Fair play for sex offenders?

On Oct. 22, 1989, an 11-year-old boy named Jacob Wetterling was bicycle-riding with his brother and a friend in St. Joseph, Minnesotta, when a masked man abducted him at gunpoint.

His parents never saw him again.

Determined to spare other families the same heartbreak they had experienced, Jacob’s parents formed a foundation that advocated for tougher laws against people who prey on children.

Five years later, Congress passed the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act, requiring states to create registries of people who committed crimes against children and sex offenders.

Since then, the federal government and states have implemented increasingly restrictive laws aimed at monitoring and restricting offenders, in the interests of further protecting children.

Fueled by beliefs that sex offenders cannot be adequately treated and are more likely than other criminals to re-offend, those laws now cover a broad range of crimes, making little distinction between high- and low-risk offenders.

Whether that makes for good policy has important local implications. In Terrebonne and Lafourche, more than half the registered offenders generally fall into the low-risk category.

There is evidence that many might not require placement on a registry as a matter of public safety, if judges had the authority to make such decisions. In most cases these are offenders for whom prison time has not been sought, because of circumstances surrounding the allegations against them.

Critics of the current scheme – mandated by federal law under pain of law enforcement grant money loss – say casting the current wide net does little to make children safer, and results in police resources being directed away from higher-risk targets.

LOCAL RELIEF

Critics don’t say the registries are bad. But their effectiveness is compromised, they suggest, without judicial discretion or some other protection from misapplication at the time an offender pleads.

Loss of employment opportunities for low-risk offenders, inability to find housing and other issues relating to their presence on the registries, critics say, can increase the potential for other crimes to be committed, as well.

Questions about Louisiana’s program for monitoring sex offenders were a central component of court papers filed in Terrebonne Parish on behalf of a man who pleaded guilty to carnal knowledge of a juvenile in the year 2000, who sought to have his registration requirements waived last year.

State and local officials are not opposing the request for Houma mechanic Kerry Carter, filed by his attorney, Louis “Bubba” Watkins, and so a judge’s order excusing him from further registration requirement will stand.

Carter, who has since fathered three children with the woman he was once accused of violating when she was a teen, brought the court action so that he could attend their school functions, parent-teacher conferences and football games.

“I am not able to partake in my children’s activities, their functions,” said Carter. “I went to Zale’s and made a purchase. I had to show them my driver’s license, with “sex offender” written on it, and I got the look, the look that people give.”

Bud Barnes, a Terrebonne Parish prosecutor who specializes in child sexual abuse cases, says there are distinctions between crimes of predation and those involving a specific individual where there is a romantic relationship between victim and perpetrator.

“We have had some cases where someone is charged with carnal knowledge, married the girl, and they had multiple children but he can’t visit his children at school,” Barnes said.

There are legal remedies that could get that person off the registry, but Barnes and other experts agree that they are cumbersome and expensive.

“I can understand the argument for judicial discretion to address that,” Barnes said, suggesting lines can be drawn between “a person who is a predator or victimizes underage children, versus the love story. I do have a problem if you have predatory tendencies, even if the relations were consensual.”

THREE TIERS

Prosecutors note that the tier system currently used can be problematic for other reasons. Three tiers are designated, from least serious to most serious, each with their own minimum number of years an offender must check in, for those on the public registry.

An offender who is factually guilty of a more serious crime – who perhaps should be on the list for the maximum period of time – gets a break by pleading to a less serious crime, placing him or her in a lower tier.

Cases with little risk of re-offense, some experts suggest, do little to further the true cause registration requirements.

Kurt Bumby, a Missouri researcher who was worked extensively with policy-makers on sex offender management, says there is an extensive body of professional literature that addresses the issue.

“A number of pieces speak to the question of risk-based decision making, saying that it maximizes community safety,” Bumby said. “They say we should be investing our time, whether staff time or other time, on the moderate to high risk offenders and take less intensive approaches for those who pose a lower risk.”

Bumby’s own research was included in a white paper on offender management by the Washington, D.C.-based Council of State Governments, a non-partisan organization that examines government policies, and in particular the relationship between states and the federal government.

“Despite the high costs of compliance with (federal law) little empirical proof exists that sex offender registries and notification make communities safer,” the CSG report says, noting that the entire premise of how offender registries should work is based on flawed data.

“Myths about sex offenders continue to abound, such as the widespread belief that most victims are targeted by strangers, while in fact it is much more likely to be perpetrated by someone the victims know,” the report states. “These myths continue to influence policy- makers and may have detrimental effects on public safety.”

Louisiana’s tier system, like those in most other states, was formulated in accordance with the federal Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act.

Tier 1 offenders are considered least serious, and have served less than a year in prison. This tier, like others, is offense-based and the charges can include receipt of child pornography or other non-violent crimes including carnal knowledge of a juvenile, if there is an age difference of greater than four years between a victim younger than 17 and the offender. These offenders must remain on the predator/offender list for 15 years, registering annually and notifying the surrounding community every five years, for a mile-square radius from where they live or work.

Tier 2 offenders include second-time Tier 1 violators, and crimes such as producing or distributing child pornography and sexual contact with children of a more grave nature than the offenses in Tier 1.

Tier 3 offenders, the most serious, have engaged in violent sexual crimes against adults or children.

Carter and other offenders in the Tier 1 category were originally mandated to register for 10 years after conviction or release. But in 2006 passage of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act extended that to 15 years. The requirements were made to be retroactive.

DOLLARS AND SENSE

When states comply with federal requirements by setting up the registries in accordance with laws Congress passes, there are rewards.

Because Louisiana is substantially in compliance with federal benchmarks, a review of records shows, the state receives grants that are trickled down to law enforcement agencies.

If Louisiana did not comply with the federal mandate for maintaining its registries, the state could lose 10 percent of its Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant.

Linda Gautier, deputy director of the Louisiana Commission on Law Enforcement, which distributes the money, said the 2014 total of Byrne-JAG money dispensed to Louisiana was $3,506,064. The loss to Louisiana would be about $350,000 from that if the federal requirements were not substantially followed.

“It may not seem like a lot to lose, that 10 percent, but it is money that can help a small jurisdiction, and that is what we do every day,” Gautier said.

Terrebonne Parish received $20,000 in Byrne-JAG money for 2014; the Houma Police Department proposed using it toward salary for a proposed officer hire.

Nonetheless, some states are seriously considering whether losing a percentage of that money might be a better route than spending a lot more dollars than they receive on administering sex offender registry programs in the precise way the federal regulations mandate.

Not all of the states have bought in, however.

SOME STATES BALK

The California Attorney General’s Office determined that the 10 percent cut in Byrne-Jag money for the state would be far less than what it would cost to comply with the Adam Walsh Act.

Colorado did likewise.

Florida and Virginia have taken stock of the fiscal impact for them.

Dr. Jill Levenson, a Florida PhD who has published extensively on sex offender registration programs, said in response to questions e-mailed last week that studies on sex offenders challenge widely-held beliefs.

“Sex offense recidivism risk significantly declines as (offenders) spend time in the community offense-free,” Levenson said. “Sex offender management strategies may be more effective and cost-efficient when utilizing empirically derived risk assessments to target those at highest risk to reoffend.”

That way, Levenson said, resources might be better directed toward more dangerous sex offenders. Lower risk offenders could more easily re-integrate into society.

“As well, fewer resources will be diverted away from prevention programs for at risk families and services for victims,” she said. “Low-risk sex offenders actually have lower risk than non-sexual criminals for ever being arrested again for a new sex crime.”

CHANGE NOT LIKELY

Ultimately, participants in various components of the local criminal justice system agree, the determination of how registration programs should be conducted must be driven by an emphasis on protection of potential victims from harm.

Jamie Paul Dardar, an Isle de Jean Charles commercial fisherman who is a Tier 1 offender, whose circumstances could be described as low level, agrees with that assessment. Nobody is safer, he maintains, because he has been shut out of employment, noting that an oilfield job offer was withdrawn after the company’s human resource officials learned of his status.

He also agrees with an assessment expressed across the board from justice system professionals that, change in Louisiana’s practices are not likely to come anytime soon.

Deputy Christopher Guidry, among the officers who keep track of registered sex offenders in Lafourche Parish, knocks on the door of a residence in north Thibodaux Monday.

JOHN DeSANTIS | THE TIMES