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Log inState grapples with policies regarding sex offender records
State grapples with policies regarding sex offender records
by Outspoken on Sun Oct 05, 2008 5:53 am
State grapples with policies regarding sex offender records
BY BETTY ADAMS
Staff Writer Morning Sentinel
AUGUSTA -- Managing sex offenders in an age of ubiquitous Internet access and intense citizen scrutiny proves challenging for most states, but it's far from a new issue.
Maine officials sought guidance last week from experts across the United States on keeping society safe while protecting sex offenders' rights.
"Sex offenders have always lived in our community," said Detective Bob Shilling of the Seattle Police Department in Washington.
The difference today is that community notification and Internet posting of convicted sex offenders can increase worry among neighbors and make offenders targets of harassment.
Shilling, who works in the department's sexual assault and child abuse unit, came to Maine to share his expertise in managing sex offenders with a legislative committee working to improve Maine's system, which had 3,736 active registrants as of last month.
Maine policymakers brought in the Department of Justice's Center for Sex Offender Management for aid in dealing with snags with its own policies, partly because having sex offenders' information on the Internet-- including those convicted a decade before the registry began -- raises their profile and can bring more problems.
In an article in the Winter 2008 "Washburn Law Journal," Lara Geer Farley framed the challenge for lawmakers: "At a time when national polls indicate that Americans fear sex offenders more than terrorists, legislators will have to show they have the intelligence and courage to create a society that is safe yet still protects the human rights of everyone."
Shilling described what can go wrong.
When a 35-year-old convicted child rapist was scheduled to get out of prison in Washington state in 1993 and move to Lynnwood, a community north of Seattle, police, under the state's Community Protection Act of 1990, sent a bulletin alerting residents.
The notice said Joseph Gallardo had refused treatment, had "sadistic and deviant sexual tendencies" and was likely to reoffend.
It also provided the street address of his intended residence.
Neighbors held an impromptu meeting and on the morning Gallardo was to be released, the home burned to the ground.
http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/news/local/5461621.html
BY BETTY ADAMS
Staff Writer Morning Sentinel
AUGUSTA -- Managing sex offenders in an age of ubiquitous Internet access and intense citizen scrutiny proves challenging for most states, but it's far from a new issue.
Maine officials sought guidance last week from experts across the United States on keeping society safe while protecting sex offenders' rights.
"Sex offenders have always lived in our community," said Detective Bob Shilling of the Seattle Police Department in Washington.
The difference today is that community notification and Internet posting of convicted sex offenders can increase worry among neighbors and make offenders targets of harassment.
Shilling, who works in the department's sexual assault and child abuse unit, came to Maine to share his expertise in managing sex offenders with a legislative committee working to improve Maine's system, which had 3,736 active registrants as of last month.
Maine policymakers brought in the Department of Justice's Center for Sex Offender Management for aid in dealing with snags with its own policies, partly because having sex offenders' information on the Internet-- including those convicted a decade before the registry began -- raises their profile and can bring more problems.
In an article in the Winter 2008 "Washburn Law Journal," Lara Geer Farley framed the challenge for lawmakers: "At a time when national polls indicate that Americans fear sex offenders more than terrorists, legislators will have to show they have the intelligence and courage to create a society that is safe yet still protects the human rights of everyone."
Shilling described what can go wrong.
When a 35-year-old convicted child rapist was scheduled to get out of prison in Washington state in 1993 and move to Lynnwood, a community north of Seattle, police, under the state's Community Protection Act of 1990, sent a bulletin alerting residents.
The notice said Joseph Gallardo had refused treatment, had "sadistic and deviant sexual tendencies" and was likely to reoffend.
It also provided the street address of his intended residence.
Neighbors held an impromptu meeting and on the morning Gallardo was to be released, the home burned to the ground.
http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/news/local/5461621.html
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Plato (427-347 BC)
Plato (427-347 BC)
