06-15-2006, 01:04 PM
http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJ ... 061506.htm (http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/Opinion/Editorials/opnOPN87061506.htm)
Illusion politics
Playing keep-away with former sex offenders
The state made a deal seven years ago with Christopher Daughtry: Do your time. Keep your nose clean. After you've spent enough time in prison, you can be released on probation and so long as you follow the rules, you'll pay off your debt to society.
Daughtry -- along with hundreds of other inmates incarcerated on sex-related charges -- kept his end of the bargain. Now the state is fighting to renege. In the process, prosecutors are trampling cherished notions of civil rights.
Let's start with the right not to be imprisoned for something you haven't yet done and might never do. State laws (passed since Daughtry was incarcerated) prevent former sex offenders on a state registry from establishing a residence within 1,000 feet of a school, park, playground, day-care center or any other place where children congregate. At the time of his release, Daughtry's only address was his mother's house in Daytona Beach -- which happens to be too close to a residence state officials claimed was a day-care center.
So instead of being released to find a suitable place to live, Daughtry was shipped straight from state prison to the Volusia County Branch Jail. Behind bars, his chances of finding a new home dwindled to nil -- every possibility he proposed was shot down because it was too close to a prohibited locale.
Daughtry's not the only inmate due for release who's trapped by a bad law, impossibly marred with hazy details. If the owners of a private residence provide baby-sitting services for a few children in their home, does that residence become a "day-care center" under terms of the sex-offender law? (In Daughtry's case, a judge eventually said "no.") When probation officers are checking a dwelling's distance from playgrounds, do they include fast-food restaurants with jungle-gym equipment? Can a vacant lot be defined as a "park," as probation officials attempted to do in another case?
And what purpose do these laws serve? As Public Defender Jim Purdy points out, they only regulate where a registered sex offender can live. "The only time they're required to be at home is at night, when these schools, parks and day care centers are empty," Purdy says. But no law prohibits a former sex offender from hanging out at a park during the day, or taking a job in a convenience store across the street from an elementary school.
It is impossible for the state to anticipate, and regulate, every move a particular probationer makes. Keep-away laws, like the one that landed Daughtry back in jail, only create the illusion of safety.
Last fall, Circuit Judge Joseph Will ordered the state to stop imprisoning inmates due for release, just because they couldn't find a place to live. The state Department of Corrections fired back last week with an appeal, sneering that Will overstepped his authority as a judge.
It's hard to see how Will could have acted any differently -- or how the state could argue, straight-faced, that it has a right to keep people in prison past the end of their sentence before they've even had a meaningful chance to prove they can comply with residence laws. Will's ruling allows for intensive monitoring of inmates who don't have a permanent address, and orders the Department of Corrections to work with former sex offenders, finding them a place to live that meets the terms of the law.
Makes sense to us. State officials have chosen to cling to the illusion that sex-offender residence prohibitions make people safer, and now they're pushing it a step further and locking people up based on speculation about their future residence. Will got it right -- that position is indefensible.
Illusion politics
Playing keep-away with former sex offenders
The state made a deal seven years ago with Christopher Daughtry: Do your time. Keep your nose clean. After you've spent enough time in prison, you can be released on probation and so long as you follow the rules, you'll pay off your debt to society.
Daughtry -- along with hundreds of other inmates incarcerated on sex-related charges -- kept his end of the bargain. Now the state is fighting to renege. In the process, prosecutors are trampling cherished notions of civil rights.
Let's start with the right not to be imprisoned for something you haven't yet done and might never do. State laws (passed since Daughtry was incarcerated) prevent former sex offenders on a state registry from establishing a residence within 1,000 feet of a school, park, playground, day-care center or any other place where children congregate. At the time of his release, Daughtry's only address was his mother's house in Daytona Beach -- which happens to be too close to a residence state officials claimed was a day-care center.
So instead of being released to find a suitable place to live, Daughtry was shipped straight from state prison to the Volusia County Branch Jail. Behind bars, his chances of finding a new home dwindled to nil -- every possibility he proposed was shot down because it was too close to a prohibited locale.
Daughtry's not the only inmate due for release who's trapped by a bad law, impossibly marred with hazy details. If the owners of a private residence provide baby-sitting services for a few children in their home, does that residence become a "day-care center" under terms of the sex-offender law? (In Daughtry's case, a judge eventually said "no.") When probation officers are checking a dwelling's distance from playgrounds, do they include fast-food restaurants with jungle-gym equipment? Can a vacant lot be defined as a "park," as probation officials attempted to do in another case?
And what purpose do these laws serve? As Public Defender Jim Purdy points out, they only regulate where a registered sex offender can live. "The only time they're required to be at home is at night, when these schools, parks and day care centers are empty," Purdy says. But no law prohibits a former sex offender from hanging out at a park during the day, or taking a job in a convenience store across the street from an elementary school.
It is impossible for the state to anticipate, and regulate, every move a particular probationer makes. Keep-away laws, like the one that landed Daughtry back in jail, only create the illusion of safety.
Last fall, Circuit Judge Joseph Will ordered the state to stop imprisoning inmates due for release, just because they couldn't find a place to live. The state Department of Corrections fired back last week with an appeal, sneering that Will overstepped his authority as a judge.
It's hard to see how Will could have acted any differently -- or how the state could argue, straight-faced, that it has a right to keep people in prison past the end of their sentence before they've even had a meaningful chance to prove they can comply with residence laws. Will's ruling allows for intensive monitoring of inmates who don't have a permanent address, and orders the Department of Corrections to work with former sex offenders, finding them a place to live that meets the terms of the law.
Makes sense to us. State officials have chosen to cling to the illusion that sex-offender residence prohibitions make people safer, and now they're pushing it a step further and locking people up based on speculation about their future residence. Will got it right -- that position is indefensible.