View the article here07/15/2007Springfield has a sex offender problem, says the city councilor who's authored an ordinance that seeks to restrict where offenders may live in the city.
But critics of the proposal say it could
cause more problems than it might solve, and it wouldn't solve very many.
City Councilor Timothy J. Rooke says the City of Homes is "oversaturated" with sex offenders.
Springfield has more Level 2 and Level 3 offenders, the kind the state considers more likely to re-offend, than any other city in the state, and he said he feels many of them are not native to Springfield.
The state Sex Offender Registry Board reviews cases offenders and assigns them to one of three categories based on likelihood of re-offending. Level 1 is low risk, Level 2 is moderate, and Level 3 is of high risk to re-offend.
"What is it that attracts them to Springfield? That is the million dollar question, and no one has an answer," Rooke said.
The ordinance under consideration by the council would ban Level 2 and Level 3 offenders from living within 500 feet of a school, or from hanging around parks and playgrounds, and face fines of up to $300 for violations.
The 500-foot provision
would not apply to offenders who already own property or have existing leases.
The proposal has been approved in two readings before the council and needs one more to go on the books. The third and final vote is scheduled for tomorrow.
Rooke said the ordinance will improve public safety and let offenders thinking of settling in Springfield know that they are not welcome.
"If it prevents 15, 20, 25 offenders from moving here, Springfield becomes a safer place," he said.
Critics of the measure say the council needs to proceed cautiously with the ordinance, particularly with the 500-foot ban.
Police Commissioner Edward A. Flynn said he is concerned the restriction
could cause offenders to no longer register with police, to in a sense, go underground.
- And it will! It's occurring in other states if you'd look around before passing laws."The last thing I need is sex offenders that I can't locate when I need to," Flynn said.
Laurie L. Guidry, a psychologist and a board member of the
Massachusetts Association of the Treatment of Sex Abusers, said the ordinance has the same basic flaw as similar legislation enacted around the country.
Instead of focusing on those offenders who are the greatest concern, sexual predators who target children, the ordinance targets all types of sex offenders with the same brush, she said.
"
All sex offenders are not created equal but we tend to make them all equal," she said.
The term "sex offender" encompasses so many different types of behavior, from flashers to serial rapists, that by itself it is practically meaningless, she said.
And since the roughly
5 percent of offenders who target random children "don't do it near where they live," she said, the 500-foot protective zone won't offer much protection.
For the last 10 years in Massachusetts, everyone convicted of a sexual offense has been declared a sex offender and is required to register with the police in communities where they live and work.
The identities on Level 1 offenders are known to police but not released to the public. Level 2 identities may be released if someone from the community requests it in person at the police station, while the names, addresses and mug shots of Level 3 offenders are routinely released to the press and posted on the Internet.
Several communities have approved proximity bans for offenders, similar to what Springfield is proposing. Chicopee and Greenfield have in the past few months explored similar legislation.
The Chicopee Board of Aldermen directed its Law Department in February to review the legal implications of such an action before it goes forward with any proposals.
Options discussed included bans of 500, 1,000 and 2,000 feet from schools and day care centers.
Chicopee has 89 Level 2 offenders and 22 Level 3 offenders.
In Greenfield, the municipal Ordinance Committee in January had been exploring a ban on offenders living within 1,000 feet of a school, day care center, library or park, but the proposal appears to have stalled.
Greenfield has 50 Level 2 offenders and 18 Level 3 offenders who reside there.
Northampton lawyer William C. Newman, head of the Western
Massachusetts chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said such ordinances amount to
feel-good measures that do little beyond
diverting police resources from actual crime.
"
It doesn't protect the public," he said.
The Sexual Offenders Registration Board takes no position on municipal ordinances related to offenders, and has no role in enforcing or overseeing them, board spokesman Charles McDonald said.
Rooke said the issue became a concern to him some months ago when he learned how many offenders were listed as residing in Springfield.
According to the state registry, Springfield, the third largest city, has more sex offenders than any of the 10 largest cities in the state, including Boston.
Flynn said the Police Department already takes steps to track sex offenders in the city. The department has two officers devoted to making sure offenders are living and working where they say they are and that their registrations are current.
Flynn said
enforcing the 500-foot buffer would add to the police workload but it would not improve safety.
National studies have shown more than
90 percent of all reported sexual assaults on minors are not done by strangers jumping out of the bushes, but by a family member or someone trusted by the child, Flynn said.
"It ain't pretty but that's what it is," he said.
"There are plenty of people who shouldn't be allowed to live within 500 feet of their own home." That would do more to curb sexual abuse of minors more than a ban around schools, he said.
A review of 160 sexual offenses involving children under 18 in Springfield last year echoes the national surveys, he said.
Ninety-two percent involved family or someone known by the victim.
The 13 total cases involving strangers included a 15-year-old boy being offered money to pose for naked pictures, another teenage boy reporting a strange man tried to engage him in a conversation about oral sex, and several complaints from girls who said a stranger groped them through their clothing, Flynn said.
None fit the category of what Flynn called "the parental worst-nightmare scenario" where a child is kidnapped, raped and murdered.
Rooke said the 90 percent figure is misleading because many child molesters will key on single mothers and spend months gaining their trust in order to gain access to their children.
By keeping them away from school zones, they will have a harder time spotting single mothers, he said.
"We're not talking about a college kid goosing someone at a party," he said. "A lot of Level 3 offenders are dangerous individuals."
Rooke said he is also not concerned with the ordinance causing offenders to fail to register. "That happens now."
It will be up to the police to find violators and arrest them, he said.
Guidry said
Iowa, which was at the forefront of laws restricting movements of sex offenders, has in recent years
moved away from proximity bans.
Officials there found it caused more offenders to become homeless and "they found they lost track of everyone," she said.
To an extent, anyone publicly identified as a Level 3 offender finds housing options can be limited.
As many as
65 percent of Boston's offenders
are homeless or living in shelters, according to a recent Boston Globe article.
And 15 of Springfield's 112 Level 3 offenders, or about 14 percent, are either homeless or live in shelters, according to the state registry.
Offenders who live in a shelter need to re-register with police every 45 days instead of once a year.
Nine of the 15 reside at 769 Worthington St., the shelter operated by the Friends of the Homeless.
William J. Miller, executive director for the Friends of the Homeless, said many offenders are
homeless because they cannot find any place willing to take them in.
"It's difficult for people with that on their record to find a place to live, especially if they are low-income," he said.
In Holyoke, three of 22 offenders are homeless, roughly 13 percent, while none of Westfield's 13 offenders reside at the Samaritan Inn shelter on Free Street.
In Northampton, nine of its 19 level 3 offenders are homeless. Four of those offenders reside at the U.S. Veterans Administration shelter based at the medical center in the Leed section of the city, two live at the Grove Street Inn, and three others are listed as homeless.
Northampton Police Chief Russell P. Sienkiewicz said
with so many of the city's Level 3 population having no permanent address, the Police Department spends significant amounts of time and materials keeping track of them.
- Time that could be spend on other dangerous crimes, like drugs, murder, gangs, etc.Police keep close contact with the homeless shelters and regularly perform audits to verify offenders are staying there, he said.
Because homeless Level 3 offenders move from place to place so frequently, police are seeing the same people going through the registration process again and again, he said.
In 2006, for example, the city had 25 level 3 offenders, and four of them registered a total of 22 times, Sienkiewicz said.
The registration process, which includes fingerprints, mug shots and updating local and state records, takes about 30 minutes, he said.
Also with each registration, the police department has to mail out 92 separate notifications to the local press, schools and community agencies, he said.
For 2006 that added up to 7,728 separate pieces of mail, he said.
"It's a lot of work. I'm not saying its a bad thing, but it's a lot of work," he said.
The city receives no funding from the state to cover the costs of registrations, he said.
In Springfield, with the exception of the Worthington Street shelter, the largest concentration of Level 3 offenders in the city may be found at 41 Spring St., an unassuming multi-story brick apartment building a block away from police headquarters.
The apartment, a male-only boarding house known as The Majesty, had at last count five Level 3 offenders residing there.
Building manager Rosa Blair said many offenders have resided there over the years and it is no mystery why.
"We have a few people coming from the shelter who have no place to live," she said.
Many are referred there by parole officers, she said.
None of her tenants are any trouble, and although she keeps the number to police handy, she never has had to call it. "
To me, they are good people. They have made mistakes (and) they have to live with them," she said.
Blair said she has been following the ordinance closely because the Majesty may be within 500 feet of Commerce High School, just around the corner on State Street.
If it is, many of her tenants could be forced to find somewhere else to live. "We won't rent to them anymore," she said.
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