Sheriff introduces new sex offender monitoring programs
- 1/14/10
- Categorized in: DeKalb News
A projector screen showed an overhead, satellite photograph of a neighborhood somewhere in DeKalb County. A series of red dots spotted the top of a small cluster of trees. In the middle of the trees sat a basic, ranch-style home roughly 30 yards back from a residential street. The red dots represented the movements of a man.
He had walked all over his house that morning. He’d ventured into the backyard, and he’d walked across the street.
He was the red dot, and he was one of DeKalb County’s three registered sexual predators–the worst kind of sexual offender–and 778 other registered sex offenders in the county.
“Those are the ones that we should constantly be on the lookout for and monitor their actions,” DeKalb County Sheriff Thomas Brown said Jan. 6.
It was the introduction of two features the sheriff’s department now uses to track sex offenders throughout the county.
The county now attaches ankle bracelets to sexual predators that allow the department to track their location at all times, Brown said. The signal from the bracelet goes directly to the department, not an outside company.
Former sheriff’s deputy Derrick Yancey fled the country in April after he was charged with murdering his wife and a day laborer. At the time, an outside company was contracted to track his whereabouts. After Yancey cut his bracelet, police were not notified for several hours due to a communication breakdown.
That wouldn’t happen with the most serious offenders, Brown said.
DeKalb County has 781 registered sex offenders – a group that includes a gamut of charges from statutory rape to violent rape and sexual assault.
“We put too much emphasis on the low-level sex offenders, the Romeo and Juliet [relationships],” Brown said.
Nonetheless, the public will be able to track them with a new computer program called OffenderWatch, to which the sheriff’s department recently subscribed. The program includes a database of all the county’s registered offenders. When residents sign up, it notifies them of the locations of sex offenders within a nearby radius.
The program allows residents to register as many addresses into the system as they wish at no cost. Residents can also select the system to alert them when an offender moves to within 1,000 feet of any address.
The sheriff’s department would like to see what Brown labeled “Mrs. Nosies” using the system.
“It’s important to us that the public help us in monitoring these people,” he said.
The Web site is accessible through the sheriff’s department site at dekalbsheriff.org.
SIGN THE PETITION TO TAKE THE PUBLIC SEX OFFENDER REGISTRY DOWN
SHORT LINK TO THE PETITION
http://bit.ly/f7Z4MJ
If anyone you love has had their life train-wrecked by the Public Sex Offender Registry. If you are sick of being shamed, humiliated, degraded and banished from society by the in sanity of the public sex offender registry.. If you cannot afford an attorney to fight for your rights.. at least make an effort to say YOU WILL NOT STAND TO BE HUMILIATED AND DEGRADED LIKE THIS.
Sign this petition.. We will send this petition to Washington... Your Voice can be heard.
You can sign the petition and click the checkbox to allow your signature to remain hidden from public view, if you'd like.
Sexual Assault takes away every last ounce of dignity, confidence, self esteem, trust...basically anything you can think of that makes you feel good inside. Good, innocent people are reduced to hollow shells, and it takes a long time for those victims to feel right again. Generally it takes far longer than the ammount of time that offender spends in prison, especially if it's a first time offense. Some victims never recover. I see these people and work with them every day. Before you start talking about, "CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT, BEYOND THE EXTREME!" spend some time with the victims.
I am totally against ANY form of abuse to any human being. And I believe anyone who murders another human being should be in prison for the rest of their life (until they die). I do not believe in the death penalty for anyone. Also, I believe that once a person has been in and out of prison and has served their probation and parole, done everything required of them, and what was signed on the "contract" when they took the plea, none of this should be required of them, none of it. The state cannot tear up a contract like this, which they are basically doing, it's unconstitutional. Many people, if they had known they would be faced with all this, they would have NOT taken a plea deal. And the courts are very aware of this and this is why they made it retroactive; thus violating ex-post facto laws! They should be allowed to get on with their life as if nothing happened. I'm not saying for it to be removed from their record, but, the crime should be removed from public view and background checks, they should not have any more restrictions, shaming, etc. If they commit another crime, then they face a lot more punishment, like everything else is treated.
When are we going to move away from being "TOUGH ON CRIME" and move to being "SMART ON CRIME?" If you locked every single sex offender up, at this moment, or killed every one of them, do you think the problem is over? No, more will follow.
I've heard many people say "If these laws protect one child, then they are worth it!" And at the same time, if millions are tortured, it's ok. Offenders are losing their homes, jobs, families, and children and cannot find new jobs or homes due to the insanity of these laws. The families are also made into outcasts for associating with or being related to an ex-offender and their own children are harassed and bullied at schools due to a family member being an ex-offender.
I know these laws are a sensitive issue, but as all issues, they must be discussed and we must come up with a valid solution that will work. The laws, as they exist now, DO NOT WORK! People are always saying they cause unintended consequences. These laws have been on the books for years now, so nothing is unintended anymore. When are we going to set aside fear, hate, rage and anger and come up with a real solution? History has proven that these feelings NEVER get good laws passed but only create bad ones that punish and torture many people. These knee-jerk reactions to a slim number of high-profile crimes, like Adam Walsh and Jessica Lunsford, MUST STOP!
When an ex-offender is forced to move from his/her home, thus having to sell it, cannot find another home within the law due to the residency "buffer" zones, get fired from their jobs due to being on the registry, cannot find a new job due to being on the registry, their husband/wife lose their jobs due to a significant other being on the registry, their children lose their friends and are harassed and bullied in school due to a family member being on the registry, thus destroying the children's lives, ex-offenders are forced into homelessness and to live under bridges, harassed by police, neighbors and probation/parole officers, have to wear "I'm a sex offender T-shirt" or have a neon green license plate on ALL their cars, have "sex offender" on their drivers license and forced to renew their licenses every year, forced from shelters during tornadoes or hurricanes, cannot give blood at some places due to being discriminated against for being on the sex offender registry, denied housing due to being on the registry, signs placed in their yards inviting harassment and ridicule from the neighbors, forced to move when the neighbors start picketing outside the ex-offenders home, the list is endless.
I THINK THIS IS CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT, BEYOND THE EXTREME!
Sex offenders have lost their right to privacy because they have harmed others. The sheriff is doing a fine job!
U.S. Department of Justice Statistics: Criminal Offender Statistics
Sex offenders were about four times more likely than non-sex offenders to be arrested for another sex crime after their discharge from prison –– 5.3 % of sex offenders versus 1.3 % of non-sex offenders. http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/crimoff.htm#recidivis...
Child victimizers
* Approximately 4,300 child molesters were released from prisons in 15 States in 1994. An estimated 3.3% of these 4,300 were rearrested for another sex crime against a child within 3 years of release from prison.
State of Michigan, General Recidivism: Parole Board Statistics: 1990 through 2000:
Sex Offenders 2.46% average recidivism.
State of Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction -Ohio Official Sex Offender Recidivism Data:
Recidivism rate for child -victim sex offenders (outside family) for a new sex-related crime in Ohio is 8.7%
The recidivism rate for all sex offenders for a new sex-related crime in Ohio is 8.0%