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Monday, September 07, 2009

Law - Sex offender laws in the news

"Unjust and ineffective: America has pioneered the harsh punishment of sex offenders. Does it work?" is the title to a lengthy briefing, datelined Harlem Georgia, in the Aug. 6th Economist. A quote:

Georgia has more than 17,000 registered sex offenders. Some are highly dangerous. But many are not. And it is fiendishly hard for anyone browsing the registry to tell the one from the other. The Georgia Sex Offender Registration Review Board, an official body, assessed a sample of offenders on the registry last year and concluded that 65% of them posed little threat. Another 30% were potentially threatening, and 5% were clearly dangerous. The board recommended that the first group be allowed to live and work wherever they liked. The second group could reasonably be barred from living or working in certain places, said the board, and the third group should be subject to tight restrictions and a lifetime of monitoring. A very small number “just over 100” are classified as “predators”, which means they have a compulsion to commit sex offences. When not in jail, predators must wear ankle bracelets that track where they are.

Despite the board’s findings, non-violent offenders remain listed and subject to a giant cobweb of controls. One rule, championed by Georgia’s House majority leader, banned them from living within 1,000 feet of a school bus stop. This proved unworkable. Thomas Brown, the sheriff of DeKalb county near Atlanta, mapped the bus stops in his patch and realised that he would have to evict all 490 of the sex offenders living there. Other than the bottom of a lake or the middle of a forest, there was hardly anywhere in Georgia for them to live legally. In the end Georgia’s courts stepped in and suspended the bus-stop rule, along with another barring sex offenders from volunteering in churches. But most other restrictions remain.

Sex-offender registries are popular. Rape and child molestation are terrible crimes that can traumatise their victims for life. All parents want to protect their children from sexual predators, so politicians can nearly always win votes by promising curbs on them. Those who object can be called soft on child-molesters, a label most politicians would rather avoid. This creates a ratchet effect. Every lawmaker who wants to sound tough on sex offenders has to propose a law tougher than the one enacted by the last politician who wanted to sound tough on sex offenders.

So laws get harsher and harsher. But that does not necessarily mean they get better. If there are thousands of offenders on a registry, it is harder to keep track of the most dangerous ones. Budgets are tight. Georgia’s sheriffs complain that they have been given no extra money or manpower to help them keep the huge and swelling sex-offenders’ registry up to date or to police its confusing mass of rules. Terry Norris of the Georgia Sheriffs’ Association cites a man who was convicted of statutory rape two decades ago for having consensual sex with his high-school sweetheart, to whom he is now married. “It doesn’t make it right, but it doesn’t make him a threat to anybody,” says Mr Norris. “We spend the same amount of time on that guy as on someone who’s done something heinous.”

"Not every sex offender is Phillip Garrido" is the headline to this Sept. 5th item from the San Francisco Examiner, which quotes blogger Laurie Essig:
The case of Phillip Gariddo, accused of kidnapping then 11-year-old Jaycee Lee Dugard and holding her hostage for 18 years, sexually abusing her and fathering two children with her, has revealed the paradox at the center of America’s unusually tough sex offense laws. The harsher the laws get, the more people who are caught in the ever-expanding net of offenses, the easier it is for the real child abusers to go undetected.
"Iowa court dismisses challenge to sex offender law" is the headline to a Sept. 4th AP story by Melanie S. Welte. Some quotes:
Robert Formaro argued, among other issues, that the law violated his right to travel and freedom of association. He claimed, for example, that it prohibited him from traveling to any location where he may fall asleep within the 2,000-foot zone. And, he said, it barred him from participating in overnight family gatherings and overnight stays at a hospital within the 2,000-foot zone.

Ruling in the case from Polk County, the court said the law dictates where Formaro may live, but doesn't impede his freedom of travel or right to association.

"Formaro is free both day and night to attend political meetings, religious services, or other gatherings, both in and outside the protected zone," the court said.

Formaro also claimed the law was vague, arguing the term "reside" doesn't convey what conduct is prohibited.

In its ruling, the court said it's clear the Legislature wanted to prevent sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or day care and "not casual sleep within a prohibited zone."

"While the 2,000-foot rule impinges on where Formaro may establish a residence, there is no fundamental right to live where you want and certainly not one based upon the First Amendment," the court said.

Court records show that Formaro was 15 when he was charged in 1998 of second-degree sexual abuse in juvenile court. He was convicted but not placed on the sex offender registry because the court found he was a low risk to reoffend.

Two years later, he was accused of participating in a burglary. Formaro pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 10 year in prison and was placed on the state's sexual offender registry.

He was released from prison in 2004 and lived with his parents in Ankeny with the approval of his parole officer.

In 2005, his new parole officer discovered his parents' home was within 2,000 feet of an elementary school and told him he needed to move within five days.

He filed a petition claiming the law was unconstitutional, which a district court denied. He appealed to the Iowa Supreme Court. * * *

The Legislature revamped the law this year. It retains the 2,000-foot ban for schools and day care centers for those who have committed sex abuse against a child.

It also puts in place a ban on offenders entering those places without permission, and it establishes a 300-foot "no loiter" zones around those sites.

Parrish says he's considering asking the Iowa Supreme Court to reconsider the case.

"I think some of the real issues we tried to address in Formaro are still out there and I think only through court review of the new statute are we going to be able to truly understand what impact it's going to have on people affected by these rules," he said.

Here is a lengthy list of earlier ILB entries contianing the term "sex offender".

Posted by Marcia Oddi on September 7, 2009 03:04 PM
Posted to General Law Related