Keeping a close eye: City sex offenders monitored under
Megan's Law
By Gene Warner, News Staff Reporter
It's a huge, sprawling brick house, 2 1/2 stories tall, with no schools and few houses in sight. A closed gas station, a huge parking lot and a factory are among its closest neighbors.
Eight convicted sex offenders, considered high-risk and likely to repeat their crimes, live in this house in Buffalo.
More high-risk sex offenders live in this one boardinghouse than in all of Erie County outside of Buffalo. These eight men are the poster boys for the state's Megan's Law. Their names, photos, addresses, specific sex crimes and even the ages and sexes of their victims are available for public viewing in every Buffalo school, more than 80 buildings.
They're marked men.
Four times a year, plus whenever they move, these men must go to the third floor of Buffalo Police Headquarters, into the Sex Offense Squad, to fill out a form and verify where they're living. If they don't, they're likely to be thrown back into prison.
And parole officers, as one official put it, watch them like hawks.
That's why this boardinghouse filled with parolees and sex offenders might not be such a dangerous neighbor.
"It's probably the safest place to live near, because parole officers keep a constant vigil on this place," said one occupant, a 63-year-old parolee who described himself as a Level 2 (moderate risk) sex offender. "They ride around here at all hours. They may be around here right now."
In one way, these convicted sex offenders are lucky.
They live in the City of Buffalo.
If they lived in a Buffalo suburb, they'd likely see their faces on school mailings sent to every student's house, and they might even be the subject of a community meeting to discuss their presence, which has occurred in at least one suburb. Placing these offenders in one location actually makes the public safer, law enforcement officials say, because the offenders can be closely monitored. The house is located in an industrial area not far from downtown, in the Swan Street-Seneca Street neighborhood."If you put everybody in that boardinghouse at eight different addresses, it will become much more difficult to monitor them," one official said.
More than five years after Megan's Law took effect, the statute has yielded a variety of policies and procedures, from town to town and school district to school district.
Megan's Law, which took effect Jan. 21, 1996, allows - but doesn't force - local police agencies to notify "vulnerable" members of the public about any high- or moderate-risk sex offenders living near them. However, notification may be made only about sex offenders who committed their crimes after that 1996 date.
Whether the crime occurred before or after that date, released sex offenders must register with their local police agency. Level 3 (high-risk) offenders must report every 90 days, while Level 1 and 2 offenders have to report once a year; all three levels also must report whenever they move.
City-suburb disparity
Buffalo is home to 30 high-risk offenders who committed their crimes after January 1996. That compares to only six living in the rest of Erie County; no town currently houses more than one such offender, according to the state's Sex Offender Registry.
Many of these sex offenders have committed their crimes in Buffalo. And it's clearly easier for them to blend into a large city than a suburban town.
Other
things also are clear about how Megan's Law is enforced:
• In the suburbs, school districts often notify every school family about
Level 2 or Level 3 offenders, usually through mass mailings.
• Buffalo residents get no such notices when a convicted sex offender
is released from prison.
The Buffalo Sex Offense Squad sends letters to about 45 public officials or organizations, including each Common Council member, the Buffalo Public Schools central office, the Catholic Diocese and various local agencies. Those groups then decide whether and how to notify their publics.
The Buffalo schools, citing the enormous costs and logistical difficulties of mass mailings, have no such notification procedure. The information, however, is available for public viewing in two places in every school.
"It's a great law, and its purpose is noble," said Bill Jackson, the school district's chief of security. "But it puts a disproportionate responsibility on big-city school districts that have large populations, large numbers of schools and kids traveling all over the city to attend school."
• Despite all the publicity about the notification section of Megan's Law, the registration part may be more important in keeping the public safe from sex offenders.
By filling out a form every 90 days, Level 3 sex offenders know they're being monitored.
"I think the registration aspects of Megan's Law are more effective than the notification," said Erie County District Attorney Frank J. Clark."I think it gives them the impression that Big Brother is watching them."
Detective Lt. James W. Carney, who supervises the Family Offenses Unit of the Town of Tonawanda Police Department, agrees.
"At least we know where they are, and we can keep track of them," he said of the offenders.
Carney, like many other law enforcement officials, has mixed views about the notification part.
"I don't know if I've ever seen a stranger molest a child. It's usually a neighbor, a relative or a friend of the family," he said.
Boardinghouse rules
Two dozen men, most of them parolees, live in the Buffalo boardinghouse. At least eight are considered high-risk sex offenders.
Though these city residents don't get their names, addresses and photos mailed to every school family, they don't have it easy.
As convicted sex offenders and parolees, they live under unbending rules.
No women or children are allowed inside the house. They must obey a strict 10 p.m. curfew; parole officers drive by at any hour, but especially a few minutes after 10 p.m. to look for curfew violators.
Offenders are encouraged to do their laundry at a nearby laundromat during school hours, to avoid children. And they know they can't let their guard down around fellow offenders.
"One offender will squeal on another to make himself look good," said the offender who agreed to talk with The Buffalo News.
As a convicted sex offender, the 63-year-old man goes to required group counseling, to deal with his compulsion. He was a drug dealer who also was convicted of rape for having sex with 12- and 14-year-old girls.
"I'm not a monster," he said at the front door of the boardinghouse. "What I did was wrong. I had choices. I made the wrong choices. I think I wanted to corrupt innocents. I was a sick person, deviant. I targeted these two girls because they happened to be available."
This sex offender - known in jail as a drug dealer, not a rapist of young girls - believes the registration section of Megan's Law weighs more heavily on offenders than the notification part.
"The threat of returning to jail, I think that would be the biggest deterrent," he said. "These guys suffered in jail. They were treated like lowlifes."
How about the fear of having your name and photo mailed to school families or available for viewing in a school?
"I think, in time, you feel accustomed to it," he said. "It's like a Big Brother scenario of having a camera on you. After a while, you get used to it."
Dire consequences
Lt. David F. Mann Jr., commander of the Buffalo Sex Offense Squad, explained the rationale for sending convicted sex offenders back to jail just for failing to report every 90 days.
"If they can't even meet the simple requirement of filling out a form to verify their information - a process that takes five minutes or less - then we should all be concerned about their ability to control their sexual behavior," Mann said.
When offenders come in to register, they're treated with respect, and there's no attempt to embarrass them, Mann's staff says.
But failure to register is a serious mistake.
The Buffalo Police Sex Offense Squad has sought close to 70 warrants - out of the hundreds of offenders on its books - for failure to report under Megan's Law, a Class B misdemeanor. Offenders also can face double trouble, for violating their parole.
Logistical nightmare
The 63-year-old man and his eight Level 3 housemates needn't worry about their photos being mailed to every Buffalo school family.
It would be a Herculean task for the Buffalo schools.
Buffalo children often cross town to attend school. Unlike the suburbs, there's no real neighborhood-school concept.
Jackson, the school district's security chief, did the math for citywide mailings. Sending a notice to the families of the district's 47,000 students would cost $15,980 in postage alone. Mailing out notices to each household just for each of the city's 30 current Level 3 offenders would push the total close to $500,000.
"That's an astronomical figure, and do we accomplish anything?" Jackson asked. "If I send you 30 sex-offender notices, are you going to post them on your refrigerator? And what do you tell your second- or third-grade child about them? You don't want to panic children."
Instead, the notices on each Level 3 offender are mailed to every school building. Each school, under the district's Megan's Law policy, must post a notice at the school entrance, advising parents of the two places in the school where they can view a one-page summary on each Level 3 offender.
The information isn't rammed down anyone's throat. But it's there for anyone who's interested.
"We feel it's the best way to provide the information," Jackson said. "It puts schools and parents on alert that there may be a high-risk offender living in their neighborhood. To that extent, I think the law works."
Conversely, many suburban school districts - including West Seneca, Orchard Park, Hamburg and Lake Shore - have mailed notices about sex offenders living within their districts.
But the policies and practices vary. Some school districts send notices to every home; others target only the immediate neighborhood. Some notify only about Level 3 offenders; others also include the less serious Level 2 offenders. And some districts choose not to notify, or make decisions on a case-by-case basis.
Clark, the district attorney, was asked about the disparity across the county, especially about the huge difference between the notification procedures in the city and its suburbs.
Suburban towns are a more centralized, less transient society, patrolled by police forces that aren't under the same pressures as the Buffalo police, Clark said. They also have many fewer Megan's Law offenders. So implementing the law there is easier.
"That's a fact of life," he said. "We have to accept it."
Clark cautioned against relying on Megan's Law too heavily. "In 95 percent of cases, children are molested by people known to their family - the baby sitter, Uncle Charlie, the guy across the street, the mother's boyfriend," Clark said. "You don't need notification. You don't need to see a picture. You already know the guy."