Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Weighing wisdom of law forcing sex offenders into homelessness

February 09, 2011 12:00 AM
Unable to find housing far enough away from schools or parks under Jessica’s Law, 
registered sex offender Jaymar Brown sleeps every night near the fairgrounds in his 
1988 Volvo, where he is confined by a curfew from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m.

In 1995, Jaymar Brown, then a member of the Conway Gangstas street gang, participated in a gang rape and murder. He didn't pull the trigger, but he was an accessory.

Now Brown, having served a 14-year prison sentence, is out on parole. He claims he is Christian, eager to rejoin society and to live a productive life.

"I feel like what's done is done," said Brown, 32. "I did my time. It made me a better man."
It also made Brown a registered sex offender.

Brown contends ill-conceived provisions of Jessica's Law, as well as obstacles imposed by local parole authorities, are thwarting his effort to rebuild his life.

His situation - besides its particulars - raises the question of whether voters overreacted and created new problems by passing Jessica's Law.

California's Prop. 83, passed in 2006, prohibits sex offenders from living within 2,000 yards of schools or parks, among its other provisions.

Voters are right to fear sex offenders. But 2,000 feet is more than one-third of a mile. Almost every city dweller lives within one-third of a mile of a school or park.
Brown, jobless and unable to pay rent, says numerous relatives offered him a place to stay. His parole officer had to refuse. The homes are near parks or schools.
So Brown lives in his car.

Fitted with a GPS ankle monitor that tracks his whereabouts, he parks his 1988 Volvo on a side street near the fairgrounds. There he must remain, from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m.

Brown has lived on the street since November.

"I just wrap up in my blanket and try to make it through the night," he said.
Saying he wants to find a job, Brown further complains that restrictions imposed locally by his parole agent complicate his search.
He used to get occasional day labor from a local labor hall. Workers, however, must report by 5 a.m. Brown is not free to leave his spot until 6 a.m.

He got a night shift job as a manager with Multiple Records, a local hip-hop label and concert promotions outfit. His parole officer forced him to quit.

In part, Brown chose his lot. He attends San Joaquin Delta College by day, working toward a degree in business. He could drop out and seek a day job. He chooses college.

But not homelessness.

"I worry from time to time," Brown said of the unsafe street. "But I just try to put my faith in God that He'll keep me safe, despite the odds."
Any parole agent will tell you reintegrating parolees into society works better if they live with relatives. And psychiatrists say they cannot successfully treat sex offenders who lack a stable environment.

According to the state Attorney General's Office, as reported recently in the press, before Jessica's Law passed there were only 88 homeless registered sex offenders; by August, there were approximately 5,064.

"I can tell you, yes, there's a problem with this particular issue," said Cassandra Hockenson, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. "But we can't do anything about this."

The courts can.

A challenge to Jessica's Law went to the state Supreme Court. The court directed local courts to decide the constitutionality of the residence restrictions. Cases are working their way through local courts now.
Brown has twice violated parole. He says his violations were technical, not serious breaches, such as committing a crime or testing dirty for drugs.
He feels thwarted.

"I know the world is not a fair place," Brown said. "But I feel like nobody understands or cares I was trying to do right but that they were trying to put obstacles in my path to make me give up."

A supervisor in the local parole office said Brown is just chafing at necessary parole conditions.
"Mr. Jaymar Brown just doesn't like to have any other outside control over his life," said Susan Kane, supervisor of the Delta GPS Sex Offender Unit and boss of Brown's parole agent.

"As I explained to him," Kane said, "we're very supportive of his reintegration to the community. But he has to do it within parameters in order to ensure the public is protected."
Brown's criminal history suggests he's likelier to commit crime at night, Kane said. Hence the curfew.

What about the 6 a.m. roadblock to the 5 a.m. labor hall? Kane said her office periodically re-evaluates cases.

"We will take another look at his case ... and if he's doing well, we will definitely ... re-evaluate his conditions."

In my opinion, any obstacles to parolees working a legitimate job ought to be removed sooner rather than later. Thwart them at every turn, and they're going to give up and return to crime.

As for Jessica's Law, is it in society's interests to create a growing army of homeless registered sex offenders living on the edge? Clear thinking, not just fear and loathing, should go into the answer.

Contact columnist Michael Fitzgerald at (209) 546-8270 or michaelf@recordnet.com. Visit his blog at recordnet.com/fitzgeraldblog.

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"When an American says that he loves his country, he means not only that he loves the New England hills, the prairies glistening in the sun, the wide and rising plains, the great mountains, and the sea. He means that he loves an inner air, an inner light in which freedom lives and in which a man can draw the breath of self-respect."
~Adlia Stevenson U.S. Vice President (1893–1897) and Congressman (1879–1881)

On a Personal Note

Thanks for the opportunity to express my thoughts regarding the issue of citizens’ rights, particularly addressing certain sex offenders’ crimes that do not fit the devastating, inequitable and endless punishment given.


As you know, many young men and women lives across the nation are being destroyed by incarceration, life-time registry and restrictive laws that do more harm than good. For those individuals, there is no second chance.

Below is a personal letter to President Obama:
* * * *
“Dear President Obama,

I truly agree with your sentiments that individuals, such as ex-felons, should be able to receive a second chance at life. Since we all know that one can veer off that path of life and travel along rough, rocky terrain, sometimes running off and ending up in some ditch. We all have made our fill of mistakes and sometimes those held a costly consequence that changed life forever. So we lived through it, trying harder to make things right with family, friends and those around us, but what about those who aren’t able to make things right even if they tried…because they’re labeled as too dirty, a leper, a person who is rejected from society and home.


But what if they’re a seventeen year old and had sex with a fifteen year old, consensual at that? Or they’re a teen that had gotten so enraged after a breakup that he sent out naked pictures of his girlfriend on his cell phone or email? Or an individual urinates where someone just happens to see them?


All are wrong and a travesty but do they deserve the life of no second chance with a registry that ends all. They are labeled, no jobs, no where to live…they have been deemed a menace to society, a plague. These certain circumstances, and many other situations similar to these, I believe still deserve a second change.

Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution


Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.


After my son’s early release and two years of prison, I thought I had handled that fact graciously knowing after serving his time he would be able to get that fresh start, that second chance. He was an exemplary inmate, GED, college courses and vocational classes. Little did I know that a second chance on the outside was the farthest from the truth? He now struggles and lives in a trailer park sharing a trailer with another and surrounded by others in the same rocking boat, one to float endlessly in shark infested waters. I see him little because of probation requirements (he couldn’t live with us because we were 800 feet near a school). My family is afraid of what would happen to them if he lived with them…vigilantism. My son has no other place to stay since others condemn him of his crime that is screamed from the highest rooftop. Sex offender, sex offender!

Not all sex offenders are pedophiles or predators but some are simply young kids that make one stupid and rash decision that eventually changes everything, and they have no idea what they’ve done until their life is never their own. Exactly, where is that second chance for those sex-offenders who are lumped together with pedophiles and predators? Now, it makes me sick to think of my son’s future and many like him that are on the registry and many with no second chance…ever. I am asking you as a mother and as another concerned citizen of the United States that these laws are looked at again and taken into serious consideration in what they are doing to the Constitution of the United States, not for sex offenders in general but the future rights of every citizen, before anymore are put into effect. They unjustly strip an offender of their rights and place them in a guillotine that can be easily set off by anyone and at anytime. Where is the second chance for ex-sex offenders in the present, pending and future laws?”
* * * *
What truly saddens me is the weakness and deterioration of what the sex offense issue is doing to our once, great nation. Across Europe, others are seeing the injustice and disregard of rights, but we ignore this problem and it makes me wonder where humanity is heading….

We have become a hysterical society in which our latest witch-hunt is a sex offender--no matter his/her crime.

Below is a email sent from a foreign advocate to a father of a sex offender:
* * * *
“The tragic story of your son's death is just so sad that it's difficult to explain how. It was very hard to read your letters. It seems almost unbelievable that this can take place in a democracy! From our point of view, there is no justice in this. Not in any way: not for you, your son, the former girl friend – or even the state.

It is an abusive legal system. It seems barbaric. And we are so very sorry that this takes place. That's why it's so important for us to try to neutralize the debate with this…, hopefully making some changes. ….. to show the every day life of the sex offenders, trying to show how they keep on being punished, even after served prison time…..But we will for sure tell the story of the injustice that your son has been exposed to.”
* * * *
I appreciate everyone's commitment and backing to protect everyone's civil rights, plainly as noted in the Constitution of the United States and is presupposed, giving ALL men are “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.”