Theoretical Responses and Cost Analysis for Monitoring Sex Offenders in St. Paul.

      The recommendations contained in this report are in response to concerns about sex offenders moving into the Payne-Phalen neighborhood, and the recent Eastside rapes at the hands of multiple sex offenders.
       I like to warn the readers who live in the Payne-Phalen neighborhoods there are no legal monitoring models in use that will provide 100 percent protection from predatory sex offenders. Besides, people must think about their morals and ethics for balancing the civil rights of convicted sex offenders between the greater good of public safety and its costs.
      Many legal analysts give their support and opinions that low-level sex offenders might clog the sex offender monitoring programs, in which case the current science of sexual offender risk assessment is faulty. Abner (2006) is a Justice Public Safety Analyst who writes “Waging War on Sexual Crimes” in the April 2006 issue of State News about the new police supervision role for monitoring and interacting with high-risk sex offenders (p. 13). Currently, Ramsey County uses the “Weed and Seed” program, which can screen high-risk sex offenders from moving into the Payne-Phalen neighborhoods.
       The U.S. Department of Justice's developed the Weed and Seed program to demonstrate an innovative and comprehensive approach to law enforcement and community revitalization, and to prevent and control violent crime, drug abuse, and gang activity in target areas. The program, initiated in 1991, attempts to weed out violent crime, gang activity, and drug use and trafficking in target areas, and then seed the target area by restoring the neighborhood through social and economic revitalization. Weed and Seed has three objectives: (1) develop a comprehensive, multi-agency strategy to control and prevent violent crime, drug trafficking, and drug-related crime in target neighborhoods; (2) coordinate and integrate existing and new initiatives to concentrate resources and maximize their impact on reducing and preventing violent crime, drug trafficking, and gang activity; and (3) mobilize community residents in the target areas to assist law enforcement in identifying and removing violent offenders and drug traffickers from the community and to assist other human service agencies in identifying and responding to service needs of the target area.
       “Weed and Seed” can help in the sex offender’s rehabilitation from their offense until they are unlikely to reoffend. In which case, Ramsey County and the St. Paul Police can work together for using Abner’s idea with Scotland’s supervision model by working with trained police inside appointed sex offender units enforcing sexual offense prevention orders, and supervising sex offenders (Scottish, 2005).
      Scottish (2005) posts their police model, which has a successful working partnership with community social service agencies (p. 1). Each offender has caseworkers, probation officers, and law enforcement assigned to him or her for the long-term goal that helps them assimilate back into society. In addition, Abner (2006) recognized that “in execution of such duties the police may, on occasion, act in an encouraging advisory capacity…” (p. 19). The police must help sex offenders regain public trust and self-control. Until then, court orders are the first line of defense.
       Court orders restrict offenders, for example, not to frequent public parks, playgrounds, child-care, or certain public events where vulnerable people may be present. The St. Paul Police must enforce any court order violations made by high-risk sex offenders. Barring a mistake, sex offenders should have three warnings before using GPS or civil commitment.
       Ramsey County can copy the Scottish Concordat agreement, which proposes that Eastern District police and others involved in monitoring teams should undertake nationally provided training on overseeing sex offenders and risk assessment. Law enforcement can learn to reassess the priority allowed to work with sex offenders, and evaluate contributing sex offending intelligence to wider crime prevention and detection databases (Scottish, 2005).
       However, there are problems with supervising sex offenders and enforcing laws in the Payne-Phalen area that I will discuss.
        First, the lack of community budget to pay overtime costs for St. Paul patrol officers to “baby-sit” sex offenders. To offset these costs, the City can apply for money at the Department of Justice Sex Offender Management Grant Program (CSOM, 2007). In addition, the sexual predator can help pay for his or her monitoring program through community service or by some other incentive programs.
       Second, many offenders leave their “zones” without registering or updating their information. This is where frequent monitoring by the Eastern District needs to verify if the offender is compliant. Finally, most offenders are using the Internet at home, which limits public scrutiny for monitoring the offender’s computer activities.
       With having said that, the Payne-Phalen neighborhoods want sex offenders to have proper supervision that identifies any changes of the offender, which could increase the risk of harm to others.
       The Eastern District police can help their sex offenders develop techniques for self-risk management through supervision and guidance with the help of frequent home visits by police units, social workers, and probation officers.
        On each compulsory interview, 1) the sex offender must receive a copy of the registration requirements; 2) asked to verify if his or her information is still valid and record any changes; and 3) have the right to choose a Sex Offenders Co-coordinator to link with and be a link for other police colleagues and proper agencies (Scottish, 2005).
        Following the Scottish lead, new requirements in the sex offender’s release agreement must allow the Eastern District police officers to use laptop computers with tracking software. The new computer software allows the police officer to preview any material stored on the offender’s personal computer during the home interview, which each program costs $35 and charged to the high-risk offender (E-School, 2002). Computer software tracking gives St. Paul police new investigative abilities for watching high-risk sex offenders. Electronic monitoring can also include satellite monitoring by GPS or RFID.
       Global Positioning System (GPS) is a small unit, which police officers can use satellite tracking. GPS mapping of the community can aid officers track high-risk sex predators. The high-risk offender can help pay for the GPS service used with the home monitoring program.
       Each GPS bracelet costs about $2,000 and the cost for daily monitoring via GPS costs about $8; in addition, agents who monitor sex offenders need to have acceptable training and salary (Nelson, 2007). The GPS supervision program exists in Wisconsin, in which case it already cost $1 billion+ to Wisconsin taxpayers with looming budget cuts (Marley, 2007).
        However, bulky ankle bracelets cause the offender a public stigma and the bracelets are susceptible to tampering and removal, which thirty-three States have not yet voted if microchipping may be an alternative. I will mention the RFID to show people how far people are willing to go to give up their civil rights or infringe on others.
        RFID— I showed a PowerPoint presentation about RFID in my Critical Issues of Law Enforcement class. I told the class the RFID is a small passive or active microchip the size of a grain of rice implanted under the skin of the sex offender for tracking and identification.
        The group project highlighted the microchip has health and civil rights issues, in which case seventeen States banned microchipping humans following the passage of 2005 Wisconsin Legislative Law 482. The ACLU and many legal analysts argue that microchipping and using GPS on humans violate the 4th , 5th, 8th, 9th, and 14th Amendments of the US Constitution. Minnesota legislation currently does not ban the use of GPS or RFID, which tracking indigent sex offenders with 80-cent microchips are cheaper than GPS bracelets.
       However, problems will occur if a sex offender moves out of Minnesota into the other seventeen States that banned microchipping of humans. Many States adopted Wisconsin law 482, which punishes the entity who injected the microchip with fines of $10,000 for each day the microchip remains inside the resident.
       Therefore, I believe the cost of remote monitoring should not trade public safety for definitive police work that supports the civil rights of the sex offender and the community. Electronic monitoring is expensive and brands the offender with public humiliation until the next argument presents itself that new technology makes the GPS bracelet discreet. Public opinions to use electronic devices for monitoring sex offenders who “might commit a crime” infringes their Eighth Amendment guarantee from “Cruel and Unusual Punishment.”      
       Sex offenders can challenge their Constitutional rights or public laws all the way to the US Supreme Court at costs to taxpayers. I believe it is cheaper for the Eastern District to monitor offenders with consistent judicial and citizen supervision with verbal and written warnings, and then civil commitment to psychiatric hospitals or prison if there is noncompliance.
       Scottish (2005) writes, “police officers must have supervising powers similar to social workers and probation officers, which directs a sex offender to end specific activities or undertake others, such as health clubs, public activities involving vulnerable people… If the offender rejects such a warning and after a suitable time has elapsed (at the discretion and recorded by the police officer) then the police can issue the offender a final warning.”      
      The commanding supervisor must give his or her approval before disclosing the sex offender’s personal information. The Commander must find out if citizens have any prior knowledge of the sex offender before disclosing any information;
       Second, people must know about confidentiality laws and the use of such information for public protection and specific purposes only (Scottish, 2005). If the warnings do not stop the offender’s high-risk behavior, then by law, it is possible to commit the unresponsive offender indefinitely to a psychiatric hospital.
      The US Supreme Court ruling in Kansas v. Crane 534 U.S. 407 (2002) said, “States retain considerable leeway in defining the mental abnormalities and personality disorders that make an individual eligible for commitment; and psychiatry, which informs but does not control ultimate legal determinations.” Crane cited Kansas v. Hendricks 117 S.Ct. 2072 (1997) that it had set “forth no requirement of total or complete lack of control, but the Constitution does not permit commitment of the type of dangerous sexual offender considered in Hendricks without any lack-of-control determination.” The Court stated that Hendricks referred to the [Sexual Predator] Act as requiring an abnormality or disorder that makes it “difficult, if not impossible, for the [dangerous] person to control his dangerous behavior.” Id., at 358 (emphasis added). The Court defined the word “difficult” suggests the lack of control was not absolute. The Court admitted-- “an absolutist approach is unworkable and would risk barring the civil commitment of highly dangerous persons suffering severe mental abnormalities.”
       In Hendricks, this Court said, “It is enough to say that there must be proof of serious difficulty in controlling behavior.”
       The Center for Sex Offender Management at www.csom.org said sex offenders have recidivism rates of 52 percent in twenty-five years, in which case society must think about balancing the civil rights of convicted sex offenders between the greater good of public safety and its monitoring costs.      
        Sex offenders may face a stigma of public scrutiny because of changing legislation, routine judicial supervision, and the fear of civil commitment, especially for the low-risk sex offenders. Besides, new legislation somehow entraps people and ruins their lives until there is a Supreme Court decision. With having said that, educating people about sex offenders is the key for mutual civil existence.
        The biggest benefit is that ideas are coming directly from fully invested community members helping the sworn monitoring staff to understand the community’s perspective on what they want and need to know. Both the community and the police department benefit from an increased awareness of an offender’s assigned risk level and helping each other with keeping accurate registration information. Find a core community group that is reflective of the city’s demographics and encourage them to meet with police departments to learn about sex offender management. Citizen volunteers are a visual extension of the law enforcement presence in the neighborhoods; neighbors know that they can approach the sex offender monitoring team with questions and ask for information.
     Costs are small to the judiciary. A large network of community and federal organizations can absorb most of the costs, such as grants from Foundations, our Department of Justice, and the offender or other people. High-risk sex offenders can rehabilitate themselves when they contribute community service or personal finances to help pay for the continuing help provided in the sex offender monitoring program. The message to sex offenders is that police departments are enforcing public monitoring.
      In conclusion, the public can help a sex offender change for becoming a productive member of society, in which Scotland, so far, has a high success rate of assimilating sex offenders back into society. Sex offenders supervised by the police, probation offices, and concerned citizens will work.
       However, some people say that electronic monitoring by GPS must be the final solution for noncompliant sex offenders. Legal analysts argue that 24-hour electronic monitoring is unconstitutional. Many conservative people believe if the offender recidivates or has three warnings under the judicial supervision model, then off to court to judge whether he or she will spend an indefinite time at a State Hospital or prison.
       Until legislation changes, I believe that before anyone thinks about depriving the sex offender’s civil rights, people should not forget about the wide berth of Minnesota laws that can trap consenting--but unmarried adults--with arrests for illegal sex. Someday, you too might be a convicted sex offender.

                                                        References

Abner, Carrie. (April. 2006). Waging War on Sexual Crimes: States Target Sex  
             Offenders through Policy and Practice. [Electronic Version] State News.
             Retrieved from www.csg.org on February 25, 2007.

CSOM (Center for Sex Offender Management). (Feb. 2007). FY 2006 Comprehensive 
             Approaches to Sex Offender Management Grant Program Awards Announced.
             Retrieved from http://www.csom.org/whatsnew/new.html on February 26, 2007.

E-School News Staff. (Feb. 1, 2002). Probation officers use software to monitor sex   
             offenders. Retrieved from
              http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showstory.cfm?ArticleID=3489 on February  
              25, 2007.

Harrington, St. Paul Police Chief John M. (Spring. 2007). LAWE 301, Community
              Policing Lecture notes Jan. 22, 2007. Metropolitan State University, St. Paul,
              MN.
Marley, Patrick. (Feb. 15, 2007). Doyle seeks less sex offender monitoring: Budget                                          
               retreats from parts of plan he OK'd last year. [Electronic version] Journal 
              Sentinel. Retrieved from             http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=566483 on February 25, 2007.