Tuesday, July 19, 2011

State struggling to comply with new sex offender rules


Saturday, July 16, 2011
(Updated 9:57 am)
By Dioni L. Wise
Staff Writer

GREENSBORO — It takes a village to catch a predator.

Since a federal law was enacted in 2006, local law enforcement, the U.S. Marshals Service and the U.S. Attorney’s Office have collaborated more often to catch sex offenders who don’t comply with registry requirements.

The Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act makes it a federal crime for registered sex offenders to knowingly fail to register when moving from state to state and allows the U.S. Attorney’s Office to prosecute them.

Starting later this month, a new component of the act kicks in: All 50 states must comply with minimum standards of sex offender registration and notification set by the federal government or lose grant money.

The act aims to ensure uniformity among registries across the country and requires more disclosure from offenders.

They still must register their home address, like before. But they must also tell where they work, where they attend school, their car description, and their email addresses and Internet usernames.

The intentions are good. But it could cost North Carolina millions of dollars and hundreds of hours to become compliant.

North Carolina legislators are studying ways to pay for the changes. States that do not meet the criteria for “substantial implementation” of the new act’s rules by July 27 will lose 10 percent of federal law enforcement assistance grants.

It’s not a matter of if, but when North Carolina complies, said Cpl. J.F. Daniel, half of the two-person team that monitors nearly 700 sex offenders registered with the Guilford County Sheriff’s Office.

“When the law ultimately passes, I am sure the word will come down from on high — 'Hey, (he snaps his fingers), 'We want it done now.’

“We don’t have the resources.”

***

County sheriff’s offices are supposed to register and monitor sex offenders. If deputies lose track of an offender, then they can ask the U.S. Marshals Service to locate the person inside or outside the state.

If the person is found out of state, the U.S. Marshals Service investigates and consults with the U.S. Attorney’s Office to consider prosecution.

Updating the registry isn’t a big burden on sex offenders, said U.S. Attorney Anand P. Ramaswamy, who works in Greensboro.

“But there are some people who just don’t want to make the effort,” he said.

Anonymity is one reason offenders flee.

“If I’m here and if I’m registered, then my neighbors know,” said Bill Stafford, U.S. Marshal in Greensboro.

“I can’t move next to the school; I can’t do all those things. I think, 'OK, I’ll move to South Carolina and nobody will know the difference.’”

Not anymore.

In May, a judge sentenced the first defendant under the act in the U.S. Middle District in Greensboro.

Former Alamance County resident David Alan Heming, 48, pleaded guilty to failure to register as a sex offender.

He moved to Pennsylvania twice without registering, making him subject to the federal law.

He was sentenced to 27 months in prison, and was ordered to serve 15 years of supervision after his release.

Ramaswamy is prosecuting at least four other offenders.

***

Cpl. Daniel and Cpl. K. H. Lunsford share an office above the jail in downtown Greensboro.

Their desks sit side by side, covered in stacked files.

A blueish-gray background screen stands next to Lunsford’s desk. That’s where registered offenders take mug shots during required visits.

They verify information, change addresses, collect fingerprints and knock on doors to check on registered offenders in at least two blitzes a year with the help of other deputies.

For a pair that Daniel said is already “extremely busy,” complying with more requirements to monitor sex offenders is not feasible.

They keep up with 583 people who live in Guilford County and an additional 104 who list the county as their residence while they’re in local jails or state and federal prisons.

Daniel said he’d love to be compliant with the federal law. But that would mean an untenable workload for him and his partner.

***

North Carolina could lose 10 percent of its Edward Byrne law enforcement assistance grant, which was about $7.1 million in the last fiscal year, if it doesn’t comply by July 27.

Before state legislators decide to comply with the act, they need answers: How much would the new law cost? Would it cost less than what the state would lose from the grant?

In 2009, the nonprofit Justice Policy Institute estimated North Carolina would pay nearly $14.7 million in the first year to implement the act. If it didn’t comply, the state would have lost more than $546,000 in grants.

At some point, the state will get tired of losing grant money, so it will eventually spend the money necessary to comply with the act and appease the federal government, Daniel said.

In fact, a state committee is studying the changes required in state law to comply with the act and the cost to implement it. The lawmakers will report their findings and any recommended legislation to the General Assembly during its next session, which starts in January.

“The intent (of the act) is excellent,” Daniel said. “And once we get over that huge headache ... we will be able to get into a rhythm of knowing all the things we need to do, and I think it will ease up, but that’s going to take some time.”

Contact Dioni L. Wise at 373-7090 or dioni.wise@news-record.com

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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:
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“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:
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“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.”