FL - PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT: THE RALLY IN TALLY

Advocates of sex offender registry reform will gather in a peaceful protest at the Florida State House in Tallahassee FL on April 22, 2015 during the annual Lauren Book's 'Walk In My Shoes' event. The Rally in Tally is a joint collaboration among civil rights activists; we seek to raise awareness of the sex offender law reform movement, provide educational material, and garner attention to our plights at a high-profile event that brings politicians, celebrity advocates, and the news media together.

The intent of the Rally in Tally is not to attack, dispute, or criticize the efforts of Lauren's Kids as it relates to raising awareness and the prevention of sexual abuse in America. However, we are taking a stand against the policies of the Lauren's Kids foundation in its efforts to promote and lobby for Florida's "scorched Earth" policies. Lauren Book and her powerful lobbyist father, Ron Book, have pushed a number of harmful policies under the Lauren's Kids banner, including tough residency restrictions that forced registered citizens in Miami-Dade County to sleep under bridges, in abandoned parking lots, and even along train tracks and warehouses. In the past year Lauren's Kids supported a law marking the state-issued ID cards of some registrants with a scarlet letter, creating "pocket parks" to expand exclusion zones against registrants, and is currently supporting a lifetime GPS bill for all registered persons. In addition, Lauren Book has referred to all registered citizens as "monsters," "incurable," a "clear and imminent danger," and "ticking time bombs."

We cannot make the Rally in Tally a success without you, our fellow activists. We need people willing to travel to Tallahassee to present the Book family, Florida Legislature and ill-informed public with a visual representation of the unconsidered consequences of hastily-devised legislation. Registered citizens, civil rights activist and registrant families are strongly encouraged to attend. Our hope is that anyone reading this will realize each person is needed at this rally to stand publicly for our rights. If you cannot attend the event, then we encourage you to support the rally movement by making a donation to assist in paying for supplies or sponsor someone who otherwise would not be able to participate.

Please send us an email at contact@womenagainstregistry.com for more information and to receive periodic updates about this exciting event!


Vicki Henry
Women Against Registry, President
202.630-0345
Fighting the Destruction of Families
Facebook: Women Against Registry
Follow us on Twitter: @WomenAgainstReg

NY - Sex Offenders Housing Restrictions Are Pointless

Original Article

08/25/2014

By Jesse Singal

On Thursday, Joseph Goldstein of the New York Times reported that “Dozens of sex offenders who have satisfied their sentences in New York State are being held in prison beyond their release dates because of a new interpretation of a state law that governs where they can live.” In short, since 2005, sex offenders in the state can't live within 1,000 feet of a school, and a February ruling from the state's Department of Corrections and Community Supervision extended that restriction to homeless shelters.

Because the onus is on sex offenders to find approved housing before they’re released, Goldstein reported, they've been left with very few options, especially in densely-populated New York City, where there are schools everywhere. This has led to an uncomfortable legal limbo and sparked at least one lawsuit (so far) on behalf of an offender who is still in custody even though he was supposed to be out by now.

The unfortunate thing about this situation is that laws designed to restrict where sex offenders can live are really and truly useless, except as a means of politicians scoring easy political points by ratcheting up hysteria. There are many tricky social-scientific issues on which there are a range of opinions and some degree of debate among experts, but this isn't one of them. Among those whose job it is to figure out how to reduce the rate at which sex offenders commit crimes (as opposed to those whose job it is to get reelected, in part by hammering away at phantom threats), there is zero controversy: These laws don't work, and may actually increase sexual offenders’ recidivism rates.

Maia Christopher, head of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers, sent Science of Us a policy paper her organization has prepared on this issue (it’s not yet online, but should be later this week). ATSA’s views on housing restrictions for sex offenders are completely straightforward: The group “does not support the use of residence restrictions as a feasible strategy for sex offender management” because of a lack of evidence they do any good.

The paper notes that these laws have proliferated—“[a]t least 30 states and hundreds of cities” have them—because of some basic misunderstandings about how sex crimes are committed. There’s a collective American fixation on the creepy image of a sex offender salivating just beyond the playground fence, but that’s just not how things usually work.

Rather, these crimes are generally committed by someone known to the victim—93 percent of the time when it comes to child victims, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics—and the majority take place either in the victim’s home or the home of someone they know. “Therefore,” the authors write, “policies based on ‘stranger danger’ do not adequately address the reality of sexual abuse.”

Rest of the article

FL - Sex Offender Shuffle Continues

Every day we're shufflin'!

Original Article

06/06/2014

The colony of homeless sex offenders in Miami-Dade County is once again being moved… 100 yards to the east!

After several months of complaining that over 100 registrants were sent to live in his parking lot, the owner of Adolfo’s House Beauty Supply received the concession from local police, who evicted the approximately 133 registrants living transient at the corner of NW 71st Street and 36th Court on Wednesday night.

Registrants were told that they would no longer be able to stay there at night and would be subject to arrest for trespassing if they were found there the following night.

Yesterday morning, registrants began making frantic calls to their probation officers asking what to do. Most are on GPS monitoring devices and if they are not at that street corner, they would similarly be subject to arrest.

The Miami-Dade probation office’s solution was to move them one block over. 100 yards to the east, which is the street corner where they spent their night last night. Within the next 48 hours 133 registrants will be scrambling to get their drivers licenses updated, as required by law, to “transient at 71st and 35th” instead of “71st and 36th”, paying the $25 fee for the address change and jeopardizing their employment to get it done.

… until the Miami-Dade Sex Offender Shuffle moves them elsewhere.

More Florida Videos

WI - Freed, but still in jail: New limits on sex offenders leave them in care of sheriff

Original Article

So he's done his time but because he couldn't find a place to stay, behind bars, he will remain behind bars? That is just so wrong!

02/08/2014

By Stephanie Jones

RACINE - _____ is supposed to be free. He’s not.

_____, a convicted sex offender, served his time and was supposed to be released from the New Lisbon Correctional Institution on Jan. 28. He was released on schedule, but his release was not to freedom. It was to the Racine County Jail. There was nowhere else for him to go.

“It was a rather depressing situation,” he said about finding out the jail was his only housing option. “All I wanted was a place to live.”

Municipal ordinances have become so restrictive on where registered sex offenders like _____ can live in the county that state officials have directed the jail to hold him. It’s not clear how or when he’ll get out.

This is a new problem resulting from recent sex offender ordinances and it’s concerning, said Lt. Dan Adams of the Racine County Sheriff’s Office.

No options

In early January, _____, 59, was planning on moving into a transitional residence in the 2100 block of Racine Street in Mount Pleasant. Then those plans changed when the Mount Pleasant Village Board passed an ordinance Jan. 13 greatly restricting where sex offenders can live. That ordinance came on the heels of similar ordinances passed in Racine, Sturtevant and Caledonia.

Mount Pleasant’s new ordinance effectively eliminated the home _____ had lined up, which is near a church.

“That was the last oasis,” Adams said about the Racine Street residence. “Then the ordinance passed. Now we are in this predicament.”

It’s not an issue that other released prisoners face, he said, because they have alternative shelters where they can stay that sex offenders cannot.

Staying at the Homeless Assistance Leadership Organization shelter also is not an option for sex offenders. Because families and children stay at the shelter, they don’t accept sex offenders except for particular circumstances such as if there is an 18-year-old who had a relationship with a 17-year-old, said Stephanie Koeber, HALO’s family program and child care director. She didn’t know offhand of any other place that will take sex offenders now.

“It’s definitely a population that is underserved,” she said.

Past mistakes

_____ doesn’t try to justify the mistakes he made, he said. When he committed his first offense in 2000, he was living in Indiana with his wife and five children. He used to write articles for the Elkhart Truth’s sports department, he said, and he owned his own business that sold new and used equipment to fire departments.

Then he started an online relationship with a person who he thought was a 14-year-old boy, he said. He drove from Indiana to Racine County to meet the boy at the McDonald’s by Interstate 94 at 13343 Washington Ave. It turned out it was an undercover agent, and _____ was taken into custody.

Years later after he was released from prison for that crime, he ended up arrested again in 2007 after he was caught looking at a website at the Racine Public Library called “Barely Legal.” He said it turned out some of the photos were of teens under 18. He admits it was a stupid decision, although he claims he thought they were adults.

What’s next?

Now, after being released again, _____ is on extended supervision and he has a GPS monitor on his ankle, which he said he may have to wear for the rest of his life. His first goal is to find a job so that he can afford housing, he said Thursday while seated at the Department of Corrections Division of Community Corrections office in Sturtevant, with a notebook filled with possible job leads.

That is where he spends the day for the most part. _____ said his day starts with breakfast at the jail, then he gets a packed lunch and is transported to the Sturtevant corrections office, where he spends time looking for jobs until he is transported back to the jail before dinner. He is required to return to jail each night, Adams said.

Joy Staab, a spokeswoman for the Wisconsin Department of Corrections, said for sex offenders who warrant special notifications to law enforcement, the current policy is to “utilize jail in lieu of homelessness.”

This is a statewide policy, she said, although she did not know if it is occurring anywhere else outside of Racine County.

“As a result of local ordinances restricting where sex offenders can reside, housing options can be very limited for sex offenders,” she said.

Another man at jail

According to the Sheriff’s Office, one additional sex offender in _____’s situation also has been housed in the Racine County Jail since Tuesday. Both men are listed in jail online records with their “hold reason” as “homeless sex offender.” It’s not clear how long the offenders will have to stay in jail, Adams said. The state will pay for the jail stays, he added. “I think there is some concern about what comes next,” he said. “There has to be some alternative solution because I don’t think this can be sustainable.”

In the two weeks since _____ was released from prison, he hasn’t had any luck finding work, he said. Until he gets a job, he doesn’t know how he will be able to afford rent, he said, and with the transitional facility no longer an option, he is not sure when he will be able to finally spend a night outside jail.

If he had money in the bank, possibly he could find someplace that the ordinance would allow a sex offender to live. But he doesn’t, and he is not sure where he could find housing.

“I’m not trying to look for sympathy. I don’t expect that,” he said. But he said, “I did my prison time. Give me an opportunity. Allow me to try to put my life back together.”

See Also:

• (02/25/2014) Homeless sex offender given temporary housing

IN - Homeless sex offenders to be out in the cold

Homeless Shelter

Original Article

02/06/2014

By Douglas Walker

MUNCIE - A Muncie pastor is seeking the public’s help in trying to find shelter for a small group of convicted sex offenders who are soon to lose their nightly home.

Steve Graves, pastor at Fountain Square (Facebook) and Industry United Methodist (Facebook) churches, said Thursday the men have been told they can no longer stay at a Christian Ministries shelter at 401 E. Main St.

That’s due to state law that forbids those convicted of some sex-related crimes from living within 1,000 feet of places frequented by children. In the case of the Main Street shelter, that would apparently apply to a small downtown park, the Carnegie Library and a daycare facility, Graves said.

“We don’t question the law,” the pastor said, adding he was “baffled” as to why state officials apparently feel they have no responsibility to help the men survive.
- If the law is wrong you should question it!

The edict that effective Sunday, the men can no longer stay at the Main Street shelter came not from Christian Ministries, but from state officials.

Graves said he is aware of the low regard many citizens have for convicted sex offenders, and that their proximity can be troubling, especially for families with children.

“But we’re a society that believes in redemption, and second chances,” he said. “We’re still human beings.”
- Not anymore!

Graves said because of the stigma of their crimes, the men have difficulty finding work, and that the residency restriction complicates their efforts to find lodging. In recent weeks, weather conditions have made the pursuit of overnight shelter a life and death proposition.
- We wonder if that is their goal, to have ex-offenders die?

“Desperate people will do desperate things,” Graves said.

The pastor at first thought as many as eight offenders would be left without lodging beginning Sunday, but four of the men have since found at-least temporary lodging.

That leaves Graves — and those who have come to his assistance, including Paula Justice, Mayor Dennis Tyler’s administrative assistant — two more days to find a place for four men to stay.

Graves is asking anyone with a property that could be used — essentially any structure with heating that would not violate the 1,000-feet restriction — and where cots could be set up to give the men a place to sleep.

The pastor can be contacted at (765) 228-7404.

“They don’t expect the Taj Mahal,” he said. “Just a roof over their head.”

Graves became aware of the men’s plight through a convicted sex offender he met through his church, _____.

_____ was convicted of child molesting in Grant County in 1995. The former Marion resident has since returned to prison for parole violations, and two convictions — also in Grant County, in 2003 and 2008 —for failing to register as a sex offender.

He became a Muncie resident through the efforts of the state Department of Correction, who allowed him to stay at a “DOC Assist” facility — for recently released sex offenders with nowhere else to go — in the Old West End neighborhood. (A DOC official said recently the department was no longer operating any DOC Assist homes in Muncie or Delaware County.)

After his eligibility to stay at the Powers Street house ended, _____ for a time lived under the East Jackson Street bridge. The church congregation later bought him a tent to live in, but this winter has not been conducive to tent residency.

He has done some part-time work at the two churches where Graves ministers, and is hopeful his Social Security pension — for a mental disability — will be restored.

For now, though, his primary concern is having a place to sleep on Sunday night.

“The system is messed up, big time,” _____ said on Thursday.

While Graves’ priority is finding a place for _____ and the other three offenders to stay in the short term, he said efforts must be made to solve the residence issues for offenders on a long-term basis.

“This is a community problem,” said Graves.

The Muncie pastor is no stranger to trying to solve government-related problems — or to dealing with convicted criminals, for that matter.

Before he entered the ministry seven years ago, Graves worked both as an administrative assistant to then-Gov. Evan Bayh, assigned to health and human services, and as a probation officer.

FL - Homeless camp found on private property in Fort Myers

Original Article

We knew this would happen. Any time the fire gets hot the police, politicians and others scramble to move the offenders out of site again. You can mark our words, another homeless camp will pop up. Florida has been playing the sex offender shuffle for years now.

02/05/2014

By Laura Roberts

FORT MYERS - A homeless camp full of sex offenders was found on private property in a Fort Myers neighborhood. Now, they are being told to leave.

The sex offenders were found living in the woods off Veronica S. Shoemaker.

Police say at least six people were living in the woods. Their tents are still up, but authorities say they can't stay.

The property is private. Therefore, the owner asked police to give them trespass notices.

Authorities did just that on Wednesday – giving them until Tuesday to leave.

In the meantime, Animal Services was called to take in two dogs they say were malnourished and in distress.

We were told they have been living there for months. Some of them are registered sex offenders in an area close to parks and homes.

"The sense of having a sex offender there creates a higher level of awareness and a high level of concern for the residents," said Captain Jim Mulligan with the Fort Myers Police Department.

The Homeless Coalition is working with police to try and find somewhere else for these people to go.

Police say if the group is not off the property by Tuesday, they could be arrested.

See Also:

• Colony of Outcasts: Some sex offenders find refuge in Fort Myers woods
• FMPD: Homeless sex offender camp cleared out

WI - Sex-offender limits debated

Dumping ground

Original Article

02/05/2014

By Mark Schaaf

MUNICIPAL OFFICIALS WONDER WHETHER COUNTYWIDE ORDINANCE WOULD WORK

RACINE COUNTY - With restrictions on where sex offenders can live in place in some Racine County communities but not in others, county officials have begun discussions on a residency ordinance that would apply to the entire county.

A few challenges emerged in initial talks, including the fact that every Racine County municipality would have to agree to the ordinance — no easy task if the proposed county restrictions differed with local ordinances already in place.

The county also needs to address who would enforce the ordinance — whether it would be the Sheriff’s Office or local police departments — and the state Department of Corrections has raised concerns that it would drive sex offenders to homelessness, making them more difficult to track.

But Mount Pleasant Village President Mark Gleason, who also serves on the County Board and has pushed for a countywide ordinance, said passing the law would ensure no community becomes a “dumping ground” for sex offenders.

The idea has generated interest among Racine County community leaders, Gleason said, as it would create a “level playing field” across the county.

He and other Mount Pleasant officials spoke Tuesday to the county Government Services Committee. No action was taken as the county’s corporation counsel and other departments continue to examine the issue and compare local ordinances.

“We’re at that first stage of finding out whether or not this is an option for the county,” Gleason said.

Mount Pleasant passed an ordinance last month prohibiting sex offenders from living near any place children gather, including schools, parks, day care centers, athletic fields, playgrounds and churches. The minimum distance they must live away from those places is 1,000 feet or 2,500 feet, depending on the category of the offender.

The village approved its rules mostly because Racine, Caledonia and Sturtevant put restrictions in place that were driving sex offenders to Mount Pleasant, police Capt. Brian Smith told the committee.

“What we were seeing in Mount Pleasant was the fact that these men, who were sexual predators preying on young kids, all of a sudden being dumped in our community,” Smith said.

Whether a countywide ordinance would prevent that from happening in other communities is still to be determined.

Burlington Mayor Bob Miller said he is leery about countywide restrictions. The city enacted an ordinance a few years ago restricting sex offenders from living near places such as parks, schools and churches, but it would be moot if a countywide ordinance is passed.

“I would have to see what the proposal ends up being or somehow be involved. Sometimes these one-size-fits-all laws don’t really work that well for everybody,” Miller said. “If Racine has a lot of offenders and we don’t have that many and we end up with their offenders coming here, I got an issue with something like that.”

Waterford, meanwhile, does not have an ordinance on the books. The village researched and reviewed the issue several years ago, but the Village Board decided not to move forward.

Waterford is only 2-1/2 square miles, which makes it challenging to find parameters for restrictions, Village Administrator Rebecca Ewald said.

She said she couldn’t comment on a possible countywide ordinance until seeing it.

FL - Colony of Outcasts: Some sex offenders find refuge in Fort Myers woods

Ery day we're shufflin'!

Original Article

Florida, and across the country, these draconian laws have been creating these types of homeless camps. Take Julia Tuttle for example (And here).

02/01/2014

By Janine Zeitlin

A camp hidden off Veronica Shoemaker Boulevard is the only place in area some sex offenders have to go

_____ unzipped his pup tent, his abode in a patch of wilderness off Veronica Shoemaker Boulevard in Fort Myers.

He grabbed a flashlight and his ID and stowed them in a book bag hitched over his shoulders.

He was a Boy Scout, he said, but that did not prepare him for this.

“It’s survival of the fittest,” said _____. He is 46, but looks older.

A hammock stretched between melaleuca trees is the most comfy spot for his 250-pound frame. His kitchen is an upside-down grocery cart fashioned into a grill for coffee and soup. A wooden palette is his coffee table.

On this afternoon last month, _____ was in pursuit of a hot meal. He stepped onto a worn path hemmed by slash pine trees. He passed the camps of his neighbors, who reside under makeshift hovels of tarps and tents in this small colony of homeless people.

But this camp is unique: its inhabitants include sex offenders, who said the Lee County Sheriff’s Office directed them to this hidden spot about a quarter mile east into woods that run along a trail. The woods sit across from the city’s Trailhead Neighborhood Park and abut the Sienna at Vista Lake complex of one- and two-bedroom apartments, where on this afternoon young men played football in the parking lot.

_____ had lived there since October. He had struggled to find someone to hire him after five years in federal prison for possessing child pornography. And it was difficult for him to retain jobs because of mental illness.

He said the sheriff’s office showed him the camp location.

“They’re trying to give us a safe haven,” _____ said. “They keep a close eye on us.”

The sheriff’s office refused to comment on the assertions.

Sheriff Mike Scott has directed his personnel not to answer questions from this newspaper. “As you know, we don’t entertain interviews or answer questions with The News-Press,” spokeswoman Tiffany Wood wrote in an email.
- Except if it suits them!  Police are always having press conferences, etc.  But this makes them look bad, so of course they aren't going to speak with the news media.

But Fort Myers police and social service providers said they’ve also been told it was the sheriff’s office that sent them there.

This much is for sure: Law enforcement knows about the camp. Last year, the sheriff’s office tallied about 120 routine calls checking on sex offenders near the intersection where the camp is located, mostly occurring after another camp of sex offenders off Ortiz Avenue was disbanded by city police at the property owner’s request. Since May, at least 10 transient sex offenders and one sexual predator have registered to the camp, records show. Six are currently registered there with convictions that range from sexual battery to lewd behavior toward children, according to a check Friday of Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s sex offender public registry.
- So I guess Florida is still playing the sex offender shuffle (Here & Here)?

Offenders can register as homeless without a precise address. The camp meets state requirements, which say that sex offenders can’t live within 1,000 feet from a park, playground, child care facility or school, though last week Fort Myers police said they found a few people living too close to the trail, which qualifies as a park. The sheriff’s office told the police they would move them, police said.
- Come on, a trail is not a park!

Over the past years, residency restrictions for sex offenders have grown increasingly harsh across the nation. But the question of where they can live is less easily answered. Yet, it’s one that more Florida cities will have to confront as some experts expect the number of homeless sex offenders to multiply.

“It’s in their best interest to escape scrutiny and go to a place where they have less probability of being identified,” said Duane Dobbert, an FGCU professor in the department of justice studies and author of “Halting the Sexual Predators among Us: Preventing Attack, Rape, and Lust Homicide.” “You can live outside here and you can avoid and evade public scrutiny because we’re a warm climate.”

A 2013 study by four university researchers, “Transient Sex Offenders and Residence Restrictions in Florida,” called for reconsideration of such restrictions. They cited them as a factor in contributing to higher rates of homelessness in sex offenders. It pointed to housing instability as a risk factor for recidivism, which is lower for sex offenses than other types of crimes.

Hop on the Merry-go-round

“When someone has stable housing and a good relationship where they’re with family and supported by the community, recidivism drops dramatically,” said Gail Colletta, president of Florida Action Committee, a nonprofit that advocates for reform of sex offender laws. “We make it difficult for them to get a job and find a place to live. We do everything we can to keep them from being productive citizens.”
- Well they need ex-offenders in the merry-go-round prison system so they can continue to rake in the money to keep the prison injustice system alive, and so politicians / organizations can exploit the issue for their own gain as well.

In Lee County, no homeless shelters will accept sex offenders because of children on their properties. But who wants a homeless sex offender in the woods near their home or the park where their kids play? Where can they go and who decides where to put them?
- Apparently the sheriff departments decide where to start homeless camps?

“There’s always a solution,” said Dennis Fahey, a criminal justice professor at Edison State College. “But the question is is anybody interested in finding a solution.”
- Sure there is, eliminate the residency restrictions, and no, they don't want a solution!

Must report

By law, sex offenders must report to their local sheriff’s office either twice or four times a year. If they don’t have a place to stay, they must report within 48 hours. The Lee sheriff’s six-person sexual offender and predator unit regularly checks to make sure offenders are living where they register. In Lee County, there are about 625 sex offenders compared to 74 sexual predators. Sexual predators have been convicted of a sexually violent offense. There are more than 200 sex offenders in Collier and 25 predators.

The city doesn’t have a specific sex offender ordinance, so Fort Myers Police Lt. Randy Jelks said the police enforce the 1,000-foot restriction.

The camp origins are a mystery to police, who discovered it in the city late last year.
- We doubt this, but when you are in the spotlight, play dumb.

“It did raise our concern given the proximity to a park and the proximity to an apartment building,” said Capt. Jim Mulligan of the Fort Myers Police, who has been monitoring it.
- So now, just wait and see, since the media has done this report, the Gestapo will come out in force to shut down the camp, and thus the shuffling will continue!  Another homeless camp will pop up elsewhere, until the fire gets hot again.  Florida has been doing this for years now.

Sgt. Tracey Booth, who is in charge of the sheriff’s sex offender and predator unit, told city police no one in her office has directed the homeless sex offenders to the location, city records show.
- We also doubt this.  Some ex-offender needs to get this on audio recording to show they know all about this, but we are not sure about the laws on recording someone without their knowledge in this state, but like we said, play dumb when the fire gets hot!

Florida Department of Corrections spokeswoman Misty Cash said her agency played no role. She declined to facilitate interviews on the matter but responded to written questions.

“We don’t know how these offenders came to know about this camp. They reported to us their address, which did not violate any local ordinances, Florida Statutes or the conditions of their court ordered supervision,” she wrote.
- Didn't you know that ex-offenders are all knowing?  They know everything, especially where homeless camps are.  Come on, you expect us to believe this?  We are not sheeple!

A review of Booth’s emails shows she did wish to keep the location quiet from the city.
- You just got burned!

On May 28, Sgt. Booth wrote Sgt. Roger Valdivia of the Fort Myers Police about a Fort Myers lieutenant ordering sex offenders off Ortiz to relocate.

“Its (sic) incidents like this that is the reason I want to work together,” Valdivia responded.

The next day, Booth sent an email to a detective in her unit, Stuart Foreman, asking if everyone had been relocated.
- Yep they are still shufflin'!

“City will be having Code Enforcement, enforcing a ‘no camping within the city limits’ ordinance. So we will have to see what happens to the new location,” she wrote. “I will not be advising the city of the new location.”

Her email included a list of four offenders at the camp with this description: “living in the wooded area approximately ¼ East of the Trailhead fire station on Veronica Shoemaker.”

Foreman replied: “I’d hate to move these guys again, it’s a real pain in the $%^.”

In a later email, she instructed her unit to “show” a soon-to-be transient offender to his new address in the woods, which later appears as the camp off Veronica Shoemaker.

Fort Myers Mayor Randy Henderson called on law enforcement agencies and city and county leaders to cooperate on a better resolution than using a specific area as a “dumping ground.”

“That’s a bigger issue we need to come together and solve,” he said. “It’s impossible to overdo oversight on this.”
- It's real easy to solve....  Get rid of residency restrictions!

“What’s not an option is moving them around like a checkerboard.”

Prison release

_____ emerged from the camp onto a trail frequented by bikers and walkers. He crossed the street toward the park he steers clear of because it’s against the law for him to enter and headed south to catch the bus to the Salvation Army for a meal.

After his April prison release, _____ stayed at Char Ann-Juanita apartments in south Fort Myers, one of the few places that accepts sex offenders, according to social service providers. But he could no longer pay the rent. One October morning, he remembers visiting the Lee County Sheriff’s Office to inform the sex offender unit he was going to be homeless. He was ready with a tent, tarp and few bags of clothes.

They told him he could go to the camp off Veronica Shoemaker, he said, and escorted him to an opening in the brush.

“Probation office isn’t really thrilled about this but that’s where the sheriff’s office put me so it legally allows me to be here,” _____ said.

No matter how people feel about sex offenders, he pointed out that they still need housing and services to help them rebuild productive lives after their convictions.
- Then like we said, exterminate the residency restrictions!

“How strenuous do you have to make something before a person just wants to climb in a box and put the nails in themselves?”

(Earlier this week, _____ was arrested for violating his probation, which called for him to find work, a stable home and show up to regular appointments.)
- How can you find work when you are homeless and do not have transportation?  This just shows how the merry-go-round system works, they need people in and out of prison to keep the money flow going!

There’s no extra state requirements for homeless sex offenders, according to FDLE. The sheriff’s office does have homeless sex offenders sign a letter saying Lee County has no designated land for them and that sex offenders and predators living on undeveloped private property have 45 days to obtain a certified letter stating that they have permission to be there. But some guys have been on the spot longer.

Trespassing signs

Around December, Fort Myers police began contacting property owners of the wooded area about erecting no-trespassing signs, which they need before they can permanently oust the offenders. The bulk of the land belongs to a land-holding company, Serena Park LLC, which was contacted by the city. Mike Kerver, the company’s vice president, expected to have the signs up soon.

Once the signs are up, police plan to give the offenders a few days to pack and will work in tandem with an advocate for the homeless to try to help them.
- So the police put them there, fires get hot, now they are going to kick them out?  Stay tuned for encampment #2 coming soon....

“We’re trying to balance everybody in this,” said Mulligan. “I know people don’t like sex offenders in their neighborhoods. They’re not anybody’s favorite.”
- You are just trying to put out the fire.  If the media never said anything about this, then this homeless camp would still be there, but that's just our opinion of course.

But, then what happens? There are scant places for sex offenders to legally live apart from the woods, the south Fort Myers apartments that accept sex offenders and pockets of Lehigh Acres, the local administrator for the Department of Corrections told The News-Press in 2012. The department declined a recent interview request. Mapping of sex offenders’ locations show they reside in pockets throughout Lee County.
- They live in the woods and in clusters due to the residency restrictions!  Eliminate that and the problem will surely vanish, or a huge dent put into it!  But hey, we can't look "soft" on sex offenders now can we?

Local social service providers could not offer housing options for homeless sex offenders and neither could the state’s homelessness director.

“It’s hard to get people to come forward to help that group of people and want to establish housing, but it is a public safety concern,” said Janet Bartos, executive director of the Lee County Homeless Coalition.

Nonprofit organizations do provide food, counseling and outreach to homeless sex offenders.

“There’s not an easy answer because of the background that they have,” said Ann Arnall, director of Lee County human services.
- So why don't you hire a night guard to watch the place while everybody sleeps?

“There’s not a high level of sympathy either. If somebody is going to start a program, who is going to support it?”

This week, on an afternoon of welcome sunshine, Priscilla Morley flipped through a magazine at a Trailhead Park picnic shelter. Morley was unaware of the camp just a walk away.

“It’s a concern because this is a park for kids,” said Morley, 40, a nurse. “As long as they don’t come into the park, I’m OK. You just have to watch your kids from anybody.”
- You should do that in the first place!

See Also:

• Editorial: This 'answer' for sex offenders is not right
• FMPD: Homeless sex offender camp cleared out

OH - Ex-inmates difficult to keep tabs on

Original Article

02/01/2014

By Alan Johnson

Ohio has about 250 former prisoners — two-thirds of them sex offenders — who are homeless but still under state parole-authority supervision.

The lack of address hampers compliance with laws designed to keep officials and the public informed about where sex offenders live.

Spokeswoman JoEllen Smith said that while the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction works to find places for offenders to live when they are released, that’s not always possible, particularly with sex offenders who are notoriously hard to house.

One of them is _____ of Franklin County, who will be homeless when he is scheduled to get out of prison on Feb. 16. Officially, _____’s address will be 53 E. Main St., 2nd floor, Logan, Ohio — the Adult Parole Authority office.

_____, 41, spent more than nine years in prison for three felony counts of gross sexual imposition and one count of abduction involving a teenage girl.

Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien said he was surprised to receive notice about the upcoming release of _____ — whose victim was a relative — without anywhere to track him.

“He is subject to registration upon release, and even though he is being released to Hocking County, the purpose of Megan’s Law and the Adam Walsh Act is to know where sex offenders reside,” O’Brien told The Dispatch.

“A release by the parole board in either a post-release control or to parole (someone) ... to (a parole) office doesn't accomplish that purpose. I always understood a parole plan contemplated a known residence, but apparently that is no longer the case.”

_____’s is not an isolated case.

Smith said when an inmate’s sentence expires, the state cannot keep him locked up, even if he has no place to go. The agency works cooperatively with local law-enforcement officials to keep track of released offenders, she said. They are required to report regularly to their parole officer as long as they are under state-mandated supervision, which can last several years.

David Berenson, the prison agency’s director of Sex Offender Services, said housing for released sex offenders is “a huge problem in every state. Researchers are looking into it, at what might be more effective laws. But there’s really nothing substantial. A lot of them are homeless because they've burned every bridge.”

State statistics show that just 11 percent of released sex offenders return to prison on sex charges, compared with the overall recidivism rate of 28.7 percent in Ohio.

Columbus victim advocate Brett Vinocur, who tracks released offenders and inmates up for parole, said homeless sex offenders are common.

“The system failed the citizens of Ohio,” he said. “These guys are just being dumped, putting sex offenders on the streets. I've seen them living under the bridge, living on the side of the road.”

But Vinocur does not blame state prison officials for the problem. Instead, he lays it at the doorstep of state legislators who changed state laws in 1996 to eliminate indefinite prison sentences in favor of flat sentences, in the process reducing time served for a variety of crimes, including sex offenses.

NH - House committee passes bill prohibiting restrictions on where sex offenders can live

Original Article

01/29/2014

By ANNMARIE TIMMINS

A House committee easily passed a bill, 18-1, prohibiting restrictions on where sex offenders can live yesterday, noting that judges have twice ruled residency restrictions unconstitutional. Still, lawmakers predicted a tough fight in the Senate, which has rejected similar bills before.

“There is a perception that this bill is being soft on crime,” said Rep. Steve Vaillancourt, a Manchester Republican who voted for the bill. “All of us who have heard (this debate) know the benefits of the bill. But we’re going to need to explain it.”

Rep. Al Baldasaro, a Londonderry Republican, cast the lone vote against the bill, saying he didn’t want to tell his constituents they couldn't determine where sex offenders could and could not live.

As many as 11 communities have residency restrictions for sex offenders, said Rep. Renny Cushing, a Hampton Democrat. Londonderry is not one of them, according to the town’s website. Locally, Tilton, Northfield and Boscawen have such restrictions. Both Northfield’s and Tilton’s ordinances prohibit people convicted of sex crimes against children from living within 2,500 feet of schools, child-care centers and playgrounds. Boscawen’s ordinance was not available yesterday.

Tilton adopted its ordinance in 2007 and added this explanation to it: “Acknowledging that sex offenders who prey on children are at a higher risk of re-offending, the town of Tilton has a compelling interest and responsibility to protect the health, safety and welfare of its children by restricting access to areas where there (is) a high concentration of children.”
- Once again a law passed based on lies and not the facts.  Recidivism among sex offenders is lower than any other criminal, except murderers.

However, two judges have found otherwise. In 2009, a district court judge in Dover ruled that city’s residency restriction invalid because the city had not shown a “substantial relationship” between the ordinance and the protection of children. In 2012, Merrimack County Superior Court Judge Larry Smukler came to the same conclusion when the New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union appealed Franklin’s ordinance.

Cushing, a member of the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee, said the bill prohibiting residency restrictions is necessary because it will take costly legal fights to undo the 11 ordinances still in place across the state. “The simple thing that can be done is to pass a bill that incorporates the . . . courts’ decisions.”

Cushing also argued that restricting housing for sex offenders pushes them “underground,” in campgrounds, under bridges and to other places the police cannot monitor. He said communities are safer if the police know where sex offenders live and require yearly registration with the local police.

Baldasaro said he was concerned that if a sex offender moved into a Londonderry neighborhood, “everyone else wants to move out.” He added, “I want to support this bill, but I have to go back to neighborhoods in my district. Who is going to protect the neighbors?”
- It is not up to the government or police to "protect" anybody, it's their job to enforce laws and respect the Constitution and the rights of others, not pass unconstitutional laws to help themselves look tough!

Rep. Larry Gagne, a Manchester Republican, responded to Baldasaro.

“My first term, I was pretty much a hard-liner,” he said. “I said, ‘Put (sex offenders) in outer space. Put them all on an island.’ But I changed my mind after a (police) sergeant came in and said, ‘If they go underground, we can’t find them.’ ”

Rep. Roger Berube, a Somersworth Democrat, questioned why the state Senate has rejected several similar bills from the House in previous years. “How can they get away with that?” he asked. “It doesn't appear the Senate is actually listening to the . . . court.”
- And it appears you are not obeying your oath to defend the Constitution and the rights of others!

To that, Rep. Laura Pantelakos, chairwoman of the committee said, “Sometimes the Senate doesn't listen to anybody.”

NY - Counties face challenge of housing sex offenders

Original Article

10/07/2013

By Jeremiah Horrigan

They're destitute, without jobs or much hope of securing one. They're homeless and without much hope of finding one.

They're the people no one wants to employ or live near: level 2 and level 3 sex offenders — men and women who are legally required to report their presence to local authorities for the rest of their lives.

When they're released from prison, or move from another area, it falls to county Social Services departments to place them. Frequently, they wind up in small, family-run motels and boarding houses. And they have to report that address to authorities or face penalties, including arrest.

In the past year alone, 14 sex offenders — including 10 in Liberty in July — have been picked up for failing to register where they live, as required.

Their sometimes-clustered presence in some of the region's motels and boarding homes has prompted fear, anger and lawsuits in communities across the region, the state and the country.

And nowhere in the mid-Hudson has the outcry of late been louder than in the Town of Wawarsing in Ulster County.

Emotional, legal issues tangle

Wawarsing comprises five hamlets and the Village of Ellenville. According to the latest figures available from the state's Public Registry of Sex Offenders, there are currently 29 level 2 and level 3 sex offenders living in those communities. Only the City of Kingston, with 37, has more registered sex offenders in Ulster County.

The tiny and very rural hamlet of Kerhonkson is home to 17 sex offenders, according to the registry. Six of those offenders now reside at the Colonial Motel on Route 209.

To town Supervisor Scott Carlsen, those numbers strongly suggest that something's out of whack with the way indigent sex offenders are housed in the county.

Carlsen is recently retired from a career as an administrator in the state's correctional system, including years as a counselor in several sexual offender programs.

Housing sexual offenders in rural communities like Kerhonkson, he said, isn't good for offenders nor the community.

"They (sexual offenders) don't have cars. In order to get the services they need, they have to bike or hitchhike. Even from a therapeutic model, it makes no sense to me."

And, he says, the situation only gets worse when sex offenders are allowed to congregate.
- Worse how?  Due to new crimes being committed (doubtful) or public hysteria?

"I'm unaware of any study of any treatment that it's a good thing to stick a dozen of these guys together in a single facility."
- And there is no study to show it's a bad thing either!  People think that ex-offenders living together that they are going to devise a mass molestation plan or something, which is so ridiculous.

But there is little legal recourse available. Some, like the Town of Wallkill, or Middletown or Village of Ellenville, have passed laws that limit sex offenders from living near schools, playgrounds and parks.

Following the village's lead, the Wawarsing Town Board implemented a statute a couple of years ago that limits to 30 the number of days a person may reside at a town motel. Three of the town's motels, Carlsen said, have abided by the law. But not, he said, the Colonial.

After the motel's compliance became a campaign issue in 2011, with Republican candidates claiming that 12 sex offenders were residing at the Colonial, owner Shahida Rizvi filed suit in federal court contending the statute prevents her from operating her business.
- You'd think people would see politicians for what they are by now.  Fear, children and ex-sex offenders are their scapegoats! They will use and exploit any issue to get elected or to look good to the sheeple of the country.

In a 31-page brief, Rizvi's lawyer Mark Stern argued that the town "fully intends to prevent (Rizvi) from operating her business through the mechanism of fines, criminal charges and criminal penalties."

Carlsen's anger only worsened when a convicted criminal — who was not a registered sex offender — was placed by county Social Services at the Colonial and arrested and charged with raping a woman last August.

Carlsen called the incident "nothing short of an outrage and criminal" on the part of Ulster County Social Services.

He accused the departments of violating the town's statute.

Michael Iapoce, director of the county's Social Services Department, sees the situation very differently.

Homelessness a key problem

Every county in the state must find housing for any individual, regardless of their criminal history, if they say they are homeless.

As far as Iapoce is concerned, that's the bottom line when his Social Services Department deals with homeless people.

And while his department has taken a lot of heat for housing indigent sex offenders, he said there's a public "misperception" that Social Services has more authority and responsibility than it actually does.
- If you stop the insanity then maybe ex-offenders can get a job and live somewhere else, but the very laws the idiotic politicians are passing is what is causing all these problems, not the ex-offenders!

Sex offenders are emerging from a highly structured prison environment, he said; the services they require are determined by the county's Probation Department and state Department of Corrections.

Marijane Knudsen, the department's director of economic support, said that prisoners being released into communities — especially sex offenders — need better discharge plans to guide their re-introduction to society.

She also said there are larger issues, including the need for better housing for anyone who needs it.

"No one deserves to live in a hotel. Everyone should have access to permanent, safe housing," she said.

That need, said Nancy Schmidt, can be a pivotal aspect of what she called "an age-old problem."

Lack of jobs compounds issue

Schmidt is deputy director of the county's probation department. The lack of stable housing and job opportunities for sex offenders, she said, are the two biggest factors affecting the successful integration of an indigent offender into society.

Housing availability are sometimes prohibited by the very laws that are aimed at protecting children from predators, such as laws that restrict sex offenders from living near schools, playgrounds and parks.

In a city like Kingston, Schmidt said, that reduces the potential housing choices considerably. Rural, isolated locations like Kerhonkson are at least less likely to pose a threat to children living nearby.

And yes, she said, while Social Services is responsible for housing homeless sex offenders, there are times when the department will allow housing sex offenders in a facility with other offenders.

Sometimes, it's a better choice than having an offender move from "couch to couch" or live in a car or a tent, where supervision is more difficult and the threat of a recurrence could be increased.

"Without employment or stable housing, there's a higher risk of a return," she said.

And with a sigh, she summarized the situation in two words:

"It's tough."
- Not really!  Get rid of the residency restrictions and take the registry offline, then many can integrate back into society, get a job, home and move on with their lives.

See Also:

• Controversial homeless shelter could house sex offenders

NY - Bellone Pledges to Boot Sex Offender Trailers By 'End Of Year'

Original Article

09/26/2012

By Lisa Finn

Suffolk County Executive vows to keep his promise to have two controversial homeless sex offender trailers gone by January.

Two contentious sex offender trailers that have had residents outraged over their placement in Riverside and Westhampton since 2007 will be gone by the end of the year, according to Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone.

"I remain committed to removing the trailers by the end of the year," Bellone said Wednesday morning.

Bellone's statement comes after Southampton officials vowed to keep fighting to overturn a recent State Supreme Court decision that dismissed the town's lawsuit involving the trailers.

"The county executive has said he's going to get rid of the trailers by the end of the year and I'm very happy about that," said Suffolk County Legislator Ed Romaine. "It's good news. I just hope that it's true."

"We will be holding his feet to the fire," Romaine added. "This has been a long, long fight in which Riverhead, specifically, has been victimized."
- As well as the ex-offenders you are exploiting and turning it into a political issue!

Although the trailer is technically located in the parking lot of the county jail in Riverside, which is located in Southampton Town, Romaine said the homeless sex offenders have "interacted with Riverhead residents in a host of different ways, and we'd like to see that change. You don't want those people walking around town."
- Yeah, God forbid, we don't want these ex-offenders talking with anybody, they might molest us!

Romaine said he and Suffolk County Legislator Jay Schneiderman sponsored a resolution enabling the county to contract with Community Housing Innovations, Inc., to build scattered site housing for homeless sex offenders under a new plan.
- What difference does it make?  If you idiots are forcing them from a parking lot on jail property, then where are they going to be able to house them without you doing the same thing?

"I was told that none of that housing would be located in my district," Romaine said. Romaine's district includes Riverhead, the North Fork, Shelter Island and parts of Brookhaven Town.
- Maybe not yours, but someone else's, so like usual, you are just pushing the problem off to someone else, but hey, that's politics!

The scattered site housing, Romaine added, would provide homeless sex offenders with "decent living conditions," including showers and cooking facilities; some individuals, he said, are currently "forced to go out" for meals and other services that the trailers don't provide.
- Yeah right, so would the place you are protesting now!

In a press conference earlier this year in Southampton, Bellone pledged to have the trailers removed.

Romaine said he was hopeful that the county executive has been working on the scattered site plan he and Schneiderman introduced, to put an end to the sex offender trailer issue that has residents crying out in Riverside and Westhampton over an unfair burden they say has been shouldered by their communities.
- No matter where these modern day lepers are forced to live, people will always cry!

Southampton Town, Romaine said, lost its lawsuit on technical reasons, "not on the law itself or the justice involved. So it becomes more important now for the county executive to keep his word."

If the trailers are not gone by January 1, Romaine said Bellone will have to account for why "it did not happen, in light of his promise."
- As Winston Churchill once said "Politics is the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn't happen."

Schneiderman, who said he was unable to comment on Southampton Town's lawsuit, since it involved the county, said he had spoken with Bellone a few weeks ago.

Schneiderman said he had heard that a new, larger trailer in Westhampton was holding more than the eight sex offenders that had been agreed upon; 14 have been sited there at one time, he said. When he called Greg Blass, the commissioner of the county Department of Social Services, he said Blass told him, technically, they were able to site 18 homeless sex offenders at the Westhampton facility.

"I called Steve Bellone, and I was really livid," Schneiderman said. "He didn't know the capacity at the trailer had increased. He told me, 'Jay, I will have those trailers closed by the end of the year. You have my word.'"

Schneiderman added, "In my business, your word matters. If you make a commitment and your break a commitment, the value of your word goes to zero."
- It's politics, is their word worth anything in the first place?

And, Schneiderman added, if January comes and the trailers are still sited in Riverside and Westhampton, "There's going to be a real problem."

MN - Can the Public Keep Sex Offenders From Moving To Their Community?

Original Article

09/25/2012

By Ryan Gustafson

[name withheld], the Level Three sex offender who has been trying to find a place to live in our area for the past few months, has been released from the Moose Lake Treatment Center and moved to the state prison in Lino Lakes.

Department of Corrections officials say [name withheld] will remain at that facility until he finds a place to live.

But he has already been turned down from four separate locations, and there have been two notification meetings where the public was able to influence the decisions of local landlords.

Officials worry this could become a trend.

Blue Earth County Community Corrections director Josh Milow says, "I think it could get worse. I think we are setting some difficult precedent with this situation. I've worked in the system a long time, working with sex offenders, Level II and Level III sex offenders, and I haven't seen a situation like this."

The odd thing about so many of these Level III sex offender cases we've covered over the years is the offender often received no prison sentence for the sexual assault.

[name withheld], a level III moving to New Ulm last November... [name withheld], moving to Le Center back in 2008, and now [name withheld], only went to prison after violating their probation.

Jim Fleming says, "His initial sentence - he pleaded guilty and received a stayed sentence. So he was in the community."

Fleming finds many aspects of the sex offender program troubling, including the subjective nature of deciding whether an offender is Level 1, 2 or 3.

And budget restraints for a fast growing population may force the Legislature to take a closer look at how we deal with the problem.

Milow says, "We don't dictate who gets to come out of prison, or who comes out of facilities. So we have to do the best job we can do when they're in our community."

GA - Cobb man wrongfully kept on sex offender registry and sent to prison for 14 months

Original Article

09/25/2012

COBB COUNTY - A Cobb County man said he's not bitter after spending more than a year in jail on a sex-offender registry violation when he wasn't even supposed to be on the registry.
- He should be, in our opinion.

[name withheld] said he's been homeless at times during the ordeal, sometimes living in his van.

His lawyer says it's frightening he wound up with a home in the jail, though key people in the system have now stepped up to make it right.

"You know how the movie — 'Waiting to Exhale.' Finally able to exhale and just say, 'Wow. Thank you God, it's finally over,'" [name withheld] said.

His new lawyer said [name withheld] was not supposed to be on the sex offender registry when he was arrested for violating the sex offender registry law in 2008.

But that fact didn't register with the criminal justice system until this year and he did 14 months in jail as a result.

"What gave you the strength to get through all this?" Channel 2 investigative reporter Mark Winne asked [name withheld].

"Knowing that I was innocent. Knowing I was innocent and trusting in God," [name withheld] said.

"He should never have spent a single day in jail," attorney Ashleigh Merchant said.

Merchant said [name withheld] had a 1994 misdemeanor in another state that required he register until 2004. But an officer mistakenly told him he had to remain on the registry beyond that.
- He should have hired a lawyer when the officer told him that.  Just because an officer says you must be on the registry, doesn't mean it's true.

"It's absolutely terrifying the system doesn't catch this until so far down the line," Merchant said.

Merchant said though [name withheld] had a letter from the state where he got the misdemeanor, the jury never heard he didn't need to be on the registry and he was convicted of breaking the registry law.

"Seem like everything just broke inside of me. Because I never thought that I would be found guilty with all of the evidence," [name withheld] said.

Merchant said when she got on the case after [name withheld] was convicted, she brought the issue to Cobb County Senior Assistant D.A. Anna Cross, who quickly grasped what had happened, spoke to the D.A. and agreed to void the conviction.

"It's not often that we get to undo a wrong like that, and to be able to tell your client that this nightmare's over finally is a really good feeling," Merchant said.
- And this speaks volumes!  How many other people are still in jail/prison for something someone said that wasn't true?

Merchant said the original misdemeanor involved an inappropriate-touching allegation.

She said the retired GBI in-house counsel, Mark Jackson, who for years played a key role with the sex offender registry, played a key role as an expert in establishing that [name withheld] had been done wrong.

Merchant said Jackson deserves credit too.

NY - State Supreme Court Dismisses Town's Sex Offender Trailer Lawsuit

Original Article

09/21/2012

By Lisa Finn

The long-simmering controversy surrounding two homeless sex offender trailers sited in Riverside and Westhampton ignited again on Friday.

The Southampton Town Board expressed outrage after news that the appellate division, second department of the New York State Supreme Court overturned a Suffolk County Supreme Court judge's decision — and dismissed the town's lawsuit against Suffolk County regarding the use and placement of the trailers.

The appellate division, in a unanimous decision, ruled that Southampton Town had only four months from the initial installation of each of the trailers to file the lawsuit.

For years, town residents have rallied to voice their anger at what they say is an unfair burden, housing the majority of the county's sex offenders at the two locations, at the Suffolk County Correctional Facility parking lot in Riverside and a Suffolk County police parcel in Westhampton.

Suffolk County Legislators Jay Schneiderman and Ed Romaine have long worked to resolve the situation and relieve constituents of what they say is an unfair burden.

The decision to dismiss the lawsuit comes only months after County Executive Steve Bellone held a press conference and promised a solution to the situation was on the horizon.

"Just a few months ago, the County Executive himself clearly stated his agreement that the current homeless sex offender trailer housing system is unfair and illogical, yet the court failed to examine the compelling merits of the case, and instead, based its decision on a poorly applied technicality," Southampton Town Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst said. "My priority is to ensure the trailers are removed from their current locations. The town will continue to litigate as needed, but I sincerely hope the county will bring this relief first — and soon."

Southampton Town Councilwoman Christine Scalera said the bulk of sex offenders are housed in the trailers, no matter where they originally come from. "It is a county-wide problem that our residents should not bear alone. The town is now in the unenviable position that to preserve its rights, litigation must continue. It is unfair, it is unreasonable and it needs to be stopped now,” she said.

According to the Southampton town attorney's office, the goal of the lawsuit was to seek injunctive relief and prohibit violations of its local building and zoning codes by the use and installation of the trailers.

The appellate division, however, ruled that the case must be interpreted as an Article 78, a proceeding used to appeal a court's decision, or, in that instance, to challenge the county's determination to site the trailers — and said, as an Article 78, the minimum statute of four months to file applied. The town's lawsuit hit a roadblock because it was brought two years after the trailers were set up.

The town attorney's office and the Town Board have long said that when the trailers were initially set up, it was with the understanding that the placement was meant to be temporary — and that the location of the trailers would be rotated throughout the county; when the Town Board learned of actions to make the locations more permanent, action was commenced to pursue litigation, Town Board members say, within 24 hours.

“The County Executive came to Southampton in May of this year and pronounced that the county was moving to implement a new plan that included dispersing the population of homeless sex offenders to more fairly distribute the burden," Councilman Chris Nuzzi, a co-sponsor of the town’s resolution to commence litigation against the County in 2009, said. “As no action has been taken with the exception of the trailer being moved a few hundred yards in Westhampton, the town has no choice but to continue to compel the county to finally take the action promised.”

Councilwoman Bridget Fleming said the decision sets a bad precedent "and will only result in increased litigation costs to be shouldered by the taxpayers."

The Town Board, said Councilman Jim Malone, has authorized the town attorney's office to take "whatever steps are necessary to overturn this misguided decision. Southampton Town residents have been shouldering a disproportionate share of this housing concern for far too long and it's time for the county to honor its promises to share this burden across all ten towns, not just Southampton."

Bellone did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Good or Evil vs. Sick or Well - Gonzales' SORNA rule will overflow US prisons

View the article here | Other articles from this author

04/24/2007

Of course I know why none of the politicians are questioning US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on the “Interim Rule” called SORNA which he has been bragging about as his great crime fighting contribution.

But the timing of it with the comment period ending next week on April 30, 2007 compels me to do the right thing by bringing this sneaky, under-handed move by Gonzales to everyone’s attention. And to go one step further and urge that we make an outcry to put an end to all his initiatives in progress.

Somebody must be the watchdog of our Constitution and stand up against all the ridiculous fear and hatemongering that the Republican party thinks is going to work to build their party and create more law enforcement jobs across the country.

So I guess that once again it falls to me to sound the alarm on something that will have devastating effects on millions of lives, most of whom had nothing to do with molesting a child. SORNA is an end run cooked up Gonzales and cohorts, no better than criminals in office for political purposes only and it needs to be halted immediately.

Yesterday’s news in Oklahoma and Florida where newspapers carried articles that this sex offender hysteria isn’t working out in their states.

In Kentucky today, sex offenders won a lawsuit after a judge ruled that residency restrictions are nothing more than a "political placebo." link.

It's good that the impracticality of monitoring people who had nothing to do with a violent crime against a child is becoming more apparent. But the destruction of families such as those in the Duke Rape Case is shattering to a young person, even when justice is finally served which is extremely rare.

Most people who read my column don’t know any actual child molesters. The snatch-and-run type is just a big bogeyman scare tactic that Republican politicians have dreamed up for the most part. About 50 children per year are actually killed by a severely mentally ill child molester according to statistics from the Bureau of Justice. About one child per state, yet such laws are merely vengeance on the mentally ill and do nothing to prevent the mental illness, costing billions and taking away from other programs which really do benefit ALL children.

More than 93% of child molestation cases that are actually real and not the result of a nasty divorce or child custody dispute occur within the circle of family and friends. About half the “child molesters” are under the age of 18 years old which means that kids are being destroyed for life, a counter-productive practice that is more mean-spirited as mistakes than the mistakes they may have or may not have made.

In California, we don’t have tiers, so the minor violations such as urinating in public, mooning, and indecent exposure are lumped into the same category and child murder. It’s ridiculous and it’s a huge lie told by people who were elected to office to serve the interests of law enforcement labor unions and that who ugly-machine bureaucracy.

Unlike another other junior prison reformer who has taken dirty money to promote and lobby for the pornography industry, as a mother and grandmother I would never take one dime to that kind of sleazy work. I believe that exposure to pornography at a young age worsens the problems. Next year, 2008 marks my 40th year as a California journalist and while I do truly love the First Amendment, I would never take tainted money to promote pornography.

What I am standing up for here is the Constitutional rights of mostly young men (some women) who are being destroyed for life by a political party that pretends to want to limit government and build families. What hypocrites! There are more than one million women and children connected to a “sex offender” in California alone who are on the verge of having to live under a bridge. We have little or no justice in our state with the prison guard’s union buying all the legislative votes and putting them into office. I am here for those women and children who are at risk of being forced to live under a bridge or having their family members attacked over false and/or ridiculous allegations.

Until injustice knocks on your own door, it probably isn't real that a minor act can destroy your son or daughter for life. But the goal of the Republican politicians is to keep these prisons stocked with fresh humans by any means possible. All it takes to be swept off for life and marked with the Scarlet Letter is an accusation. There need not be any evidence, DNA, witness or anything solid.

We even have sentences being extended in prison because the mentally ill masturbate in their cells. No kidding, the district attorneys in California are prosecuting mentally ill prisoners and there is a CDC rules change hearing coming up on May 7 to impose even harsher rules that mentally ill people who should be in hospitals, not prisons, won’t be able to follow.

I don’t want to get too far off topic in this particular column, what I am asking everyone to do to help prompt an investigation into SORNA, a harsh, ridiculous, deceitful “interim rule” is write to National Level Journalists at the Washington Post, New York Times, so they can see that what Gonzales is bragging about is nothing that any American should be proud of doing.

Expanding government and destroying more families for life when retributive justice does nothing to protect children. These are certainly not the Republicans of my father's day. Who are these people in power over us anyway and why the heck are we allowing them to be there?

Below is a sample letter that I’ve drafted for you. Please word it in your own language and send it today in a large red, white and blue envelope. Of course nobody is going to vote on this because Gonzales has the total power to pass something this horrible all on his own, even though he is thoroughly disgraced.

But we need to mark the record that some patriots cared about justice and objected to SORNA and the hatemongering that it promotes.

Besides the letter to Washington D.C., please reach out to the journalists who have courage to call out wrongs. My educated guess is that we certainly aren’t going to find courage for this first demand for an investigation into SORNA in a politician. It is very good news that politicians of both parties have scorned Gonzales, now he can know what that feels like although his crimes in perverting justice are much worse than some of the other "perversions" he’s persecuting to please the President and members of his own party.

It is very good news that CNN reports that the Vermont Senate has called for the Impeachment of Bush and Cheney. It would be a good idea to stop all critical legislation since we do not have trustworthy leaders running the country, and we can start with SORNA which appears to be an end run around the regular process of deciding something so important.

Here’s the letter which I drafted on the run, there are so many stupid bills coming at us that we don’t which hole in the dam to plug first and so many people not helping out there who should be as their liberty goes up in smoke. Our UNION people are posting and writing but when we are protesting an issue on the national level, it takes tens of thousands of people participating to be noticed. On the State level it takes a few thousand. There is a big difference. So pitch in, all women and children should matter and nobody should be banished from society because they’re mentally ill. This destruction of families must stop now.

We could all use a lot more healing and restorative justice and bigger emphasis on prevention to put an end to this witch hunt mentality meant to scare voters into building the bureaucracy. Don’t fall for it and fight back with your pen and your vote. If you subscribe to my daily newsletter and live in California, you are already learning to become a real activist for change instead of just a complainer. An eighth grader can stand up for their liberty if they can write seven sentences, and so can you!

The entire call to action is posted here.

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Begin Call to Action

You are objecting to an interim rule created by the now disgraced US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. The rule if passed into permanent law will affect every sex offender in the United States and the one million women and children in California connected to them.

Please send your letter via priority mail today or tomorrow in a red, white, blue envelope so we feel like a force on the receiving end. The cut off date is April 30, 2007. Please also post comments to national level journalists who are currently missing this important change in the law done by a criminal trying to save himself - Gonzales. A sample letter for you to post online to journalists follows the sample letter that goes to David Karp, Senior Counsel. Power of numbers is the only prayer we have of being heard. Just do YOUR share.

David J. Karp, Senior Counsel,
Office of Legal Policy,
Room 4509,
Main Justice Building, 950 Pennsylvania Avenue,
NW., Washington, DC 20530.

To ensure proper handling, please reference OAG Docket No. 117 on your correspondence.

You may view an electronic version of this interim rule at Regulations.gov. You may also comment via the Internet to the Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy (OLP) by e-mail to: olpregs@usdoj.gov or by using the Regulations.gov comment form for this regulation. When submitting comments electronically you must include OAG Docket No. 117 in the subject box.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Laura L. Rogers, Director, Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking; Office of Justice Programs, United States Department of Justice, Washington, DC, 202 514-4689.

David J. Karp, Senior Counsel
Office of Legal Policy, Room 4509
Main Justice Building
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW.,
Washington, DC 20530.

Re: OAG Docket No. 117

Dear Senior Counsel Karp:

Please allow me to voice my grave concern and opposition for the Interim Rule issued as a result of the Adam Walsh Act (AWA) and SORNA by Attorney General Gonzales. This law will allow double jeopardy which is legal only because federal jurisdiction and state jurisdiction are separate. A person can now be punished by both the federal; and state government for the same violation of registration. Every state has a registry in place and this is certainly a duplicate effort and an excessively expensive and unnecessary law.

A great many people who have moved on with their lives and living law abiding and productive lives will now be re-exposed with the retroactive clause of SORNA. This is tantamount to the Salem witch hunts only now it is the families of sex offenders who will brought down with this draconian and vindictive law. This is cruel and unusual punishment, not public safety as SORNA will show places of employment in the Federal Registry which will be an open invitation to the fear and hate mongers to protest their places of work and/or physically attack them.

Posting places of employment in a federal database will stand in the way of any sex offender in California (and the nation) from being able to earn a living, no matter how minor their crime. This is completely counterproductive to the goal of reintegrating ex-felons back into society as self supporting, productive citizens. The Attorney General has said that SORNA's applicability will be to "virtually the entire existing sex offender population". Clearly the intent is cover "virtually" everyone, but there is no mention about whether Congress specifically limits what he can do. Why was this left out?

Please consider the effect this will have on the one million women and children attached to a sex offender when they cannot earn a living. Current laws have forced a group of people to live under a bridge in Florida. This is an excellent example of how this law will further affect the offenders and their families. They are unable to work and support their families or themselves The one time sex offender is lumped together with the violent sexual predator. In California, there are already laws in effect to handle the truly high risk offender and considering all sex offenders one and the same is simply not right or just.

The tiny fraction of a percentage of sex offenders who are guilty of raping and/or murdering a child are mentally ill and they belong in places of healing. They are the people who need to be removed from society for the purpose of public safety, but even this should be done in a much more healing manner, as they are most often severely mentally ill.

More than 90% of sex crimes involving a child occur within families. No registration, residency restriction or monitoring system will stop these crimes. This law is targeting an entire group of people and only a fraction of the group would possibly be stopped from a crime. We are so scared that those people who have been convicted of sex offense will re-offend, but look at the statistics.

The Department of Justice states that the average rate of recidivism is 5%, one the lowest rates among all felonies. It is an invented lie that has been perpetrated to the public that sex offenders cannot be rehabilitated and that they have a high rate of recidivism. This is simply not true. Our conservative leaders are constantly preaching about building the family and knocking the liberals for not having stricter morals, but laws such as this are destroying families over mental illness. It's barbaric, opportunistic and political grandstanding at its worst.

SORNA can be passed as Federal Interim Rule because Congress empowered Attorney General Gonzales, whose character is now being assassinated to do so. All of his initiatives should simply be cancelled. He has proven not to be trustworthy and everything he has touched is now tainted, including SORNA. He most likely wrote this rule anticipating he would need the support of fellow Republicans over the firings of the Attorneys. How can it be a good rule when Conservatives are so hell bent to over punish the severely mentally ill in order to build political careers and Gonzales so desperately needs their support. The fact that SORNA touches so many millions of lives in a destructive manner makes it as much, if not more important than the other probes.

In addition, the Attorney General fails to point out anything relative to Sec. 117 (Duty to Notify Sex Offenders of Registration Requirements and to Register) which places a requirement on him (and his office). Notification is a basic tenet of due process, is it not? Why was this left out of the Interim Rule? This is an ill conceived, poorly thought out Rule and I ask that it be struck down before we allow the invented hysteria that has pervaded our country continue to destroy families. A child is 40 times more likely to be killed by a drunk driver than a sex offender. Why are these people being ostracized, forced to live in exile and banishment, on the streets of our FREE country? This is all too reminiscent of the nightmare of Nazi Germany. That is a frightening state of affairs for our country. SORNA should be discarded immediately

Rev. B. Cayenne Bird

UNION

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Make your letter express your view and the impact on your own life or that of people whom you love, do not simply copy my letter word for word. Where's the focus on prevention and healing of the mentally ill? There are many issues not mentioned here. Please copy me on what you wrote

Please mail in a red, white and blue priority mail envelope by Tuesday night so we feel like an army because we all mailed within 48 hours of one another. Get your family members to write. Thank you for fighting for your liberty by standing up for yourself and others.

Here’s some photos of but a few of our past campaigns over the last decade. The page is being updated but you can see the thousands of hours our UNION members have invested fighting for everyone’s rights. Imagine if the 3 million people connected to a prisoner in California all voted. Better yet, imagine if they brought 20 other people to vote. We’d have none of our current problems.

If you’d like to subscribe to my daily newsletter and learn how, when, where to fight back focused on a few California campaigns at a time, please sign up here. Most of the news you see out there was written by someone who reads the UNION Daily interactive newsletter.

1union1.com

Rev. B. Cayenne Bird
UNION
P.O. Box 340371
Sacramento, Ca. 95834
http://www.1union1.com