Level 3 Sex Offender fear can go off the scale

12/27/2005

Some worry alarm raised by sex-offender notification overshadows bigger risks

BY FREDERICK MELO
Pioneer Press
December 27, 2005

After learning that a convicted sex offender had moved in down the block, Miranda Hatfield no longer lets her 6-year-old daughter play alone in the yard. Motion-activated lights will soon watch over her back door.

“I don’t like taking my trash out at night,” said Hatfield, 25, of St. Paul. “I know I sound paranoid, but better to be paranoid than a victim.”

When a high-risk sex offender moved in near Apple Valley High School last winter, Ronald Lidbeck made his three college-age daughters buy cellular phones. Concern in the community was heightened recently when the offender failed to report his whereabouts to police for months.

And in Rochester, a woman who had never met the convicted offender living nearby bought a gun just in case, to protect her 9-year-old child.

Is all this worry really worth it? It’s said that knowledge is power, but for many Minnesotans, instant access to information about the state’s most dangerous sex offenders comes at a steep price: peace of mind.

Through the Department of Corrections Web site, the state publishes online photos, physical descriptions and block addresses of Level 3 sex offenders — convicted criminals deemed most likely to reoffend. The information, available to anyone, has been online since 2000.

While public interest in the database has skyrocketed, even some children’s advocates worry it has stirred up too much fear and not enough common-sense measures to keep kids safe.

“We don’t feel that it’s the best line of defense,” said Michelle Longe, program manager with the Jacob Wetterling Foundation, which helps track missing and sexually exploited children.

Public concern is apparently fueled by media coverage of high-profile cases such as the kidnapping and killing of Dru
Sjodin, a 22-year-old college student from Pequot Lakes, allegedly by a convicted sex offender in November 2003.

In 2004, the Department of Corrections received 1,500 e-mail inquiries about sex criminals — more than three times the number from the previous three years combined.

Many parents say they have a right to all the information they can get about who’s living nearby. But some experts caution that the public would be better served teaching children to spot suspicious behaviors, rather than living in fear of a particular felon who has moved into the neighborhood.

In 87 percent to 94 percent of cases, children are abducted or sexually exploited by someone familiar to them, such as a parent or family friend, according to the St. Paul-based Wetterling Foundation.

“At least in terms of child sexual abuse, it’s usually with someone the person knows,” said Hollida Wakefield, a forensic psychologist in Northfield. “The stranger who abducts the child and rapes the child is in the minority. Of course, that’s the one that gets all the publicity.”

But public interest remains fixated on the stranger down the street. Among recent e-mails to the Department of Corrections:

• From Minneapolis: “Why is it that his exact address is not given? Shouldn’t we be given all possible information on this child abuser so as to keep him at a closer watch?”

• From Apple Valley: “At the community meeting, we were told that your Web page would be updated frequently. (His) picture has not changed. When will this information be updated?”

• From Rochester: “I believe everyone has a right to a second chance. I just wish our Realtor would have informed us of him living near us.”

CONCERN HAS WIDE IMPACT

The concern is affecting how some industries do business.

Since June 2001, Minnesota real estate agents and sellers have been required to provide homebuyers with written information on how to look up Level 3 offenders in their community. The wording is included in agency disclosure forms, purchase agreements and other documents.

“I do think it affects sales. I’ve had clients who have been scared away from particular houses or neighborhoods,” said Faith McGown, a Minneapolis real estate agent who specializes in single-family homes in the Twin Cities.

While few buyers have abandoned a purchase in midstream, she estimates about 70 percent of her clients use the Department of Corrections database before closing on a house, and about half rush to the Web before as much as visiting a potential location.

After moving into the Fairview housing community in Lakeville a few weeks ago, Michael and Tammy Ebel went to the sex-offender database to check up on their new neighborhood — and their new neighbors.

They were relieved to find no evidence of Level 3 sex offenders living near them, but the couple still insist that their 14-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son carry walkie-talkies when they venture down the street.

“When I was a kid, I used to roam for miles” unattended, said Michael Ebel, a salesman. “It’s changed.”

NOTICE TOO NARROW?

When worried parents contact the Department of Corrections, staff members sometimes reply with polite reminders “not to get too caught up” in tracking a specific offender, as “anyone, anywhere, at any time” can be a child molester, as a recent e-mail response put it. Focusing too intently on one person could create a false sense of security.

“We give them a list of behaviors they should look for that might possibly be a red flag,” said Scott Behrends, a community-notification coordinator for the department. “The e-mails I get are not fear-based. They just want to be informed, and that’s definitely something we want to do.”

But the public is not informed of the whereabouts of most registered offenders once they leave prison.

By state law, the photos and information available to the public off the Department of Corrections database are limited to the state’s highest-risk offenders, or fewer than 100 people. That’s less than half of 1 percent of the 17,000 registered sex offenders in Minnesota.

In Apple Valley, the general address of Level 3 sex offender Jeremy John Queen became widely known during a community meeting in January, but the names of 44 registered sex offenders in the city are not. (After being checked on weekly by police, Queen moved to Minneapolis this month.)

Apple Valley is home to three Level 2 (moderate risk) offenders and four Level 1 (low risk) offenders. In addition, “we have 37 offenders living in our community that have not been assigned a classification level,” said Apple Valley Police Chief Scott Johnson. “This usually means that they did not go to prison. Therefore, they were never remanded to the Minnesota Department of Corrections and were not classified by them.”

It’s clear many Minnesotans would prefer greater access to information about all classified offenders.

While Level 3 offenders are subject to communitywide notification, by law, police generally restrict the public release of details about Level 2 offenders to nearby day-care centers, schools and other institutions. Only local law enforcement are notified of Level 1 offenders’ release or relocation.

Johnson, like many members of the law enforcement community, sees the public database as a valuable notification tool. He would have no qualms about the Legislature making more information available.

“I would not be disappointed if Level 2 offenders were put on there,” he said. “It’s not the police that prevent crime.

It’s the public looking out for each other.”

While most states have offender Web sites, they vary widely in what details are made public.

In Wisconsin, the Department of Corrections Web site posts the photos and exact home addresses of more than 11,000 non-incarcerated offenders. In Montana, the offender database includes criminals convicted of violent crimes — even if they are not sexual — from robbery to domestic assault.

“I’d rather know and be able to protect myself,” said Hatfield, the St. Paul mother, who says she no longer feels safe walking from her front door to her car in the morning. “The police, when they held their (community notification) meeting, they said there’s Level 1 and Level 2 and unclassified sex offenders everywhere. But if there were an ax murderer next door, I would want to know that.”

But some experts say there are good reasons why the identities of most sex offenders are not public in Minnesota.

They argue that public-notification laws make it difficult for offenders who have served their sentence in full to start over and live stable lives. For some offenders struggling to control their impulses, stress is believed to be a trigger into relapse.

“If I were a parent, and I had little kids, and a sex offender moved in next door, I would want to be forewarned,” said Wakefield, the forensic psychologist. “We all would. But at the same time, we as a society need to find ways to reintegrate people who have served their time into society.”

Notification is nationwide issue

In Minnesota, interest in community notification has apparently increased on the heels of the Dru Sjodin investigation. The 22-year-old college student from Pequot Lakes was found dead five months after disappearing from a Grand Forks, N.D., shopping mall parking lot in November 2003. A convicted sex offender from Crookston has been charged in her death.

But concerns are clearly national. A federal appeals court recently upheld a 2002 Iowa state law that bars sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or day-care center. Many Iowa cities and towns have upped the ante, creating even more dramatic restrictions around parks, playgrounds and even school bus stops. In some cases, the new rules are effectively forcing offenders to move out of the area altogether.

In Lubbock, Texas, a planned subdivision claims to be the first “sex-offender free” community in the country. Homebuyers agree in writing to face liens of $1,000 a day if they are convicted of a sex offense while living in the 665-unit Milwaukee Ridge development.

“We’re doing background checks on everybody,” said Clayton Isom, the 23-year-old owner of I&S Investments, the real estate firm gearing the development toward young families. “We have it all formulated on the deed restriction.”
Isom came up with the idea in March after seeing frequent news reports about a convicted sex offender who led police to the body of a 9-year-old Florida girl he had allegedly abducted from her home. The suspect, who was charged with sexual battery and murder, had a decades-long criminal history, including sexual acts against children.

In July, the U.S. Department of Justice created a National Sex Offender Public Registry on the Web, with links to public databases across the country. The Web site, which will be linked to all 50 states by the end of the year, is http://www.nsopr.gov

— Frederick Melo

• Department of Corrections Search for Level 3 offenders: http://www.doc.state.mn.us/level3/search.asp
• Jacob Wetterling Foundation: http://www.jwf.org
• Stop It Now! Minnesota: http://www.stopitnow.com/mn
• National Sex Offender Public Registry: http://www.nsopr.gov