A Confusing Social Problem: Sex Offenders

The problem of sexual offense is a very confusing topic and problem in our society. Part of the problem is understanding human sexuality, the morality we impose on each other, and the evil that lurks inside each of us, or at least we are led to believe so.

But the real problem is defining how immoral or moral we are going to be toward those who are among the sickest in our society. We are told that there is an entire class of sex offender that is fixated and untreatable. Social science studies identify three basic types of sex offenders:

- The opportunistic offender that uses power, control, authority and relationship to coerce, trick or coax the object of desire into some sexual act. This category would included incest; some instances of date rape, especially those where alcohol, drugs or date rape drugs are used to lower inhibitions; many of the statutory rape cases, especially where a cognizant teen is involved in consensual sex; those that engage in sex with persons of limited mental, cognitive or emotional ability; teachers that engage in sex with students, regardless of the academic setting; those that actively seek vulnerable children, teens and young adults to exploit in the sex-slave trade; those that seek to engage in sex for favors in the employment setting (quid pro quo type of sexual harrassment).

- The impaired offender. Those that lack the mental capacity to know right from wrong in both (or either) the moral and legal sense; those that offend while under the influence of alcohol, drugs, hallucinogenics; those that offend under the influence of cults (i.e. Manson Family members); those that offend in mob or other stressful situations where abandonment of reason is lost to group pressure (i.e. soldiers raping in the field of combat); and those that would not offend under normative conditions.

- The fixated offender. Those that are fixated on objects of sexual desire in a manner inappropriate under social norms, including pedophiles, necrophiliacs, rapists, sexual serial killers, sexual spree killers, repetitive incest perpetrators, beastiality practitioners, perpetrators of violent sexual practices.

Unfortunately, we are not always certain as to where the social lines are drawn when it comes to sex and sexuality. In some jurisdictions prostitutes and their customers are considered sexual offenders. Some states and communities have attempted to include prostitutes and consumers of their wares in the list of those that have to register with law enforcement.

In some jurisdictions a person urinating in public is pushed into the category of sexual display offenses. In fact, about four years ago in the small community of Mason, New Hampshire, there was an incident where a group of hikers along a wooded trail were stopped by an over zealous police officer because one of these hikers--all of them members of a Boy Scout troop--had pulled off to the side of the trail and dug a small hole in the dirt and urinated into it, covering it up afterwards, just as described in the scouting manuals.

In Lynn, Massachusetts, a young man under the influence of a great deal of alcohol and walking along the railroad tracks pulled off to a secluded area along a stone wall, urinated in what he thought was a private moment. However, a small group a young girls were playing and climbing the fence that stood on top of that stone wall and peeked over to observe this man urinating. Instead of being charged with trespassing on railroad property and public urination, he was charged with indecent exposure. Finally, after pictures of the scene where the alleged exposure occurred were shown to a judge, the charges were dismissed by a judge because the fence was some thirty feet above the location the man was urinating. The judge reasoned that thirty feet over head was not a likely manner in which to expose oneself in order to entice little girls. Additionally, the girls stated in police interviews that the man was drunk and peeing, and probably didn't see them.

In the uptight era of the Great Revival that occurred across the US in the 1800s, the preachers would preach at one end of the meeting area while prostitutes and spirit hawkers marketed their bodies and booze at the other end of the same encampment.

In fact, prior to 1940, there were trends of teen marriage across our nation. Indeed, many older men would seek a second or third marriage with a "woman" as young as fourteen years of age. In the frontiers of our nation in the 1700s, 1800s and early 1900s, teen pregnancy was a by-product of teen marriage. In other parts of the world, it is legal to engage in sexual congress with girls as young as sixteen. In places like Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam and other parts of the Far East many of the "women" in government supervised brothels are as young as twelve years old... and these brothels are the destination spots for many tourists, including specific trips catering to lesbian and gay clients.

During the 1950s and 1960s our nation began worrying that teens were giving birth at alarming rates. We began to notice that sex had lasting effects on the younger members of our society. We began to notice that teen girls having babies increased our welfare and so-called "entitlement" program expenditures. Much of our attention focused on teens in urban and suburban settings and origins, ignoring these same issues in rural areas. Our definition of "normal" sexuality began changing.

Then, too, we are experiencing an explosion of sex crimes because we have grown in our awareness of what is a sex crime. Until the late 1970s, most occurrences of incest was treated as family secrets that were only talked about in secret whispers. Any arguments, fights or uproar that occurred around the discovery of these acts was kept inside the family. Sometimes, because of a lack of knowledge about incest patterns, the incidents were treated merely as sexual experimentation that required a re-direction and correction of thinking about sex. More often than not, though, those that were offending were the victims of incest by others in the family. So the great family secret was actually a cycle of incest rather than a single incident or the affairs of a single offender.

Spousal rape was also something of a family secret. When a spouse, usually the husband, but not always, would come home demanding sex, and the other party would decline, there were some drunken spouses that would engage in battering and assaulting the party that declined until the "consent" was given or the beating was such that that party would acquiesce to avoid more harm and pain. Until the late 1970s and early 1980s, this type of abuse was understood to be a family matter between the spouses. Indeed, many battered women report having sex after being beaten as part of the cycle of abuse and the cycle of approach-avoidance behaviors so common in this type of dysfunctional relationship. Almost all of these incidents involved some sort of substance abuse and/or rage control syndromes. Since the early 1980s, due to various awareness and social service advocacy, many state jurisdictions began recognizing domestic violence as a major epidemic in our society, including spousal rape. The number of cases being reported rose and the number of cases being adjudicated also rose. Media coverage increased and social service agencies began developing shelters for women and children (not too many for abused men) all across the nation.

Date rape also experienced an increase in reporting and prosecution due to media coverage, awareness efforts and social advocacy. The problem became trying to discern date rape in contrast to consensual sex under the influence of hormonal flux, alcohol, drugs or peer pressure. Some teens who engaged in consensual sex would, once discovered as engaging in such behaviors, claim they were not willing participants. While date rape is certainly a real phenomenon in our society, the lines as to exactly where it is rape versus impaired judgment isn't always clear. Of course, when a person engages in sex with an almost comatose person, or even one in a drunken stupor, or under the influence of a so-called "date rape drug," the lines are perfectly clear. There cannot be consent if there isn't the capacity for reasoning or the ability to distinguish between right and wrong. Another form of date rape is when the date leads to some significant foreplay but at some point one of the participants has a cause to pause and reconsider the moral and familial consequences, but the other participant will not accept the rejection of further sexual intimacy. The entire issue of date rape got caught up in the political correctness movement of the extreme left, as well as the militancy of extreme feminists, to the point of developing ridiculous rules and regulations on college campuses, and militant insistence that all men are born rapists and any penile penetration is an act of violence.

We get very confused about the sexual part of our human identity. Many of those on the conservative side of the political spectrum are so confused by their sexuality that anything that makes them the least bit uncomfortable is deemed immoral and contrary to God's law. We engage in various forms of discrimination and persecution based upon our own views of sexuality. Militant lesbians hate men. Some gay men are so outraged by any rejection in society that they engage in straight-bashing. Some people are so disturbed by homosexuality and/or lesbianism that they engage in gay-bashing. The ultra-conservatives--especially the Christian Right--take their discomfort to the political realm of our society and use their considerable political clout and power to pressure our legislators to institutionalize their hatred of homosexuals of either gender. Many ultra-conservative Christians even use the Church--an institution that is supposed to be based on love, hope and charity--to institutionalize these prejudices and persecutions.

But sexual offenders confuse us the most. We are not sure how to deal with them. We label them as "sick," "twisted," "perverted," "predators" and with other derogatory adjectives, but we do not treat them as sick, abnormal or in need of help. Instead, almost all of our correctional efforts toward sexual offenders is directed at greater discrimination and greater social deprivation than we offer those that have killed us, stolen from us, defrauded us, wrecked our property, invaded our homes, etc. We even allow our media to exploit these offenders by having regular "seek and peek" expositions of how many of these offenders use the Internet to set up potential targets of their fixation and/or opportunism.

Over the last week or so the issue of how we deal with sexual offenders has been fodder for the news. In Texas, they passed a law that seeks the death penalty for certain types of sexual offenders. That shouldn't surprise most of us because Texas is high on the idea of sending its criminals to hell by way of execution. But Texas is also a place where the mentally unstable and ill can be put to death. Despite the claims of the ultra-conservatives, the death penalty does not work as a deterrent for any type of crime, including murder, armed robbery, organized crime, rape or any of the sexual offenses.

In New Jersey, there is a stepping up of law enforcement for those using the Internet and world-wide web for the purposes of luring children and teens into a sexual rendezvous. While I certainly applaud the efforts to seek out and prosecute these offenders, I have to question the methods used that border on entrapment, if not exceeding that border altogether. Beyond that, I have to question why the parents of these children are not the target of a family and child welfare investigation for child neglect and failure to supervise their own children. My mother would never have let me engage in an activity where known dangers exist without supervision. I wasn't allowed to go swimming without adult supervision until I was almost sixteen. I certainly would not have been allowed to hang around in a place where sexual predators were known to prowl. So why aren't parents doing more to supervise the online activities of these teens and children?

I am not adopting a blame-the-victim mentality here. I am simply stating that given the media attention to the issue of predatory risks online, and given the education on these matters occurring in schools--activities that I know are occurring because I have offered such classes and training for students and parents--why aren't parents doing more. And if it is demonstrated that a parent should have been doing more supervision, why aren't they subject to social service intervention? Given that family and child welfare investigations occur when even less concerning neglect--like not cleaning a home or having children attend school in an unclean or disheveled condition--gets the attention of these agencies, why wouldn't we seek intervention in these cases where children are not being properly supervised online?

Then we have news reports identifying the failures of therapeutic intervention for sexual offenders. The problem is that these reports do not ask a very simple, but important question: Are we using methods that work? While they condemn the methods in use, they do not ask valid questions about the setting in which the therapy occurs, the one-therapy-fits-all group approach that is almost universally employed, or the fact that ongoing treatment and social support does not continue once an offender is released from the corrections centers. While parole officers enforce the rules of registration, employment and the conditions/restrictions to stay away from certain parts of our communities (i.e. playgrounds and schools), there is almost no effort to assure that these offenders stay engaged in long-term treatment or active supervision.

Our efforts to "treat" sexual offenders has been basically the same approach employed by schools in regard to children needing special education services: warehousing. We lock them up, force them into therapy that is unproven and obviously ineffective, tag them with stigma that other offenders do not have to deal with, make them register in communities so that they are targeted and often forced into homelessness or parole violation just to survive, and yet do not provide them with long-term services that would be more effective solutions.

Even our laws are funky and confusing in regard to sexual offenders. In Indianapolis the laws sought to prevent registered sexual offenders from being 1000 yards from a school, playground, etc. On the face of it, this sounds like a reasonable restriction. However, the law was so vague and broadly written that a registered offender on a bus that drove by a school, carrying the registered offender innocently to work, could be arrested and jailed for violating his restrictions. Given the number of schools, playgrounds and other areas off limits to registered offenders, the only options open would be incarceration, house restriction, or execution.

On top of that, in an effort to save bucks and basically wash our collective hands of these offenders, most of the treatment programs are either outsourced to private firms that are not doing the job in an appropriate manner, or is being done by state workers that have neither the training nor the inclination to work with these types of offenders. While the courts have upheld the constitutionality of extended incarceration and other programs because they are ostensibly designed for "treatment," there is hardly any treatment, other than inhumane treatment, occurring in the settings offered for these offenders. Is it any wonder that we are failing to address the matter of sexual offenders given our almost deliberate effort to neglect the needs of these folks? We'll spend billions to track down Sadam Hussein and Osama bin Laden in foreign lands, but we won't spend an adequate amount to keep our kids safe and genuinely offer help and hope to those who we readily admit are "sick," "twisted" and acting way outside of our acceptable norms. No wonder Texas wants to execute offenders... It washes their hands of dealing with these offenders in all respects except the guilt over usurping God's role in judgment and taking life.

Another way to ignore the problem and the needs of these offenders--and protect our children in the long run--is to lock them up in a prison, then violate their constitutional rights by extending their incarceration until treatment is successful. However, if the treatment selected is inherently inadequate, improperly conducted or provided, or doesn't have a long-term view of the problems of dealing with these types of offenders, what we are basically doing is locking them up and throwing away the key. Why don't we just change the laws to provide specific lock up facilities for these offenders and extend the sentences to include life sentences. In some respects the effort to execute these offenders in Texas is more humane than having them serve a sentence, comply with useless therapy approaches that we know do not work, then extend their incarceration indefinitely until these very same ineffective therapy approaches are a "success."

In the mean time we demonstrate our humanity by requiring those that do serve their time and do complete a prescribed program of therapy--regardless of its ineffectiveness--to residency restrictions and registration efforts that are not properly monitored and have resulted in almost zero deterrence as a result. The recidivism rate for sexual offenders is as significant as those who leave incarceration and commit violent acts, burglary, armed robbery, aggravated assaults, etc. But we do not restrict where these other types of offenders--even those with extreme records of violence--can live after incarceration, nor do we seek to have them register with local law enforcement agencies. I am not sure that I want to live next to a murderer or a known drug offender with a history of extreme violence... but I do not have a choice. I am not sure that our constitution actually allows for the manner and method we treat sexual offenders, but like most things that scare and confuse us, we do not allow the question of rights to enter our minds for consideration. But what really confuses me is that we will keep a sexual offender incarcerated forever because of our fears, but we release chronically violent offenders early as a matter of jail over-crowding or a matter of early release for good behavior while in a completely controlled prison environment when none of the stressors or opportunities for the same type of violence exists.

Do not confuse my intent in regard to sexual offenders. I am in favor of holding them accountable for their actions and crimes, just as I am in favor of murderers going to prison as well. But I am not in favor of forcing these offenders into a lifetime of incarceration if that sentence was not imposed by a court under due process. Nor am I in favor of forcing ineffective treatment approaches down the throats of these offenders when we know we are not delivering these services appropriately, nor do we intend to provide necessary services, treatment--especially effective treatment--and social support once they leave incarceration.


Texas Legislators Approve Death Penalty for Some Pedophiles

Individuals found guilty twice under a new criminal offense called "ongoing sexual abuse" of children could get the death penalty under a bill tentatively approved Monday by the Texas House.

The bill, passing 118-23, targets pedophiles abusing children over an extended period with the death penalty or life without parole, a narrower use of capital punishment than a measure the House withdrew last week amid concerns about its constitutionality.

N.J.: Sex Offender Internet Use Targeted

Amid growing concern about child safety on the computer, New Jersey lawmakers are considering a measure to prohibit released sex offenders from using the Internet and to impose new rules for online dating sites.

"We're living in some very scary times," said Senate President Richard J. Codey, who is spearheading New Jersey's effort. "No matter how much you trust your kids, no matter how much you think you know what they're doing, there are some sick people out there who will stop at nothing to prey on them."

Released sex offenders caught using the Internet would face up to 18 months in jail and fines of up to $10,000. Sex offenders caught using the Internet to solicit a child would face a mandatory five years in jail, rather than the three years they face under the current law.

Therapy’s Benefits for Sex Offenders Is Disputed

During five years of psychotherapy at a treatment center here for sex offenders who have finished their prison terms, Bill Price, a pedophile who admits to 21 victims as young as 3, has constructed a painstaking plan for staying straight.

A requirement of his treatment, the plan catalogs on five single-spaced pages the tactics Mr. Price has learned to stop molesting.

There are 42 so far, including avoiding places where children congregate, abstaining from alcohol, shunning the Internet and sniffing ammonia whenever he has a deviant thought.

“It was just like a hunt for me,” Mr. Price, 59, a former Sunday school teacher, said of his sexual crimes. “I kept choosing children because they were easier prey; they were easier to deal with than women.”

Treatment plans like Mr. Price’s, known as relapse prevention, have been a cornerstone of efforts to reform sex offenders for the past 20 years. Yet there is no convincing evidence that the approach works, or that others do either.

Similar to aspects of Alcoholics Anonymous, relapse prevention has sex offenders own up to wrongdoing and resign themselves to a lifelong day-to-day struggle with temptation. But one of the few authoritative studies of the method, conducted in California from 1985 to 2001, found that those who entered relapse prevention treatment were slightly more likely to offend again than those who got no therapy at all.

Clinicians who work with sex offenders cling to relapse prevention nonetheless, and its durability speaks volumes about the troubled, politically fraught science of treating sex offenders. Not only is relapse prevention of questionable value, but so are the tests to gauge whether sex offenders in treatment still get inappropriately aroused, the drugs used for so-called chemical castration and the methods of predicting risk of reoffending.

A Record of Failure at Center for Sex Offenders

Inside a privately run treatment center here for pedophiles and rapists who have completed their prison sentences, where they are supposed to reflect on their crimes and learn to control their sexual urges, bikini posters were pinned to walls.

Two men took their shirts off, rubbed each other’s backs and held hands, while others disappeared together into dormitory rooms. Some of the sex offenders appeared to be drunk from homemade “buck” liquor secretly brewed and sold here.

And some of the center’s employees, who openly ignored the breaking of rules (“As long as they are happy, we let them go,” one explained), reported that a high turnover rate among staff members was mostly because of female employees leaving their jobs after having had sex with the offenders.

These and other observations were included in a memorandum composed in 2004 by six employees on loan here from Pennsylvania. They had been dispatched by the Liberty Behavioral Health Corporation, which ran the facility, the Florida Civil Commitment Center, and a facility in Pennsylvania.

Nineteen states have laws that allow them to confine or restrict sex criminals beyond prison in a trend that is expanding around the country, with legislators in New York last week announcing agreement on a new civil commitment law there.

The courts have upheld the constitutionality of such laws in part because they are meant to furnish treatment where possible. Most of the states run their own centers to hold and treat such predators, generally with meager results, but at a time when private solutions are popular for prisons, toll roads and other state functions, a few have teamed with private industry.

Doubts Rise as States Hold Sex Offenders After Prison

The decision by New York to confine sex offenders beyond their prison terms places the state at the forefront of a growing national movement that is popular with politicians and voters. But such programs have almost never met a stated purpose of treating the worst criminals until they no longer pose a threat.

About 2,700 pedophiles, rapists and other sexual offenders are already being held indefinitely, mostly in special treatment centers, under so-called civil commitment programs in 19 states, which on average cost taxpayers four times more than keeping the offenders in prison.

In announcing a deal with legislative leaders on Thursday, Gov. Eliot Spitzer, a Democrat, suggested that New York’s proposed civil commitment law would “become a national model” and go well beyond confining the most violent predators to also include mental health treatment and intensive supervised release for offenders.

“No one has a bill like this, nobody,” said State Senator Dale M. Volker, a Republican from western New York and a leading proponent in the Legislature of civil confinement.

But in state after state, such expectations have fallen short. The United States Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of the laws in part because their aim is to furnish treatment if possible, not punish someone twice for the same crime. Yet only a small fraction of committed offenders have ever completed treatment to the point where they could be released free and clear.

Leroy Hendricks, a convicted child molester in Kansas, finished his prison term 13 years ago, but he remains locked up at a cost to taxpayers in that state of $185,000 a year — more than eight times the cost of keeping someone in prison there.

Mr. Hendricks, who is 72 and unsuccessfully challenged his confinement in the Supreme Court, spends most days in a wheelchair or leaning on a cane, because of diabetes, circulation ailments and the effects of a stroke. He may not live long enough to “graduate” from treatment.

Sex-Offender Residency Laws Get Second Look

Oklahoma state Rep. Lucky Lamons was a police officer for 22 years. He calls himself a "lock-'em-up kind of guy."

Yet Lamons wants to loosen his state's law that bans registered sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or day care center. He says it forces many offenders to live in rural areas where they are difficult for authorities to monitor. Also, he says, it does not differentiate between real predators and the type of men he recalls arresting for urinating in public, a sex offense in Oklahoma.

"We need to focus on people we're afraid of, not mad at," says Lamons, a Tulsa Democrat who wants the rules to focus more on high-risk offenders.

Lamons is among a growing number of officials who want to ease the "not-in-my-backyard" policies that communities are using to try to control sex offenders. In the past decade, 27 states and hundreds of cities have reacted to public fear of sex crimes against children by passing residency restrictions that, in some cases, have the effect of barring sex offenders from large parts of cities. They can't live in most of downtown Tulsa, Atlanta or Des Moines, for example, because of overlapping exclusion zones around schools and day care centers.

Now a backlash is brewing. Several states, including Iowa, Oklahoma and Georgia, are considering changes in residency laws that have led some sex offenders to go underground. Such offenders either have not registered with local police as the laws require or they have given fake addresses. Many complain they cannot find a place to live legally.

The push to ease residency restrictions has support from victims' advocates, prosecutors and police who say they spend too much time investigating potential violations.

They're battling a mountain of momentum, however, because residency restrictions remain popular.

New or expanded ones have been proposed in 20 states this year. Some legislators are reluctant to pare back restrictions they passed only recently.

"We ought to give it time to work," says state Rep. Jerry Keen, author of Georgia's law, passed last year, which bans sex offenders from living, working or loitering within 1,000 feet of where kids gather. Keen, Republican majority leader of the House, says Georgia's rules put children's safety before the convenience of sex offenders.

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan has a similar view. "We're trying to protect children," she says. "We're dealing with people raping children. These are horrible crimes." She says Illinois' restrictions target those who have seriously hurt children.

Others see growing problems with the residency laws.

Broad restrictions provide a "false sense of security," says Nancy Sabin of the Jacob Wetterling Foundation, which fights child exploitation. She says such laws do not protect the more than 90% of abused children who suffer at the hands of people they know. And many of the laws bar offenders from living near schools but do not stop them from loitering there, she says.

Most of the restrictions also lump all sex offenders together, even though some are child rapists and others may be 18-year-old men who had sex with underage girlfriends. There is no national breakdown of sex offenders by severity of their crimes.

"You can't paint sex offenders with a broad brush," says John Walsh, host of Fox network's America's Most Wanted. He says residency laws are worthwhile only if they can be enforced, and tens of thousands of the nation's 600,000 sex offenders are giving police fake addresses.

Walsh prodded Congress to pass a law last year — named for his son Adam, who was abducted and killed 25 years ago — that makes failure to register a felony for serious sex offenders such as rapists and child molesters. Those are the people Walsh says residency rules should target.

Some state lawmakers are trying to move in that direction:

•Iowa —Legislators began holding hearings in January on the effectiveness of a 2002 law that bars sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or day care facility. Sen. Keith Kreiman, Democratic co-chairman of the Judiciary Committee, says he expects the law to be revised but not repealed. "It is very politically risky to even hold hearings," he says, because lawmakers who change the rules could be called "soft on crime."

State figures show sexual-abuse convictions have remained steady since the law took effect, but the number of sex offenders failing to register has more than doubled. Sen. Jerry Behn, a Republican who wrote Iowa's law, says it may be overly broad. He says he's talking to colleagues about how to focus on "true predators."

•Oklahoma —Like Lamons, other legislators say they'll try to narrow their state's restrictions. "Let's apply them to those who are the highest risk to society," says state Rep. Gus Blackwell, the Republican majority whip.

Sgt. Gary Stansill, head of the Tulsa Police Department's sex-crimes unit, says the current law applies to too many offenders and that he spends "way, way too much of my time" trying to enforce it. He says he investigates as many cases of sex offenders not registering as he investigates rape reports. He considers less than 10% of the state's 8,000 convicted sex offenders to be high-risk and is lobbying lawmakers to focus on them.

•Georgia —Republican state Rep. Robert Mumford, vice chairman of a judiciary panel, says he plans to propose a bill to scale back the state's law. With the backing of the Georgia Sheriffs' Association, he suggests removing many bus stops and churches from the list of areas where offenders are banned.

•Kansas —On Feb. 12, the state Senate passed a bill that extends for another year Kansas' moratorium on local governments restricting where sex offenders can live.

Some cities have rejected such restrictions. Among them: Topeka; Maplewood, Minn.; and Covington, Ky.

Several offenders have challenged residency rules in court, claiming they unfairly punish offenders who have served their time. In December, New Jersey Superior Court Judge Valerie Armstrong rejected a local ordinance as too broad. She said it had several flaws. For example, she said, it violated U.S. law that says being on a sex offender registry cannot disqualify someone from housing.

'Unintended consequences'

Many of the state laws are known as "Jessica's Laws" because they were passed or expanded after the slaying in Florida of 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford in 2005. Her neighbor, convicted sex offender John Couey, is on trial for the crime.

The surge in residency restrictions happened in the absence of research proving that they work.

"Residency restrictions have a lot of unintended consequences," says Jill Levenson, professor of human services at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla. She says many offenders are "more likely to resume a life of crime" if pushed into rural areas, because they have less access to jobs and mental health services that bring them needed stability.

Levenson surveyed 135 sex offenders in Florida, which passed a law in 2003 barring those who hurt children from living within 1,000 feet of where kids gather. Most said they had been careful not to commit crimes near their homes, so residency rules made little difference. Others said that even outside restricted areas, they live near kids.

Sex offenders seeking victims are likely to go to another neighborhood so they won't be recognized, the Minnesota Department of Corrections found in a 2003 study.

In Colorado, convicted molesters who committed more offenses lived no closer to schools or child care centers than those who had not re-offended, according to a report in 2004 by the state's Department of Public Safety.

In Arkansas, however, Jeffrey Walker of the University of Arkansas found in 2001 that child molesters are nearly twice as likely to live near schools than those convicted of sexually assaulting adults. Walker says he doesn't know why that's the case, or whether proximity to kids makes them more likely to offend again.

Housing problems

The need for housing for paroled sex offenders in Illinois is "close to crisis levels" because of residency restrictions, says Jorge Montes, chairman of the Illinois Prisoner Review Board. He says it's in a Catch-22 situation, because without a place to live, a parolee cannot be released.

"We go into cyclical incarceration," he says, adding that more than 400 sex offenders are doing parole in prison because they have no place to go. He says many are not child predators.

Janet Allison, 45, a mother of five in Georgia, says she was forced to move from a four-bedroom home in downtown Dahlonega to a two-bedroom mobile home "way off on a dirt road" because she is a convicted sex offender and her former home was within a quarter-mile of a church.

Allison's situation also reflects how residency laws can affect those who aren't sexual predators. Allison says she was arrested five years ago for allowing the 17-year-old boyfriend of her pregnant daughter, then 15, to move in with them. She was convicted of being a party to child molestation.

Allison didn't go to prison, but three of her children were put in foster care, and she's not allowed to have contact with her daughter or grandson. "I didn't touch anyone," Allison says. "I just thought I was protecting my daughter."

Keen, author of Georgia's residency law, says it applies to all released sex offenders, regardless of their offense, because the state has not classified them by risk. He says those released in the future will be assessed, and the restrictions will target more serious offenders.

Additional approaches

Dyersville, Iowa, is among the cities with the strictest residency laws for sex offenders: It bars them from living anywhere in the city.

Mayor Jim Heavens says the city did so to protect public safety and property values. "We consider this a crude tool, but at least we can do something. We're not trying to banish people," he says, adding that the city might make an exception for sex offenders who pose little risk to public safety.

Researchers who study sex offenders say that other approaches could be more effective in dealing with released sex offenders than broad residency laws:

• More checks by probation officers — David Finkelhor of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire says the best way to monitor offenders is to require frequent meetings with well-trained officers.

• Mandatory therapy — Kim English of Colorado's Division of Criminal Justice recommends having freed offenders attend therapy in group residential centers.

• Polygraphing — Levenson says lie-detector tests also can be helpful, along with electronic monitoring and required driving logs.

Illinois is inviting officials from other states to a conference in April to discuss the effects of residency restrictions.

"Somebody is going to end up with a huge problem," says Frances Breyne of the Kansas Department of Corrections, "unless we all get on the same page."

Sexual Offender Residency Restrictions State By State

REFERENCES:

Sex Offender Profile By Dorothy M. Neddermeyer, PhD

Sex Offenders: Offender Traits

Learning About Sex Offender Behavior: Written by a Treated Sex Offender

Profile of Sex Offenders in Quebec Penitentiaries

What To Do With Sex Offenders

The Profile and Treatment of Male Adolescent Sex Offenders

Recidivism of Sex Offenders

Myths and Facts About Sex Offenders

Comprehensive Bibliography On Juvenile Sex Offenders

Child Sexual Abuse: Offender Characteristics And Modus Operandi