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The Jacob Wetterling Foundation and SOhopeful International have developed excellent suggestions for workable solutions, we list some of them here, and include a few of our own, they are:

The Five Tier Risk Level System:

A five-tiered risk level system allows offenders to earn the right to return to society. It separates risk level in an understandable fashion, making enforcement highly efficient and community notification more understandable. It allows jurist to consider the merits of each individual case and rule appropriately. Additionally, parents (notice the onus is on the parents not the government) will know how safe their neighborhood is and are better able to educate their children who to avoid. The following are a description of proposed risk levels:

NO-RISK - (can also be termed negligible-risk) someone who has completed their sentence and therapy successfully, had no technical violations, and is waiting for the required time on the statue to expire. Not required to be on Registry or included in banned locations or proximity laws.

LOW-RISK - someone who is on probation, or parole, or supervision, with a single count non-aggravated charge and intra-familial victim, is in good standing in therapy, no failed polygraphs, and no technical violations for two years. Not required to be on Registry or included in banned locations or proximity laws.

MEDIUM-RISK - someone who is on probation, or parole, has passed polygraphs, but may continue to exhibit red flags to therapist, or someone who has had a technical violation within the past two years, or someone who has been granted probation or released from prison with a non-aggravated charge and intra-familial victim. Must pass two polygraphs per year. May be required to wear GPS monitor if deemed a higher risk to re-offend based on assessment tests, can be removed from GPS when determined risk level is lowered to LOW-RISK. Is on Registry and included in banned locations until risk level is lowered. Primary level for offenders entering the system, allows for lowering risk based on initial psychological assessment or positive results in therapy.

HIGH-RISK - someone on probation, or parole or someone who is just being released from prison with aggravated charges, or has red flags to therapist, and has had an extra-familial victim or multiple victims. Required to wear a GPS monitor until risk level is determined to be LOW-RISK. Must pass three polygraphs per year, is on Registry, and included in banned locations for up to 15 years after successful completion of therapy.

PREDATOR - someone convicted with multiple victims, or someone who is not responding to therapy, or has exhibited themselves to be a danger to society or has had a second offense. The predator is put in civil commitment until they prove they are no longer a threat. Predator is required to wear a GPS monitor if released. Must pass four polygraphs per year, is on Registry, and included in banned locations for life.
 

These risk levels will insure a improved level of community safety, they will give jurist the ability to fairly adjudicate – removing untrained, overzealous prosecutors from the equation, therapist the ability to better evaluate and law enforcement the capacity to more effectively monitor each case on its own merits.

To insure we protect all children and families, we need to look at the usage of Sex Offender Registries.

    We also need to increase the penalties for using the registries to harass or intimidate offenders. These actions are nothing more than  vigilantism.  Registries are most effective when individuals use them to educate their children of where offenders are living in a neighborhood.

Here is the verbiage from the National Sex Offender web site on misuse of it's contents: "Any person who uses information contained in or accessed through this Website to threaten, intimidate, or harass any individual, including registrants or family members, or who otherwise misuses this information, may be subject to criminal prosecution or civil liability under federal and/or state law."

    Currently in most states, it is only a misdemeanor offense and it is never enforced. Some favor having a user register prior to access of the database.  Individuals who use the registry to notify others of an offender’s presence in a neighborhood should be charged with felony reckless endangerment, punishable by up to five years probation, community service and restitution.

     We must have more faith in ourselves than in government to solve the sex abuse problem. Citizens, communities, journalist, media personalities, and legislators should demand a National Sex Offender Public Policy Forum to address these issues. This would help state and local governments formulate workable, cost effective laws that protect the rights of all citizens. Forums should include mental health professionals, jurist, law enforcement and corrections personnel, victims and their families, offenders and their families. The offender’s families are secondary casualties of ill-conceived laws. In lieu of fostering a fearful witch-hunt mentality for advertising dollars and higher ratings, the media needs to step up to this societal challenge. They should strive to dispel the myths and create the environment for policy and subsequent legislation to succeed, creating a safe society for all children.

This WARNING needs to be predominately

displayed on ALL state SOR web sites.

Sex-Offender Registries: Public Safety or Public Hazard?

By Rachel King
05/18/2006

    One month ago, 20-year-old Stephen Marshall, a dishwasher from Nova Scotia, Canada, murdered two Maine residents – William Elliott, 24, and Joseph Gray, 57 – in their homes. The two victims were convicted sex offenders. Marshall had obtained their names, addresses and photographs online from the state of Maine sex offender database.  Police tracked Marshall through a GPS tracking device located in his laptop computer, which Marshall had used to obtain the information about the men. When police boarded a Greyhound bus to arrest Marshall, he shot himself in the head with a .45 caliber gun, killing himself and scattering blood on five nearby passengers. Computer records indicated that Marshall had looked up the addresses of 32 people, and later investigation revealed that he had visited the homes of four offenders besides Elliott and Gray.

    Federal law requires all states to have some type of sex offender registry in place but gives the states discretion to decide which crimes to list and how much information to reveal. Most states provide the information on line. Some databases provide names, photographs, maps and addresses, whereas others only provide names with an approximate address. Some states, like Maine, list every person convicted of a sex-related crime; others list only the most serious offenses. 

    At the time of their inception, many civil libertarians opposed sex offender registries, believing that they violated the privacy of the offender and fearing that the registries would encourage vigilantism. Those fears were warranted. Every year, there are numerous crimes, including murder, against convicted sex offenders who comply with registration laws. At the same time, the government has not undertaken any research to establish if the laws succeed in making communities safer. Besides risking vigilantism, sex offender laws often make it difficult for people to rehabilitate themselves by making it more difficult for offenders to obtain employment and reintegrate into the community. 

    Some experts challenge the effectiveness of the registration laws. For one thing, they do not differentiate between the hard-core predators and those who pose no danger to the community, as this case illustrates. William Elliott was convicted of having sex when he was 19 years old with his girlfriend, who was two weeks shy of her 16th birthday. Gray was convicted of assaulting and raping a child younger than 14. Thus, both were convicted sex offenders, and both were required to register. Most people would agree that Gray’s crime was much more egregious than Elliott’s. Yet under the registration laws, both were treated equally.

    Another concern is that the majority of sex crimes against children happen within the family or in a close community. Sometimes authorities can intervene and take steps that prevent the suspect from offending again. Perpetrators and victims may be less likely to cooperate if they fear vigilante violence will occur.

    Another fear is that those offenders who are the least dangerous are the ones most likely to comply with the registration laws, which may give communities a false sense of security. Communities may know of the presence of a compliant offender but be unaware of a dangerous one who has not registered.

    It may be time to do away with sex offender registration laws altogether. At the very least, the federal government should commission research to study the laws’ effectiveness. In the meantime, several changes should be made. States should differentiate between serious and non-serious offenders and only require registration of the most serious offenders. Next, public access to online sites should be dismantled, and registries should be kept at the local police stations. This would provide at least a minimal screening process to those seeking inquiries. Had Marshall been required to go in person to the police station to explain why he wanted the information, perhaps Elliott and Gray would be alive today. 

    Lastly, we should experiment with restorative justice models such as what has happened in Canada where sex offenders moving into a community meet with members of the community in a public forum facilitated by a trained mediator. This type of forum gives the community an opportunity to meet the offender face to face and express their concerns and also for the offender to show the community that he is earnestly seeking to change his life. This model may encourage healing for both the offender and the community and end the cycle of violence that vigilantism continues.    

Rachel King is a Professor of Law at Howard University School of Law in Washington, D.C.

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SOS-Net supports RATIONAL LAWS that protects ALL CITIZENS and provides for PEOPLE who want to CHANGE..........Contact your legislators and demand a National Sex Offender Policy Forum..........this will enable them to draft sensible laws that work!

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