What's the Matter with Schenectady?

In June, I posted about sex offender laws in Schenectady.  f/k/a continues to be on top of what is going on there.  As recounted there, the NYCLU is helping lead the charge against the recently adopted restrictions:

In a four-page letter joined by three area lawyers, the Capital Region Chapter of the New York Civil Liberties Union advises each member of Schenectady County’s Democratic-controlled Legislature that the sex offender residency restrictions [SORR] enacted by the County on June 12, 2007 are unconstitutional and will be challenged in a lawsuit, if not immediately rescinded or drastically revised. (see Agenda, at pp 68 - 74, for text of the law) The Letter declares: “it should be clear to all that this legislation was passed in haste, without careful attention either to New York state law or to constitutional protections.”

The letter is available here.  One of the authors of the letter is f/k/a's author, David Giacalone.  According to the updates at f/k/a, it looks like the efforts to combat the worst portions of the reforms are having some success:

update (Aug. 9, 2007): See “Dems to alter offender laws: Legislators cite concerns of town supervisors,” Daily Gazette, Aug. 9, 2007, which reports that likely changes would be repealing the law requiring relocation, exempting Level 1 offenders from the SORR, and “allowing towns to adopt more restrictive provisions if they choose” [Ed note: town laws would raise serious state pre-emption issues]; “Residency law faces possible challenge,” Albany Times Union (Aug. 9, 2007; reprinted); and also Carl Strock, “Schenectady’s imaginary predators,” Schenectady Daily Gazette, Aug. 9, 2007, which is covered this morning in a separate posting.

update (6 PM): WTEN.com News just told viewers about the NYCLU’s Letter, and quotes Legislative Chair Susan Savage saying that the Legislature is considering making major changes to its sex offender residency restriction [SORR] laws. Savage insists the changes have been under consideration and are in no way a reaction to the NYCLU lawsuit threat. Note, however, that Savage is quoted in yesterday’s Schenectady Daily Gazette (Aug. 7, 2007) insisting that “There is no change in the law that I anticipate.” Channel 10 was not able to get any other County legislator to discuss SORR on camera. [WNYT, Channel 13, had a similar story on its 6 o’clock news; at 10PM, FoxNews23, ran “NYCLU Threatens Legal Action against Schenectady County” (Aug. 8, 2007); and CapitalNews9 updated its story “Lawsuit could be filed over sex offender laws,” to discuss possible changes in the law.] I’d bet that a combination of Ed Kosiur’s stunning SORR-related political defeat and the looming reality of incurring large legal expenses in a losing cause made Ms. Savage and her Posse see the light.

11 PM update: WNYT13 reported that the Legislature is considering removing Level One offenders from the law, and grandfathering-in those living within the no-reside zones at the time the law was passed. That confirms my own information. I’m not sure this will satisfy the outlying Towns or remove the pre-emption issue, but it would eliminate two of the most troublesome aspects of the Schenectady County SORR.

I have to say that it is great to see the letter having such an important effect in shaping the local debate about sex offender restrictions.  It shows that at least some of the time, facts and sound argument can make a difference in what are often emotionally and politically driven efforts to pass short-sighted sex offender laws.  f/k/a has followed up the original post with an interesting little factoid from a local news account:

On the night the Schenectady County Legislature passed its infamous sex offender residency/eviction laws (see our June 13th post PanderPols Vote to Evict Sex Offenders), County Legislator Joseph Suhrada complained that our children could have been protected over the past two years from sex-predator neighbors, if his colleagues had only passed such residency restrictions when he first proposed them in 2005. As we left that public meeting, I mentioned to Daily Gazette columnist Carl Strock that we should check out just how many instances of registered sex offenders molesting children we’ve had here in Schenectady County since the Legislature wisely chose not to pass Suhrada’s ban. And, I ventured a guess based on my recollection of local news accounts: Not one. Well, this morning, Carl’s Gazette column has the answers. It is called “Schenectady’s imaginary predators” (Aug. 9, 2007) and is worth reading in its entirety. With no further commentary, let me quote the most salient parts:

    “. . . [H]ere’s what I learned from no less an authority than Schenectady County District Attorney Robert Carney … In the past two years the district attorney’s office has processed 113 sex crime defendants and of those a mere six were registered sex offenders repeating their crimes. Further, of those six repeaters, only two were charged with offenses against children, and of those two, neither was accused as a stranger. They were both some kind of family members or acquaintances.”

    “In other words in the past two years there has not been a single case of what the legislators (and many others) want us to believe is a trememdous social problem — serial ‘predators’ skulking around schools and playgrounds waiting to snatch away our innocent children for their perverted gratification.”

That's a pretty impressive fact to use against the restrictions in that community.  Sometimes, the bogeyman really is just your imagination.

Comments

[Mica]

Being a former newspaper reporter, I was ALWAYS taught and reminded by my editors to check my facts, be objective, and to tell both sides. Obviously, the reporter quoted in this piece has done his homework and is telling the facts, not the emotional drivel reported by 90 percent of the media out there. For that, I applaud him. For the media people who don't check facts, give both sides and be objective, shame on you. You're betraying the public trust by not giving all the facts so that people can make reasoned, rational, and logical choices. You're pandering to the fear in our society, rather than trying to relieve it.

[Ilah]

The same results re: who commits offenses has been found in Iowa, ground zero for blanket res-res. Iowa officials also reported that, after 18 months, there had been no change in sex offenses. The ones that had been committed were overwhelming by first-time offenders and family members.

The same analysis holds true regardless of res-res. In my home state, there were 13,000 cases of substantiated child sexual abuse over a three-year period. DOC stats show 78 newly released registered offenders were convicted of ANY new crime over that same period. While it's certainly true there were convictions of RSOs who fell outside the DOC parameters, it wouldn't add up to the majority. In fact, if RSOs had been responsible for all those crimes, there would be no more left on the registry because they'd ALL be in DOC custody--and 50% of the crimes would have been committed by someone not on the registry.

(Of course, the 13K figure doesn't include sex crimes against adults, or cases that didn't run through CPS.)

This county's saga began because a former mayor took in a long-time family friend--an offender who had just been released--because the man had nowhere else to go. That family was helping him reintegrate, and neighbors were irate. One father said he'd no longer let his four-year-old daughter run around the neighborhood. (That he was letting a four-year-old run around before is disturbing in itself.)

If I recall correctly, the ordinance resulted in the man staying in one of the few places not covered: the former mayor's home.

[Dave]

What's really disturbing is wondering what kind of adults these kids who are instilled with fear are going to become. The major problem we have today is the current generation of adults willing to lay down their liberties in the name of safety, all the while gladly supporting the stripping of even more fundamental human rights from RSOs. The media and politicians gladly whip the general public into a frenzy, and those young parents with small children are now telling them that the boogeyman doesn't live under their bed, but in the house three doors down. They say he's real, and he will get you if you go outside.

When I was a kid, the only monsters I was afraid of existed only in the fantasy of movies and television. A generation of kids instilled with fear of reality will be even more easier to control and suppress when they get older. Perhaps that is the true GOP plan. In order to maintain a generational legacy, you have to indoctrinate youth that their survival and happiness is dependent on your party. What happens, though, if they grow and learn the truth?

Our grandchildren yet born will curse our names mightily.

[Ilah]

Oh, I don't think the fear is unique to this generation, Dave. I grew up in the late 70s/early 80s, and I remember being afraid to ride my bike past a certain large shrub at the neighbor's house because my imagination had implanted a vision of a faceless kidnapper hiding behind it.

I've also read historical accounts from the 30s, 40s, and 50s regarding localized kidnapping scares. The difference is there was no technology to pipe those incidents and endless follow-ups into our homes 24-hours a day, and no technology that enabled folks to look up other folks 24 hours a day. What we're seeing, imo, is not a new hysteria--the loss of children is a primal terror--but a lack of circumstance that once inhibited the never-ending pump-up of fear, and a lack of willingness to acknowledge there are many rungs on the ladder between "not caring about children" and full-blown hysteria.

As for GOP responsibility, remember it was a Dem who signed the first national registration laws. This issue has been one of political equal opportunity.

[Dave]

The GOP is still responsible for our current situation in Iraq, and they used fear to get us there and fear to keep Bush in the White House. Charlie Crist was elected here in Florida partly thanks to RSO fear. I know fear isn't new to this generation, but as you pointed out, the Internet and media bombardment is. You also say that it was your own imagination that planted the vision of a faceless kidnapper in your head. It was not your parents warning you about a real person who statistically was not likely to harm you.

Regardless of how we got here, here we are. For every step forward technology takes us, society remains 3 steps behind. And as far as Clinton signing Megan's Law, it was still a Republican who wrote the law. Same with NAFTA, the biggest scam the GOP ever pulled in the 90's.