenders can be fixed by two things, the report said: more money and new laws.

The Department of Corrections agrees. It says the Lifetime Supervision Act cannot work without millions more dollars to push hundreds of offenders through the system.

But plans to enact changes have been derailed by a busy General Assembly session — dominated by gun control and civil union bills — and the March shooting death of Tom Clements, Department of Corrections director.

The most crucial change to the sex offender treatment program, namely eliminating the mandate that every offender get treatment, requires a change in law and must wait until the next session, said Rep. Claire Levy, D-Boulder, vice chairwoman of the Joint Budget Committee.

A work in progress

Victims of sex assault, their advocates and prosecutors say the Lifetime Supervision Act works. Sex offender treatment has helped reduce recidivism and provides a better alternative to letting offenders free in communities without supervision. Years in prison and rehabilitation is the price to pay, they say, for the harm done to sexual assault victims, who can face a lifetime of trauma.

Meanwhile, sex offenders desperate for freedom are suing the DOC. One class-action lawsuit questions the constitutionality of keeping sex offenders in prison. Without the funds to get offenders through treatment, the department expects it will be the target of several more lawsuits.

Two months after [name withheld #1]’s arrest, he was given a deferred sentence of four years and put on probation. Three months later, he violated his probationary restrictions and was sentenced to a Community Corrections program in Colorado Springs for two years. He spent more than two years going through treatment and probation programs, failing to meet the requirements each time.

Five years after meeting the girl online and after multiple probation failures, [name withheld #1] was given an indeterminate sentence, a minimum of two years to life in prison. Four years into his sentence, he is still in prison.

[name withheld #1] feels the effects of the tightening state corrections budget.

“I’m kind of at the back of the list right now,” he said in November. “It feels like a punishment for me. I bring it up in group (therapy).”

In desperation, [name withheld #1] and other offenders will do nearly anything to progress through treatment and get their tickets to freedom — even admit to crimes they did not commit, [name withheld #1] said. Sex offenders take a lie-detector test, which is meant to ferret out confessions to crimes they might have lied about in the past. [name withheld #1] continually fails the test — meaning, he must be lying, he said — and in frustration he has resorted to making up crimes and false confessions. The study of the treatment system confirmed that inmates have been known to deliberately lie on the test, called a polygraph.

“We have an expensive philosophy — if you don’t say you did it, then you’re going to stay in prison until you do,” said Laurie Rose Kepros, a public defender.

Penalties were largely unknown

When [name withheld #1] was first sentenced for his sex offense, he had never heard of the Lifetime Supervision Act. He had no idea that the sentences typically given for more serious crimes of pedophilia could eventually apply to him and give him years in prison.

Under the Lifetime Supervision Act, the term sex offender is broad and encompasses many offenses — some of which are punished more severely than they were before 1998. The act aims to put sex offenders through a heavily supervised and intense system of treatment, whether they are in prison or on probation. That has made the process — from court, to prison, to parole — more complicated.

A small percentage of sex offenders in Colorado are serial pedophiles or violent rapists who go straight to prison. Most convicted sex offenders, 70 percent, are like [name withheld #1]. They are convicted of consensual sex crimes with minors, for example, and are given probationary sentences.

Offenders with different crimes or differing contexts can get the same conviction. [name withheld #1], for instance, was convicted of sex assault on a child in a position of trust — one of the same counts brought against former Colorado Springs police officer [name withheld #2], who on Feb. 22 was sentenced to 70 years to life for molesting schoolchildren. But the context of [name withheld #2]’s and [name withheld #1]’s crimes were viewed differently by the court, and the men were given different sentences.

To tailor sentences to the crime, judges and lawyers study closely the context of the sex offense. Kepros, statewide director of sexual offense defense for the Colorado Public Defenders Office, and El Paso County Judge Tom Kennedy, among other lawyers and judges, said the system works best when an offender’s situation is closely considered. Unlike murder or manslaughter — convictions that carry a consistent sentence — a sex offense felony doesn’t necessarily send an offender straight to prison.

“For the majority of sex crimes, a person is probation-eligible,” said Kennedy, who serves on the Sex Offender Management Board, a group that oversees the prison treatment programs.

These sex offenders spend time in a Community Corrections sex offender treatment program or are sentenced to work duty. Offenders, even those on probation, face decades of state supervision. It is only when they violate the terms of their probation that they face a prison sentence. Whether on probation, in Community Corrections programs or in prison, sex offenders are part of the same group — regardless of the severity of their crime. They must register as sex offenders and often do treatment together, Kennedy said.

[name withheld #1]’s first probationary sentence was the result of a plea bargain — he told the court he was guilty in exchange for avoiding a possible life sentence.

But after [name withheld #1]’s repeated failures on probation, what he sought to avoid became his fate: He was given an indeterminate sentence.

Changing strategy

Indeterminate sentences are central to the Lifetime Supervision Act. Such sentences give prisoners a range of years they can serve in prison instead of a specific release date. Because of their potential severity, indeterminate sentences have changed the strategy of lawyers in the courtroom, Kennedy said.

“If I was a practicing attorney and I was having a client who was pleading guilty, you’d certainly have to advise them that they could spend time in prison,” he said.

Just one-quarter of sex offenders begin their sentences in prison. But because so few of them get out, the group dominates the population of lifetime offenders.

Since 1998, there have been 1,940 people sentenced to prison under the Lifetime Supervision Act, according to Colorado Judicial Department statistics released in January. Of those, 1,797 sex offenders are still in prison. There are more sex offenders in the Colorado Department of Corrections than prisoners serving a lifetime sentence for first-degree murder, at 831 offenders.

Because of the Lifetime Supervision Act, every sex offender sentenced under the act in Colorado is counted among those serving lifetime sentences. There are 2,474 prisoners in Colorado facing a maximum of life, and sex offenders make up almost exactly half of that group.

Far-reaching impact

The impact of the act stretches beyond the prison gates. Some sentences put offenders under intensive supervision for 10 to 20 years after their release from prison. They might be required to have regular — possibly daily — appointments with a probation officer and a mandatory profile on the sex offender registry, among other requirements.

Before the Lifetime Supervision Act, a person convicted of sex assault on a child in a position of trust, a class 3 felony, served a minimum of 12 years in prison. Today, an offender guilty of the same crime can receive a sentence of 12 years to life in prison. If that offender is paroled, he or she could spend at least 20 years under close state supervision.

The act was designed to keep perpetrators of violent sex crimes in prison for as long as possible. But many sex offenders across the spectrum, regardless of the severity of the crime, face long prison sentences and delayed access to treatment that is required for parole, defense attorneys and public defenders said.

Lifetime probation, parole in bill

Former state Rep. Norma Anderson, a Republican from Lakewood, sponsored the Lifetime Supervision Act.

“We cannot afford to keep them in jail or in prison for the rest of their life, and that’s not fair,” she said when she introduced the bill. “So, what this bill does — it does not change the sentencing requirements as already in law, but it does establish lifetime probation and lifetime parole.”

It was part of a national trend, said Peggy Heil of Denver, who has worked with sex offender treatment programs since before the bill passed.

“Back then in the United States, there was a trend in civil commitment laws,” Heil said last year. Civil commitment laws placed sex offenders in mental institutions instead of prison. In Kansas, the sex offender program required mental evaluations before offenders were paroled. Arizona instituted a program that placed sex offenders under state supervision, even after they were paroled.

Records of Colorado House Judiciary Committee meetings that year show the act was wildly popular, with representatives eager to place sex offenders behind bars for life. But attorneys who testified before the committee were apprehensive. While the bill considered the needs of pattern pedophiles, it didn’t make allowances for a lower class of sex offender, someone with a statutory rape or consensual sex charge, they argued.

Saskia Jordan, now a private defense attorney and former president of the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar, predicted that the bill would present many complications.

“You will have people being sentenced to life sentences who, in the past, wouldn’t have … and the sentence may well be unduly harsh,” she told the committee.

Jordan was also concerned that the bill’s plan for parole was unrealistic; it wouldn’t allow inmates out until it could be assured they wouldn’t reoffend. No one can be certain that an offender won’t reoffend, Jordan said.

'No known cure'

When the sex offender treatment program was created, it centered on a “no known cure” principle — sex offending was seen as a disease that could be monitored and kept in check but never cured. The thinking has since changed due to offender complaints, and the program is seen as a tool that helps sex offenders control their behavior.

Erin Jemison, executive director of the Colorado Coalition Against Sex Assault, said the benefits of the Lifetime Supervision Act far outweigh its problems. Offenders who violate probation need the prison environment to take treatment seriously, Jemison said.

“It’s hard for me to be convinced that the guy who is in prison is the guy who made one mistake,” Jemison said.

Victims of sex assault experience a lifetime of trauma, said Doug Cohen, an assistant district attorney in Jefferson County who was formerly an assistant district attorney in Colorado Springs.

“When the defendant was committing the crime, did they think about the fact that they were submitting the victim to an indeterminate life sentence?” Cohen said.

“I think in a lot of ways, they (victims) may just be left out there after a certain amount of time to fend for themselves. (That’s the) unanswered problem — like I said, their sentences are indeterminate,” Cohen said.

Anderson was inspired to champion the act after a close family friend was sexually assaulted. While she acknowledged that many offenders object to the system she helped create, Anderson contended that they cannot understand a victim’s pain.

“I guess they haven’t had a family member who’s had to live their lives under the burden of a sex offense,” she said in November 2011.

Considering a fix

In April 2012, lawmakers began looking into how to fix the Lifetime Supervision Act. Their move came after another budget request from the DOC for more funds for its treatment program. Lawmakers ordered an independent audit to examine how well the sex offender treatment program is working.

“We really did not want to continue investment in treatment programs that weren’t working, that weren’t evidence-based, that weren’t getting the results we want,” said Steadman, who as chairman of the House Joint Budget Committee commissioned the report. “We don’t want to just warehouse these guys in prison for the rest of their lives.”

The report’s findings echo many of [name withheld #1]’s and other inmates’ complaints about the treatment they receive in prison.

[name withheld #1] said he dislikes the “one size fits all” style of treatment, where offenders with vastly different crimes are treated together. That’s something the report harshly criticized as well. Because of this philosophy, a portion of low-risk offenders are being “over treated,” the report said. The limited treatment slots should be saved for high-risk offenders, the report said, while offenders such as [name withheld #1] should be on the fast-track to get out of prison and finish treatment outside.

And a lack of money means that therapists aren’t well trained, the report said. Training for new therapists is sporadic and inefficient and relies on out-of-date techniques. Therapists isolate the offenders, making them feel like monsters, [name withheld #1] said. Therapists are often quick to discipline, sometimes unfairly, [name withheld #1] claims. He said he doesn’t trust his therapists and like other offenders fears retaliation from them, particularly if they admit to disliking the treatment program. The report also noted and criticized the inmates’ fear of their therapists.

“There tends to be corner cutting and drift away from therapeutic models,” the report said.

Judge: Program sets up failure

In 2004, after [name withheld #1] was arrested and sent to court for the first time, he pleaded guilty to sex assault on a child in exchange for a deferred sentence of four years, which meant probation. He didn’t take it seriously, he said. He was late for some appointments with his probation officer, he missed some urinary analysis tests, and he still used the Internet — all of which ended his probation and sent him back to court.

Of all the probation programs for offenders, sex offender probation is the toughest, said Angel Weant, a probation services liaison officer for the Colorado Judicial Department. Although most offenders, roughly 70 percent, start with probation, many end up in prison. Kennedy, the judge, said the program’s challenges set many up for failure.

“It’s very demanding, so many people who initially get a probationary sentence will fail,” he said.

After [name withheld #1] violated his first probation sentence, he had to move out of his parents’ home because his young niece was living with them. He was given two years in Community Corrections, a state-run program that provides treatment to offenders, with a 10-years-to-life probation sentence afterward.

[name withheld #1] finished the Community Corrections program, but as before, he flouted some restrictions. He dated a woman, and in 2006, they went to the annual Balloon Glo at Memorial Park, where [name withheld #1] bumped into his probation officer. Events like the Balloon Glo, teeming with children, are prohibited for someone with [name withheld #1]’s history. He was sentenced to another four-year stint with Community Corrections but was kicked out after six months because he continued to see his girlfriend and his family members, he said. Like many sex offenders, [name withheld #1] said he did not understand the severity of a lifetime offense until it looked him squarely in the face. [name withheld #1] also said he felt that his punishment did not fit his crime: He was originally sentenced because of his interactions with a 14-year-old, and with no history of pedophilia, he did not understand why he should be barred from interacting with adult women or young children.

'Toughest' program

Sex offender treatment specialists consider sex assault a manipulative crime, where victims are coerced into keeping silent and trusting their perpetrators. And sex offenses are widely recognized as some of the most under-reported crimes; probationary restrictions attempt to assiduously control whom offenders come in contact with to prevent them from reoffending, judges and victims advocates say.

The intensive program for sex offenders is “probably the toughest that a person could be under,” for good reason, Kennedy said.

Allison Boyd, a victims advocate for Jefferson County, said most offenders fail probation because it does not provide the same motivation as a potential lifetime sentence in prison.

“(In many cases), sex offenders start out on probation, where they appear remorseful and want to change. But once they start, this is not the path they choose. They don’t choose to change their behavior,” Boyd said.

Offenders who violate the terms of a probationary sentence deserve what they get: prison, said Jemison, the director of Colorado Coalition Against Sex Assault. She doesn’t buy the argument that inmates are being held for unjustifiably long sentences — if they’ve ended up in prison, it was because their offenses were serious or they repeatedly violated probation, Jemison said.

“It’s hard for me to be convinced that the guy who is in prison is the guy who made one mistake,” she said.

For many sex offenders, the restrictions of probation often seem incongruous with their crimes, said Laurie Knight, a sex offender therapist who worked for Adams County Social Services for two decades.

For a man such as [name withheld #1], whose initial crime involved a teenage girl, dating an adult woman or attending an event with children younger than 10 might not seem like an issue, Knight said.

But the rules are determined by research, Knight said. Research shows that one sex offending behavior can stem from another — even if [name withheld #1] had no sexual history involving children younger than 15, his one-time attraction to a minor means he runs a higher risk.

“People who come into the system rarely only committed a crime they’ve got caught for. Sixty percent of adult rapists have also molested children,” Knight said.

The strict probation system isn’t perfect, Knight said, but the probationary rules aren’t the problem.

“It’s how the rules are implemented. Every probation (program) has a different culture,” she said.

Her solution for offenders such as [name withheld #1] is simple: “Get out and stay out.”

But in 2008, after violating the conditions of two probationary sentences, [name withheld #1] was sentenced to serve two years to life in Fremont Correctional Facility outside Cañon City.

The ticket to freedom

For sex offenders, a smooth passage through sex offender treatment programs while on probation or in prison is often their ticket to freedom.

To be considered for parole, offenders must start and finish treatment programs in prison, including taking lie-detector tests, called polygraphs, and meticulously recalling and discussing their personal sexual histories. Both are meant to ensure honesty from offenders, a key in their treatment, according to the program philosophy.

An inability to finish the second of two phases of treatment has kept [name withheld #1] in prison past his parole date. For more than a year, he has failed polygraphs and stalled in his treatment. He has now given up hope that he’ll be paroled.

Glenice [name withheld #1] has watched her son fail repeatedly in the treatment programs; she is frustrated, too. She is one of the founding members of Advocates for Change, a group working on behalf of sex offenders. The members are mostly mothers or spouses, who keep in touch with offenders and push legislators to change the Lifetime Supervision Act. While treatment might have helped [name withheld #1]’s son, she now thinks it is past the point of doing any good.

“He’s learned a lot about himself. But once you get to a certain point, it’s like beating a dead horse,” she said in late 2011. “They (sex offenders) made a really bad choice. To spend your life behind bars for something like that is ridiculous.”

Trouble with treatment

Sex offender treatment is a contentious subject for therapists and offenders — and it’s expensive.

Sex offenders complain that treatment casts them as hopeless and helpless monsters, with no hope of change. Therapists have adopted various philosophies of treatment — at one point, they treated offenders as if they suffered from incurable diseases, while other therapists believe sex offending is a choice.

Once in prison, offenders are put on a list to get into the treatment program. The program’s philosophy is based on helping sex offenders control their behaviors, said Heil, who heads the program for the Department of Corrections.

“Sex offending is a behavior. What treatment can do is teach people how to manage the problems that lead to their offending,” Heil said.

[name withheld #1] and other offenders said they dislike their therapists and have resorted to lying on polygraphs out of desperation to pass them.

The audit confirmed that offenders are often terminated from treatment too quickly or easily. The program has a notoriously high termination rate, inmates said. Offenders can be bumped out of the program for disciplinary issues or for being what inmates call “in denial” of their crime. In 2011, more than 90 percent of the offenders in the first phase of treatment were terminated, for various reasons.

Still, a few offenders have extracted some good from their treatment. [name withheld #1], who said he considers himself an introvert, said he has gained confidence.

Nonetheless, as he struggles to get through Phase II, [name withheld #1] has given up. After more than a year in prison keeping a low profile and cooperating with his therapists, [name withheld #1] continued to fail multiple polygraphs, which he was counting on to help him pass out of Phase II and get one step closer to parole.

[name withheld #1] said he remained frustrated, even as signs of change trickled into the prison. Last fall, auditors visited Fremont Correctional Facility, where [name withheld #1] is serving his time, and interviewed inmates, giving them a rare chance to vent their frustrations in privacy.

“The hope around here is that they’ll make some changes,” [name withheld #1] said.

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What will it cost states to comply with the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA)? (08/2008)

Original Article

Description:
The Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA)1, which mandates a national registry of people convicted of sex offenses and expands the type of offenses for which a person must register, applies to both adults and children. By July 2009, all states must comply with SORNA or risk losing 10 percent of the state’s allocated Byrne Grant money, which states generally use to enforce drug laws and support law enforcement. In the last two years, some states have extensively analyzed the financial costs of complying with SORNA. These states have found that implementing SORNA in their state is far more costly than the penalties for not being in compliance. JPI’s analysis finds that in all 50 states, the first-year costs of implementing SORNA outweigh the cost of losing 10 percent of the state’s Byrne Grant. Most of the resources available to states would be devoted to the administrative maintenance of the registry and notification, rather than targeting known serious offenders. Registries and notification have not been proven to protect communities from sexual offenses, and may even distract from more effective approaches.

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NJ - Megan’s Law: Assessing the Practical and Monetary Efficacy (01/2009)

Original Article

Description:
The research that follows concerns the various impacts of community notification and registration laws (Megan’s Law) in New Jersey. Although this report includes a variety of interesting findings and many ideas that will be explored upon post grant period, this research was embarked upon, in general, to investigate: 1) the effect of Megan’s Law on the overall rate of sexual offending over time; 2) its specific deterrence effect on re-offending, including the level of general and sexual offense recidivism, the nature of sexual re-offenses, and time to first re-arrest for sexual and non-sexual re-offenses (i.e., community tenure); and 3) the costs of implementation and annual expenditures of Megan’s Law. These three primary foci were investigated using three different methodologies and samples.

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VA - Cost of Virginia sex offender program shocks lawmakers

Original Article

01/14/2011

By Bill Sizemore

RICHMOND - Lawmakers expressed shock Friday over the exponentially rising cost of a program to keep some sex offenders locked up after they complete their criminal sentences.

The annual operating cost of Virginia’s Sexually Violent Predator Program is projected to hit $32 million next year – more than a tenfold increase in eight years.

The program was created by the General Assembly in 1998 to keep sex offenders deemed likely to re-offend off the streets after they finish their criminal sentences. The process is known as civil commitment.

The 300-bed Virginia Center for Behavioral Rehabilitation in Nottoway County, built just two years ago at a cost of $62 million, will be filled to capacity by this fall, the House Appropriations Committee was told Friday.

Gov. Bob McDonnell has proposed spending an additional $68.5 million this year to accommodate the growing number of offenders coming into the program, including $43.5 million in borrowed money to convert a shuttered prison in Brunswick County into a second 300-bed treatment center.

The numbers generated bipartisan alarm on the budget-writing panel.

“This has just exploded,” said Del. Chris Jones, R-Suffolk.

“I worry about where we’re heading,” said Del. James Scott, D-Fairfax County.

Del. Johnny Joannou, D-Portsmouth, likened the program’s mushrooming cost to the repeal of the local car tax a decade ago, which also blew a bigger-than-expected hole in the budget.

The committee took no action on the matter Friday, but several members expressed reservations about McDonnell’s spending proposal.

The panel grilled Olivia Garland, deputy commissioner of the state Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services, about how and why the program has grown so dramatically.

Initially the pool of offenders was limited to four crimes: rape, forcible sodomy, object sexual penetration and aggravated sexual battery. In 2006, however, the Assembly expanded the list of crimes to 28.

In addition, the state switched to a different screening test which lowered the threshold for commitment.

As a result, Garland said, the number of offenders coming into the program, initially about one a month, now averages six to eight a month.

There are 252 offenders in the program now. So far, 11 have been released.

The average annual operating cost is $91,000 per resident. That’s low compared to some of the other 19 states with similar programs, Garland said. In New York, for instance, the per-resident cost is $175,000.

A big factor in the cost is the high staffing ratio required for such a program, she said: roughly two staffers for every resident.

Garland cited several reasons why Virginia’s program is growing faster than those in many other states.

Unlike most states, Virginia commits mentally ill offenders and those who have been judged “unrestorably incompetent to stand trial.”

Also, most states require that an offender show a history or pattern of sexually dangerous behavior before becoming eligible for commitment. In Virginia, it only takes one offense.

The department is exploring ways to curb the program’s growth, Garland said.

For some lawmakers, that can’t come too soon.

Del. Rosalyn Dance, D-Petersburg, suggested that the state needs to examine why so few offenders are being released.

“We have an elaborate get-you-in system,” she said. “I think we also need an elaborate get-you-out system.”

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TX - Will Texas Be Safe for Romeos and Juliets?

Original Article

01/14/2011

By JORDAN SMITH

According to the Texas Senate Criminal Justice Committee, the state should go its own way when it comes to the registration and monitoring of sex offenders.

In its interim study report released last week, the committee, chaired by Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, recommends that the state unbind itself from federal laws that provide for minimum offender registration requirements – clearing the way for the state to devise its own methods of assessing the risks individual offenders pose to the community at large and (finally) allowing the state to create a much-needed path to allowing qualified offenders off the list.

As of Jan. 6, there were 64,565 names on the state's sex offender registry, which is maintained by the Department of Public Safety. The swift growth of crime and punishment in this area of the law has created a number of issues. While initially designed to keep the public – in particular, children – safe from predators, the number of offenses eligible for registration has ballooned since the registries were first created in 1994, via the federal Jacob Wetterling Act. Many experts – including some who testified before the Senate Criminal Justice Committee last summer – agree that the addition of so many types of crimes has diluted any positive effect the registry might have had on public safety. (The registry includes not just serial pedophiles but also so-called "Romeo and Juliet" cases, often involving youthful romantic affairs in which one party is younger than 17, Texas' age of consent.)

As we reported in September (see "Sex Offend­ers Exposed," Sept. 10, 2010), there are other, similar relationships, such as that of Martin Ezell and his wife, who became involved when he was already 32 and she was just shy of 17. Ezell was prosecuted and given deferred adjudication on the charge of sexual assault of a child. Though he successfully completed his sentence, he will have to register for life. In the Ezell family's case, the registry's effect seems merely cruel: He's unable to find meaningful work; the couple's three children have, at times, been ostracized at school; and the family has had to move numerous times when neighbors have discovered his name and picture on the public database and responded negatively. Researchers around the country have determined that registration does serious collateral damage to sex offenders' families. "Based on the research, [and] the testimony provided during the hearing," reads the committee's report, "it is clear registries do not provide the public safety, definitely not the way it is now."

Although state lawmakers have previously asked the state's Council on Sex Offender Treatment to devise a scheme allowing qualified individuals a path to deregistration, those efforts have been stalled because of a state statute provision binding Texas law to the federal law – which is itself in flux. At issue is whether the state will enact the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act – in essence, an update to the Wetter­ling provisions – that seeks to "provide consistency," as the committee describes it, among the states' registries. But implementation would require the state to overhaul its current registry. For example, while Texas has sought to classify offenders based on risk, the Adam Walsh Act would classify them solely by the offense – a situation that the CSOT and many in law enforcement believe could cause misclassifications. This system would also increase, for many, the number of times per year registration must be updated with local authorities – at the cost of those local agencies – and could significantly increase the number of individuals required to register for life, in part because the act adds additional offenses requiring registration. The AWA also requires juveniles as young as 14 to be publicly registered, a decision that, in Texas, is currently left to judges' discretion.

Finally, and importantly, implementation could cost the state nearly $39 million, while the penalty for not doing so – the loss of some grant funding – would cost just a little more than $1.4 million. "Retaining the ten percent of federal funding is not adequate incentive" to enact the AWA, writes the committee. "Sex offenses are very serious crimes. There is no debate over whether violent and dangerous people should be punished [and] monitored extensively," reads the report. "However like with most issues there are levels and gray areas. In addition there are limited resources to address all of the issues facing the state today." In the end, the committee recommends that the state not implement AWA.

Whether lawmakers will take that advice remains to be seen. Dallas Democrat Sen. Royce West has filed a bill (see "This Way to the Big Top!") that would update state law to comply with the AWA. That would pose additional challenges for people like Ezell who have been searching for a way off the registry.

As it happens, Ezell caught a glimmer of hope in mid-December, when then-District Judge Charlie Baird ruled that the state's registration requirement, as applied to Ezell, is unconstitutional. The registry's purpose is to enhance public safety, Baird wrote, and is not meant to be "so punitive as to be a criminal sanction." He continued, "When the remedial nature of the statutory scheme is not served by registration, and the registration requirement serves as the basis for continued criminal prosecution and causes the disruption of the ordinary course of five lives [Ezell, his wife, and their three children], the registration requirement, as applied to a particular individual, loses its remedial function and becomes purely punitive." Baird ordered Department of Public Safety to "remove all information" about Ezell from the registry.

Despite the order, the DPS has not yet removed Ezell from the list. According to an e-mailed statement from DPS spokeswoman Tela Mange, "DPS declined comment until its attorneys could review and evaluate the ruling." Indeed, the DPS is still bound to comply with the linkage between state and federal law as it applies to deregistration; nonetheless, Baird's order is valid. Interestingly, Ezell's attorney, Gus Garcia Jr., says he sent notice to DPS attorneys prior to the hearing, but no one from the agency responded. "We're hoping that [Ezell] will be able to avail himself of the judge's order," said Garcia, "because it's really like he's in limbo right now." He added that it may take legislative action – enacting the committee recommendations, perhaps – for Ezell to find a final measure of justice.

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States Struggle To Control Sex Offender Costs

Original Article (Listen)
Map: Registered Sex Offenders By State

05/28/2010

By Alan Greenblatt

Nationwide, more than 700,000 convicted sex offenders have registered their whereabouts with local police. Every state has a sex offender registry of some kind.

But as many states face persistent budget shortfalls, it's become a real question how well law enforcement can keep track of such a large caseload.

"Sometimes federal mandates and state laws get passed without a real sense of what the lingering costs are," says Suzanne Brown-McBride, deputy director of the Council of State Governments Justice Center.

Earlier this month, the Justice Department proposed significant changes to the registration requirements states must meet under the Adam Walsh Act, a 2006 law that was meant to ensure that offender registries across the country adhere to similar standards. Only three states — Ohio, Delaware and Florida — are in compliance. Many of the rest say it imposes costs that are too high for them to bear.

Video Link | Ohio Compliance


Even some advocates for harsher penalties for sex crimes worry that states will not devote the resources needed to keep track of so many offenders, often for life.

"It's the worst it's ever been because of the economic crisis," says Ernie Allen, president and CEO of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, which estimates 100,000 sex offenders are not even currently registered with states. "Our argument lies not in throwing up your hands and saying we can't do this. The answer lies in triage — deciding who represents the greatest risk."

Incarceration's High Cost

The greatest expense, of course, is incarceration. Sex criminals, along with drug offenders, are the fastest-growing part of prison populations, Allen says. Last week, the Supreme Court ruled (PDF) that Congress had not overstepped its authority in the Adam Walsh Act by allowing federal prisons to hold "sexually dangerous" inmates after their sentences are completed.

The California legislature is currently considering a bill, known as Chelsea's Law, which would allow for life sentences for more categories of sex offenders and lifetime parole for others. The bill has the backing of Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (Contact) and could pass the State Assembly as early as next week.

But state officials have warned that the cost of implementing Chelsea's Law will be high as the lengthier sentences play out. An analysis by the state corrections department found the law would cost $1 million in 2015 but $54 million by 2030. The California Legislative Analyst's Office says costs will run much higher (PDF), "at least a few tens of millions of dollars annually within the next decade" and hundreds of millions annually in decades to come.

California's budget shortfall currently stands at $19 billion and the corrections budget is already under deep stress. The state is releasing 6,500 prisoners early this year in part to save money. California is under court order to release 40,000 prisoners over the next two years, and perhaps many more over three years, because of overcrowding.

But Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher (Contact), the Republican sponsor of Chelsea's Law, disputes the LAO's higher cost estimates for his bill and says that even the corrections department's projected $54 million cost in 2030 would represent a small fraction of the projected state budget and "can be absorbed."

"I disagree with the criticism that I hear that the costs are too high," he says. "It's absolutely not asking too much of government to protect children from violent sex predators."

An Expanding List

At the same time, states have come under some criticism for requiring registration and community notification for an ever-expanding list of offenses — including public urination, "sexting" (minors sending nude pictures to each other via cell phones) and "Romeo and Juliet" cases involving older teens who had consensual sex with younger ones.

The argument from some advocacy groups holds that there are twin dangers associated with registration lists that contain thousands of petty criminals: They are too long to track effectively and can allow the worst offenders to slip through the cracks.

But purging the lists of minor offenders would not necessarily make them more manageable, says Roxanne Lieb, director of the Washington State Institute for Public Policy.

"Sometimes there's discussion about sexting and Romeo and Juliet, but you're talking about tiny numbers," she says. "It would still be a huge number to monitor. It's not going to solve the problem of too many people to watch and keep track of in any way."

Can States Bear The Cost?

Still, even proponents of harsher penalties increasingly say there's value in laws that recognize some sex offenders require more oversight than others.

"In criminal justice, there are people who you're mad at and there are people you're afraid of," says Fletcher, the California representative. "All of our focus is on people we feel are likely to reoffend."

Yet the trend in most states has been to differentiate less between various categories of offenders — moving away from "tiered" systems that imposed different notification requirements depending on the severity of the crime.

And it's the very fact that the Adam Walsh Act puts offenders into three different tiers that has contributed to states' fear about the cost, suggests Alisa Klein, a public policy consultant with the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers. The practical effect of the federal law would be to force states to put more offenders into the highest-risk category — leading to much greater administrative and enforcement costs.

The Justice Department's proposed changes would allow states more discretion about listing offenders as young as 14 on their registries, as well as offenders whose crimes predate the law's passage.

If states do not comply by July 26 — itself an extension of last year's deadline – they stand to lose 10 percent of their funding under a congressional grant program for law enforcement. But with only a couple of months left and few states on board, it appears that most are deciding the cost of compliance will be higher than the penalty.

"This federal mandate is requiring all kinds of things that financially are near to impossible for states to implement," Klein says. "In these incredibly difficult fiscal times, with states near bankruptcy, it is extraordinarily hard for them to come into compliance, just for financial reasons."

The question now is what sort of calculations states will make moving forward. Congress and state legislatures may have made bigger promises in protecting against sex offenders than they're willing to pay for, or that agencies may be able to deliver.

"What happens is the legislature has basically made a commitment to the citizens regarding how sex offenders will be managed and kept track of," says Lieb of the Washington State Institute for Public Policy. "To the extent they're not able to fulfill those expectations, then it becomes grounds for disappointment and lawsuits and other financial consequences."

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CA - Calif. Bill Aimed at Molesters Would Cost Millions

Original Article

05/22/2010

By DON THOMPSON

Analysts: Calif. bill targeting child molesters for long prison terms would cost many millions

A state corrections department analysis of a bill being considered by California lawmakers found that mandating life sentences for some child molesters and lifetime parole for others would cost tens of millions of dollars annually after the first decade.

The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst puts the ultimate tab much higher: hundreds of millions of dollars each year, some of it to build new cells for sex offenders serving longer terms.

The projections come as the Assembly Appropriations Committee prepares to consider on Friday whether the state can afford the bill named after 17-year-old Chelsea King. Convicted child molester John Albert Gardner III was sentenced to life in prison this month after pleading guilty to raping and murdering King and 14-year-old Amber Dubois in San Diego County.

Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher (Email), R-San Diego, said AB1844, nicknamed Chelsea's Law, would have a relatively low cost for the first decade. He said it is worth the money to protect children.
- But it won't protect children, never will.  10 million laws won't protect children or anybody else.  If that was the case, we'd not have ANY crime these days, but we still do.

The annual cost would top $1 million in 2015, $9 million by 2020, and $54 million by 2030, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

It would add nearly 400 inmates and increase the number of parolees by more than 7,300 by 2030, the department projects.

"We would consider this to be a conservative estimate," Jay Atkinson, chief of the department's Offender Information Services Branch, said Saturday. "The impact won't truly be seen until way far out in the future."
- That depends on where you look.  The laws, that do nothing to prevent crime or protect anybody, are ruining thousands of lives at this very moment. He's just riding the backs of sex offenders, and this families tragedy, to make a name for himself.

The legislative analyst said increasing penalties would cost "at least a few tens of millions of dollars annually within the next decade" and "at least in the low hundreds of millions of dollars annually after several decades."

Backers, who include Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (Contact) and Democratic Assembly Speaker John Perez (Contact), have not suggested any funding source beyond taking the money from the existing state budget, which faces a $19 billion deficit this year.

"There's virtually no cost for a decade," said Fletcher. "If you look at a budget that annually exceeds $100 billion a year, that's a small price to pay to protect our children."
- Again, it won't protect children! You are living in Wonderland, if you believe that.

His bill would allow life sentences for a first offense of forcible sex crimes involving a child under 18, up from the current 15-year to 25-year sentence. The life term would be reserved for cases with aggravating factors that include kidnapping, using a weapon, torture, binding or drugging a victim or a previous sex crime conviction.

It would double sentences for some other sex crimes involving children and double parole to 10 years for felons released after serving sentences for forcible sex crimes.

The bill also would require the state to use GPS tracking for lifetime monitoring of those convicted of forcible sex crimes against children under 14. Currently, most tracking ends when offenders leave parole, despite an existing state lifetime monitoring law.

It would ban sex offenders from parks, going beyond the state law that already limits how close offenders can live to schools and parks.

The Assembly analysis suggests deleting provisions that could potentially send offenders to prison for life for inflicting a bruise during a sex crime, or subject them to lifetime parole for acts that could include touching a child over his or her clothing. That would cut the bill's costs substantially, the analysis said.

"I think it's undeniable there are significant costs," said Sen. Mark Leno (Contact), D-San Francisco, who chairs the Senate Public Safety Committee. "It's clearly a very important issue, a highly emotional issue, and we need to be grounding ourselves in fact."

Fletcher said he is open to minor changes. But he said backers will go to voters with an initiative before they accept major amendments.

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FL - Lock 'em up and throw away the key? Some say yes

View the article here

11/24/2009

By JULIE MURPHY

The headlines, sometimes daily, rekindle the outcry:

"Man charged with rape of 7-year-old girl"

"Sexual predator seen with gun at school"

"Sex offender accused of trying to meet teen"

"Man charged with molesting a 4-year-old"

Some residents say their children aren't safe and lately lawmakers question if regulations are tough enough.

Florida prohibits sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of schools, day care centers, parks and other places that attract children, but state Rep. Luis Garcia Jr., D-Miami Beach, said recently he'd like to see "a study of longer incarceration, just putting them away and throwing the key away."

Is it even feasible -- if laws were changed to make sex offenders "lifers" -- to lock 'em all away?

Florida is home to about 40,000 sexual offenders and predators, and about one third of them are currently incarcerated, according to data provided by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Department of Corrections. The incarcerated sex offenders use enough beds to fill one-fifth of the state's prisons.

"We would definitely have to build more prisons if the sex offenders on the street were to be locked up," she said.

Florida law requires that prisons never reach full capacity, Plessinger said. At least 19 prisons, at a cost of $100 million per prison, would have to be built to house the remaining offenders living out in the community.

"That's just the building cost," Plessinger said. "That doesn't include the costs to staff and run a prison."

Even if the lock-them-all-up strategy won't fly, lawmakers are likely to consider tighter controls.

Marti Harkness, a specialist in criminal justice issues for the Florida Legislature's Office of Program Policy Analysis and Governmental Accountability, said he expects a request will come next session for him to research longer prison terms or the possibility of electronic monitoring for all offenders.

Monitoring is the far less expensive option, but it's not cheap.

At nearly $9 per day, it would cost about $130 million per year to monitor all of Florida's sex offenders. The cost to incarcerate them would be $649 million per year, plus the $1.9 billion to build all the prisons, based on numbers provided by the Department of Corrections.

And, of course, these numbers don't take into account the sex offenders who either haven't been caught or are otherwise not yet in the system.

"There just aren't any easy answers," Harkness said.

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"That old law about ‘an eye for an eye’ leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing." - Martin Luther King - United States Constitution | Bill of Rights

© 2006-2009 Sex Offender Issues, All Rights Reserved

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What will it cost states to comply with the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act?

View the article here | Source | Another Here

The Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), which mandates a national registry of people convicted of sex offenses and expands the type of offenses for which a person must register, applies to both adults and children. By July 2009, all states must comply with SORNA or risk losing 10 percent of the state’s allocated Byrne Grant money, which states generally use to enforce drug laws and support law enforcement.

In the last two years, some states have extensively analyzed the financial costs of complying with SORNA. These states have found that implementing SORNA in their state is far more costly than the penalties for not being in compliance. JPI’s analysis finds that in all 50 states, the first-year costs of implementing SORNA outweigh the cost of losing 10 percent of the state’s Byrne Grant. Most of the resources available to states would be devoted to the administrative maintenance of the registry and notification, rather than targeting known serious offenders. Registries and notification have not been proven to protect communities from sexual offenses, and may even distract from more effective approaches.

Given the enormous fiscal costs of implementing SORNA, coupled with the lack of evidence that registries and notification make communities safer, states should think carefully before committing to comply with SORNA.

Ohio determined that the cost of implementing new software to create a registry would approach a half million dollars in the first year. The total estimated cost for complying with SORNA exceeds the Byrne funds Ohio would lose if it did not comply.

• Installing and implementing software alone would cost $475,000 in the first year. The software would then cost $85,000 annually thereafter for maintenance.
• Certification of treatment programs based on new standards and providing a description of a person on the registry to the state’s Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation would cost another $100,000 annually.
• Ohio also lists other factors that would increase the cost of implementing SORNA, including salaries and benefits for new personnel, new court and administration costs, and costs to counties and municipalities. These costs are in addition to the $475,000 needed for software, but have not yet been quantified by the state.
• If Ohio chose not to implement SORNA, the state would lose approximately $622,000 annually from its Byrne funds. However, the total estimated cost of software, certification of treatment programs, salaries, and benefits for new personnel would exceed the lost Byrne funds.

Virginia determined that the first year of compliance with the registry aspect of SORNA would cost more than $12 million.

• The first year of implementing SORNA would cost the Commonwealth of Virginia $12,497,000.
• The yearly annual cost of SORNA would be $8,887,000. Adjusted with a 3.5 percent yearly inflation rate,4 Virginia would be paying more than $10 million by 2014.
• If Virginia chose to comply with SORNA, the state would spend $12,097,000 more than it would if it chose not to implement SORNA and forfeit 10 percent of its yearly Byrne grant, a loss totaling approximately $400,000.

As evidenced by these summaries, states can expect to incur significant costs as they attempt to comply with SORNA. States should consider all possible areas in which increased expenditures will occur.

• New personnel
• Software, including installation and maintenance
• Additional jail and prison space
• Court and administrative costs
• Law enforcement costs
• Legislative costs related to adopting, and crafting state law

Click the image to enlarge

Click the image to enlarge

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The High Cost of Sex Offender Mythology

View the article here | Another Here

05/01/2007

According to a report from the New York Department of Correctional Services, between 1985 and 2001 a total of 11,898 sex offenders were released from New York State prisons. Only 253 of these (2.1%) were returned to prison for new sex crimes within three years of their release. These figures will be shocking to many in the public and even to many lawmakers who have bought into the mythology of the high rate of sex offender recidivism.

Make no mistake, “bought in” is the appropriate description. Civil confinement of sex offenders in New York State is estimated to cost $81 million in its first year. In the debate in the New York State Assembly, Peter Rivera referred to estimated costs in out years of $650 million per year. Other states have found that initial estimates have been lower than actual costs. Their experience has been that almost no offender is ever released. The populations and the cost keep skyrocketing. The initial estimate is that New York will confine 100 offenders in the first year. At that rate, New York will civilly commit 1600 individuals over the next 16 years whom it deems unable to control their actions. Compare that figure to the 253 who were unable to control their actions over the aforementioned 16 year period.

The high cost of sex offender mythology only begins there. Economists Leigh Linden and Jonah Rockoff found in a North Carolina study that when a sex offender moves into a neighborhood, the value of houses within a one-tenth mile area around the sex offender's home fall by 4 percent on average. They estimated that the presence of sex offenders has shrunk property values in Mecklenburg County, NC by about $58 million. One should keep those figures in mind, when one reads news of the recent court decision which will result in 4400 sex offenders being restored to the New York sex offender registry. None of these had previously been listed in the online registry. Due to a recent change in the law, the Level 2 (moderate risk) offenders now will be listed. These individuals had all been told that if they lived safely in the community for 10 years they would be dropped from the registry. They complied. New York State changed the law. Their neighbors will pay the cost in the loss of their property values. No one will be any safer.

Some communities have already figured out the affect of sex offenders on housing values. They have enacted sex offender residency laws which shut out former offenders. Of course, many become homeless. Taxpayers have to pick up the tab. Suffolk County, NY now houses homeless offenders in trailers which they move around the county and place in undisclosed locations at the cost of $85 per night per offender. The experience in other states is that such residency laws result in more offenders failing to register because they cannot find housing. Of course, this results in more politicians calling for GPS tracking of offenders which in turn costs more taxpayer dollars.

There are more potential costs on the horizon. Senators Schumer and McCain have submitted a bill which would require that registered sex offenders register their e-mail addresses and online screen names. Former offenders who do not do so may be sentenced to prison for up to ten years. This will not be effective in preventing crime. Anyone who knows anything about the Internet knows that e-mail addresses are easily created with fake information. It most likely will result in some otherwise law abiding former offender being imprisoned for forgetting to submit some long unused screen name or e-mail address. Taxpayers will pay the cost. No one will be safer. Of course, Senators Schumer and McCain are responding to the fear of Internet predators elicited by such reports as those on MSNBC Dateline’s “To Catch a Predator” series. They need to pay more attention to the show. Out of the over 200 perpetrators caught in the sting, only 4 were registered sex offenders—a clear demonstration that sex offender mythology is just that, mythology.

The statistics in the Dateline show are reflective of statistics reported by the U.S. Department of Justice. The vast majority of new sex crimes are committed by someone other than registered sex offenders. The Department of Justice reports that 93% of sex crimes against children are within the family or committed by adults whom the children know well. The face of danger is more likely to be in a family snapshot than on a sex offender registry.

We often decry politicians for just throwing money at problems. As regards the problem of sex offenses, they are throwing our money, but they are largely missing the problem.

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