Sex Offender Registry Flawed
Posted Courtesy of Democrat & Chronicle(http://www.democratandchronicle.com)
Published on 08/05/05
BY Meaghan M. McDermott
Of Democrat & Chronicle Staff
Just because you haven't been told that a registered sex offender lives in your neighborhood doesn't mean there isn't one there.
That's what Wendy Pata of Brett Road in Irondequoit learned when police came to her door in mid-April. They were letting the neighborhood know that a convicted sex offender had been living nearby since 1998. The man, 77-year-old Ralph Cavigliano of 65 Brockley Road, was convicted in 1992 of first-degree sexual abuse for an act involving a 10-year-old girl.
"I wasn't too happy," said Pata, 37, the mother of four children ages 12 to 17. "I thought we should have been notified sooner."
Pata wasn't alone in not knowing about a convicted sex offender in the neighborhood. Indeed, there could be as many as 1,300 high-risk sex offenders right now in New York state that residents haven't been notified about because of a lawsuit filed after the state's Sex Offender Registry Act, known as Megan's Law, was enacted in 1996 and community notification about sex offenders became routine.
The suit affected the status of nearly 5,000 offenders who were convicted prior to Megan's Law and assigned a risk level by a committee rather than by a court. Under a settlement reached last year, all had to have new court hearings to determine which of three risk levels they should be assigned to and whether community notifications were warranted.
Assistant Monroe County District Attorney Doug Randall said those hearings have been completed for about 260 such offenders in the county, and that there should be few, if any, long-delayed community notifications in the future.
Nevertheless, experts say there are still plenty of other flaws in the state's Megan's Law — which legislators are now looking to reform — and others wonder whether sex offender registries can lull some parents into "a false sense of security" about their child's safety.
According to Darkness to Light, a South Carolina-based national child advocacy group, one in four girls and one in six boys will be sexually abused before their 18th birthday. The group also says the median age for reported sex abuse is 9. The agency also says abused children who keep it a secret are at a high risk for psychological, emotional, social and physical problems that can last into adulthood.
That's why police and child abuse prevention experts say that while the sex offender registry is a useful tool, parents should never rely on the registry or a community notification program before talking to their kids about staying safe from sexual predators.
"You need to always remember that it's only part of the answer," said Christine Deyss, executive director of Prevent Child Abuse New York in Albany. "The registry is not going to tell you everything, and it's not about all sex offenders."
False security
The current registry frustrates Gates Police Chief Thomas Roche. It's not just the delay in notification for some offenders that irks him. It's also the law's unclear rules for police about how many people to notify about a sex offender in their neighborhood.
"How far out do you notify?" he said. "Do we do one block, two blocks, a housing tract, the whole apartment complex?
"In a town of 30,000 people, how far do you go out?"
Under Megan's Law, law enforcement officers "may disseminate relevant information that is necessary to protect the public" for offenders given the more serious Level 2 and Level 3 designations. The state ranks sex offenders by risk of re-offense, with the highest designation of Level 3 given to those most likely to commit another crime.
The law doesn't tell police how many people to notify, although it does single out "any entity with vulnerable populations related to the nature of the offense."
Law enforcement agencies often approach that notification differently: In Irondequoit, police go door-to-door near the residence of some sex offenders and send letters to school districts, which send their own letters to parents. In Gates, residents and schools get letters. In Rochester, police use mass mailings, notifying the City School District and private schools, community groups and day care centers that may be near a registered sex offender.
"But with the thousands of day cares in the city, it gets somewhat cumbersome," said Officer Bob Jobe of the Rochester Police Department's sex offender unit. "Inevitably, someone's not going to get the information."
That's one reason Roche says the current system promotes "a false sense of security."
Additionally, while notifications for Level 2 and Level 3 offenders include a photograph of the offender and descriptions of their crimes, residents are given exact home addresses for only Level 3 offenders. Level 2 notifications include an "approximate address," usually a ZIP code.
"With ZIPs as large as 14624, which covers most of Gates and Chili, that's problematic," said Roche. "Before the law, if something was true, we could say it. Now, we're restricted in what we can say and that helps the criminals and hurts the community."
Pata, who said her children have brought home notification letters from school, agreed. "Sometimes it seems like they just send us home a picture and say, 'Carry on,' " she said.
A bill passed earlier this year by the state Senate would make significant changes to the registry: Do away with sunset provisions that let some offenders leave the list after a decade; make it mandatory for local police agencies to notify "vulnerable populations" near where sex offenders live; put all offenders, not just those classified with the highest risk of re-offense on the state's Internet-accessible registry; and allow exact address notification for both Level 2 and Level 3 offenders.
A proposed federal law would create a national registry to track sex offenders who move from state to state.
Monroe County has made its own moves to tighten restrictions on sex offenders: In June, county officials announced a plan to seek monitoring bracelets for all Level 3 and some Level 2 and Level 1 offenders on probation. The bracelets would contain a device that allows probation officers to track an offender's whereabouts on a computerized map to ensure they're staying away from areas such as day care centers and parks.
Reining in the risks
Clinical psychologist Richard Hamill, president of the state Alliance of Sex Offender Service Providers, said there are other issues with the law as well.
For one, he said, while courts are generally qualified to determine risk levels for offenders, the information they use, the New York State Sex Offender Risk Appraisal, isn't up to date.
"It's old and outdated and unfortunately very inaccurate," he said. "So we have errors in two directions: Some people who are highly dangerous predators are being assigned often Level 2, while some people who aren't so dangerous are being assigned Level 3."
Also, he said, while the registry is a useful tool for parents and communities, community outrage over offenders in their neighborhood can sometimes make it more likely the offender would commit another crime.
"The risk of re-offense is much lower if (an offender) is employed, has safe housing, is in treatment and has a support system like a 12-step program or the support of families and friends," he said. "What has happened is that ... some folks are now losing their jobs or being ostracized from their communities."
Hamill said new research shows one of the most effective ways to keep sex offenders from committing new crimes is lifetime probation or parole.
"Because of the heightened scrutiny, many will just behave better," he said. "And, if a person starts to engage in high-risk behaviors, the probation or parole officer can take that person off the streets before they commit a re-offense."
Adding more teeth
Still, the state's Division of Criminal Justice Services would like to see Megan's Law strengthened, said spokeswoman Jessica Scaperotti.
"We're very interested in expanding the registry and having photographs of all sex offenders there," she said. "People use the registry to make decisions for their family and their children, so they need to have our information readily accessible."
Pata would like that. "I'd like to get more information, like addresses, and not just a ZIP code," she said. "I'd like to know more about the crimes, too. With what we get, you don't know what to watch for."
So would her neighbor, 34-year-old Kim Ritchie of Brockley Road, who lives with her six children just a few doors from Cavigliano. "I don't think it matters if they're Level 1, 2 or 3. ... "If they're out there, they pose a threat to people and we should know about them."
Matt Stephens of Rochester, who has a 15-year-old son, said he'd rather have the registry with all its flaws than no registry at all. But as a supporter of the law's reform, he said, he'd like it to be even tougher.
"I don't think sex offenders should be able to live in communities with little kids," he said, adding that he has little sympathy for people convicted of sex crimes. "A sex offender is a sex offender like a rapist is a rapist. As soon as these people are released, the police should go around door-to-door and let everybody know about them, regardless of their level."
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