Will a Sexual Predator’s Risk Initiative program help?
By Dahn Batchelor
At first blush, the words, Sex-Offender Registry gives us a feeling of security and well-being until we look into its purpose with a jaundice eye. Its purpose is to see to that convicted sex offenders are registered with the police so that wherever the sex offenders reside, the police will always know. That being as it is, it will be easy for the police to track down convicted sexual predators if they are suspected of re-offending.
In Ontario, it is called, Christopher’s Law which was named after 10-year-old Christopher Stephenson who was raped and murdered in 1988 by a sex-offender who was on statutory release from prison at the time.
On December 11, 2002, Federal Solicitor General Wayne Easter and Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada Martin Cauchon introduced similar legislation to implement a national sex offender registration system.
The backbone of the sex offender registration system will be a special new Sex Offender Database on the Canadian Police Information Centre (CPIC) system. The sex offender database will allow police to conduct a search according to a full or partial address and the offence of a sex offender or both. Offence information and registration information will be included, as well as other pertinent identification information such as tattoos, other distinguishing marks and DNA information.
Under the proposed legislation, convicted sex offenders will have to register within 15 days of being released from incarceration. Re-registration would be required annually and within 15 days of a change of residence. Offenders will be required to provide local police with current information such as addresses and telephone numbers, names and alias(es) and identifying marks and tattoos. Penalties will be provided for failing to comply with a registration order or for not giving truthful information.
In the United States, a similar law to the two aforementioned ones is referred to as Meagan’s Law. It was the brutal 1994 rape and murder of seven-year-old Megan Kanka in New Jersey that prompted the public demand for broad based community notification. It is applied in all 50 states.
Some of the states have the particulars of the registrees on the internet. For example, in Delaware, the Sex Offender Central Registry shows the picture of the offender, his or her date of birth, the offender’s current address and a description of the particular sex law that was broken. Publication of offender’s names and addresses and particulars of their offences on the Internet in the United States has resulted in some disastrous results such as some of them being victims of vigilantes who have committed arson and murder to re-punish the offenders.
There are unfortunately, failings in sexual offender registration systems that don’t make public the whereabouts of sex offenders that have been released from prison. There is nothing in these systems that make it possible for potential victims or their families to be warned in advance that a sexual predator is amongst them. Admittedly, some police forces in Canada have publicly announced the whereabouts of released violent sex-offenders but for the most part, this has been counter productive. The public reaction has been so negative, most of the released sex-offenders exposed thusly have been forced to move time and time again, which makes it more difficult for them to re-enter the community, that which is conducive to rehabilitation. Generally, only the police know where they are. What the police don’t know is what the ex-offenders are up to after his or her release from prison.
An example of this failing in these kinds of systems occurred recently and it hit right in my own home. A close friend of mine, a 55-year-old man whom I had known for twenty years, was a regular visitor to our home and recently, I observed that he was becoming all too familiar with my five and a half-year-old granddaughter. I spoke to my daughter and asked her to speak to her daughter to see if anything was being done to her by my friend that she considered was improper. Both my daughter and I studied criminal law, deviant behaviour and abnormal psychology at the University of Toronto and generally we can spot conduct like this. She spoke to her daughter and concluded that nothing was amiss. It could be because at that time, nothing was amiss.
A month later however, my friend sexually assaulted my granddaughter and left his semen behind. Within a day, he was arrested and charged and at the time of this writing, he is still in custody awaiting trial. The police investigators told my daughter that this particular man was a bad one and his lawyer told me that his client is very sick and needs treatment.
I asked a close friend of mine who is a police officer in the city this man resided in for some background on his criminal record. My friend apologized and said that he couldn’t give me that information because it was against police policy. When I spoke to the investigating officer in Mississauga where the alleged crime took place, she too said that she couldn’t give me that information. It’s ironic when you think of it. Both I and my daughter can only learn of this man’s criminal record if he is convicted and it is brought out during his sentencing.
I asked the investigating officer if she would have given me the information before the alleged offence took place if I was suspicious that he might be a sex offender molesting my granddaughter. She said that she still couldn’t give me that information even under those circumstances.
Before I go on any further, let me add that if the man was a mere acquaintance of mine, I wouldn’t have let him be that familiar with my granddaughter. But the man had been a close friend for twenty years and I knew his wife had left him, his children were grown up and he was lonely. And of course, I didn’t want to believe that he might be a sexual predator. I was probably too close to my friend to see his behaviour for what it was.
After asking my daughter to speak to her daughter and later being apprised by her that I didn’t have to worry, I let it go at that other than to speak to him and ask him not to be too familiar with her. As it turned out, other than some brief pain, my granddaughter was not savagely ravaged. She is her normal self again, even laughing at her own jokes. As time moves on, the experience will probably disappear in her mind.
But had she suffered terribly and been seriously injured as a result of this man’s alleged sexual assault on her, and it was because the police in the community in which we live had previously refused to give me information about this man’s criminal past as a relates to his previous sexual crimes, my daughter may very well have sued the police for their failure to look into the matter and warn us of the existence of this sexual predator in our midst.
In the famous Jane Doe case in Toronto in which she was victimized by a serial rapist because the police refused to warn the public of his presence in their midst, the court said in part, “In spite of the knowledge that (the) police had about this sexual rapist and their decision not to warn, they took no steps to protect Ms. Doe or any other women from this known danger. In my view, in the circumstances of this case, the police failed utterly in the duty of care they owed Ms. Doe.”
I think that same principle applies in cases where a potential victim or the family of such a potential victim makes enquiries to the police about someone whom they suspect may be a sexual predator for example, who is visiting their home on an ongoing basis and appears to be acting in an improper manner towards a child.
On October 5, 1999, Citizenship, Culture and Recreation Minister Helen Johns launched the $1.2 million Ontario Screening Initiative (OSI) to safeguard community groups, a program to protect children in sports from sexual abuse or the elderly being subjected to some form of abuse. She said, "We all want our loved ones to be safe in community programs -- whether it's a child playing soccer or an elderly parent receiving home care." The program is funded by the Ontario Government and operated by various community groups such as sports organizations, summer camps and church groups etc. The OSI promotes the adoption of safety practices for community groups to use to screen people in positions of trust, such as reference checks, job orientation, training, supervision and monitoring.
Perhaps a similar program could be implemented in Ontario and perhaps even across the country in which a group of volunteers in each community, comprising of retired police officers experienced in sexual abuse crimes and retired social workers who have the same kind of experience, could send a member of their group to interview a potential victim and his or her family and if the volunteer concludes that there may very well be a risk to the child, the volunteer ( who has been approved by the police ) can obtain from the police, information as to whether or not the person being enquired about has a criminal record for sexual crimes. That information obtained could then be passed onto the victim or his or her family via the volunteer. The program could be called the Sexual Predator’s Risk Initiative. ( SPRI )
Section 63.7 of the Criminal Records Act permits the police to disclose to authorized persons who are recognized by the police as being responsible for the wellbeing of children with respect to them evaluating volunteers who wish to work with children, information on any potential volunteer that may disclose a criminal record as a sex offender so it follows that an amendment to that Act could be created so that it would apply to members of SPRI. The disclosure to the child’s parents doesn’t have to be specific but it could disclose the fact that the person being enquired is a person that shouldn’t be near children.
Those in need of its services could be single mothers whose boyfriends have shown an unusual interest in their children, parents whose children appear to spend a lot of time in single adult’s homes, parents who feel that their children’s friends of the same sex are far too old for their children to be playing with, parents who have suspicions about the conduct of their babysitters or wives who have suspicions about their husbands molesting their children or visa versa.
The reasons for any parent being suspicious could be that the adult or older child is spending too much time roughhousing with the younger child or is constantly inviting the younger child to sit on his lap, is constantly telling jokes or stories of a sexual nature, is always wanting to be the one to bathe the child in the bathtub, or the child is afraid to be near a particular adult, or an adult is constantly giving money or gifts to the child or permitting the child to drink alcohol in the presence of the adult or wants to take the child on overnight camping trips all the time during the warm months of the year.
If professionals like my daughter and I can be fooled as we were, what about those persons who are untrained in recognizing sexual deviance in others. Unless something like SPRI is brought about, victims such as my granddaughter and her mother and thousands more like them will only learn of the sexual predator’s intentions after the sexual attacks have been committed on them or their loved ones and only learn during the sentencing aspect of the predator’s trials, when it is too late, about the sexual predators’ previous sex crimes.
By Dahn Batchelor
At first blush, the words, Sex-Offender Registry gives us a feeling of security and well-being until we look into its purpose with a jaundice eye. Its purpose is to see to that convicted sex offenders are registered with the police so that wherever the sex offenders reside, the police will always know. That being as it is, it will be easy for the police to track down convicted sexual predators if they are suspected of re-offending.
In Ontario, it is called, Christopher’s Law which was named after 10-year-old Christopher Stephenson who was raped and murdered in 1988 by a sex-offender who was on statutory release from prison at the time.
On December 11, 2002, Federal Solicitor General Wayne Easter and Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada Martin Cauchon introduced similar legislation to implement a national sex offender registration system.
The backbone of the sex offender registration system will be a special new Sex Offender Database on the Canadian Police Information Centre (CPIC) system. The sex offender database will allow police to conduct a search according to a full or partial address and the offence of a sex offender or both. Offence information and registration information will be included, as well as other pertinent identification information such as tattoos, other distinguishing marks and DNA information.
Under the proposed legislation, convicted sex offenders will have to register within 15 days of being released from incarceration. Re-registration would be required annually and within 15 days of a change of residence. Offenders will be required to provide local police with current information such as addresses and telephone numbers, names and alias(es) and identifying marks and tattoos. Penalties will be provided for failing to comply with a registration order or for not giving truthful information.
In the United States, a similar law to the two aforementioned ones is referred to as Meagan’s Law. It was the brutal 1994 rape and murder of seven-year-old Megan Kanka in New Jersey that prompted the public demand for broad based community notification. It is applied in all 50 states.
Some of the states have the particulars of the registrees on the internet. For example, in Delaware, the Sex Offender Central Registry shows the picture of the offender, his or her date of birth, the offender’s current address and a description of the particular sex law that was broken. Publication of offender’s names and addresses and particulars of their offences on the Internet in the United States has resulted in some disastrous results such as some of them being victims of vigilantes who have committed arson and murder to re-punish the offenders.
There are unfortunately, failings in sexual offender registration systems that don’t make public the whereabouts of sex offenders that have been released from prison. There is nothing in these systems that make it possible for potential victims or their families to be warned in advance that a sexual predator is amongst them. Admittedly, some police forces in Canada have publicly announced the whereabouts of released violent sex-offenders but for the most part, this has been counter productive. The public reaction has been so negative, most of the released sex-offenders exposed thusly have been forced to move time and time again, which makes it more difficult for them to re-enter the community, that which is conducive to rehabilitation. Generally, only the police know where they are. What the police don’t know is what the ex-offenders are up to after his or her release from prison.
An example of this failing in these kinds of systems occurred recently and it hit right in my own home. A close friend of mine, a 55-year-old man whom I had known for twenty years, was a regular visitor to our home and recently, I observed that he was becoming all too familiar with my five and a half-year-old granddaughter. I spoke to my daughter and asked her to speak to her daughter to see if anything was being done to her by my friend that she considered was improper. Both my daughter and I studied criminal law, deviant behaviour and abnormal psychology at the University of Toronto and generally we can spot conduct like this. She spoke to her daughter and concluded that nothing was amiss. It could be because at that time, nothing was amiss.
A month later however, my friend sexually assaulted my granddaughter and left his semen behind. Within a day, he was arrested and charged and at the time of this writing, he is still in custody awaiting trial. The police investigators told my daughter that this particular man was a bad one and his lawyer told me that his client is very sick and needs treatment.
I asked a close friend of mine who is a police officer in the city this man resided in for some background on his criminal record. My friend apologized and said that he couldn’t give me that information because it was against police policy. When I spoke to the investigating officer in Mississauga where the alleged crime took place, she too said that she couldn’t give me that information. It’s ironic when you think of it. Both I and my daughter can only learn of this man’s criminal record if he is convicted and it is brought out during his sentencing.
I asked the investigating officer if she would have given me the information before the alleged offence took place if I was suspicious that he might be a sex offender molesting my granddaughter. She said that she still couldn’t give me that information even under those circumstances.
Before I go on any further, let me add that if the man was a mere acquaintance of mine, I wouldn’t have let him be that familiar with my granddaughter. But the man had been a close friend for twenty years and I knew his wife had left him, his children were grown up and he was lonely. And of course, I didn’t want to believe that he might be a sexual predator. I was probably too close to my friend to see his behaviour for what it was.
After asking my daughter to speak to her daughter and later being apprised by her that I didn’t have to worry, I let it go at that other than to speak to him and ask him not to be too familiar with her. As it turned out, other than some brief pain, my granddaughter was not savagely ravaged. She is her normal self again, even laughing at her own jokes. As time moves on, the experience will probably disappear in her mind.
But had she suffered terribly and been seriously injured as a result of this man’s alleged sexual assault on her, and it was because the police in the community in which we live had previously refused to give me information about this man’s criminal past as a relates to his previous sexual crimes, my daughter may very well have sued the police for their failure to look into the matter and warn us of the existence of this sexual predator in our midst.
In the famous Jane Doe case in Toronto in which she was victimized by a serial rapist because the police refused to warn the public of his presence in their midst, the court said in part, “In spite of the knowledge that (the) police had about this sexual rapist and their decision not to warn, they took no steps to protect Ms. Doe or any other women from this known danger. In my view, in the circumstances of this case, the police failed utterly in the duty of care they owed Ms. Doe.”
I think that same principle applies in cases where a potential victim or the family of such a potential victim makes enquiries to the police about someone whom they suspect may be a sexual predator for example, who is visiting their home on an ongoing basis and appears to be acting in an improper manner towards a child.
On October 5, 1999, Citizenship, Culture and Recreation Minister Helen Johns launched the $1.2 million Ontario Screening Initiative (OSI) to safeguard community groups, a program to protect children in sports from sexual abuse or the elderly being subjected to some form of abuse. She said, "We all want our loved ones to be safe in community programs -- whether it's a child playing soccer or an elderly parent receiving home care." The program is funded by the Ontario Government and operated by various community groups such as sports organizations, summer camps and church groups etc. The OSI promotes the adoption of safety practices for community groups to use to screen people in positions of trust, such as reference checks, job orientation, training, supervision and monitoring.
Perhaps a similar program could be implemented in Ontario and perhaps even across the country in which a group of volunteers in each community, comprising of retired police officers experienced in sexual abuse crimes and retired social workers who have the same kind of experience, could send a member of their group to interview a potential victim and his or her family and if the volunteer concludes that there may very well be a risk to the child, the volunteer ( who has been approved by the police ) can obtain from the police, information as to whether or not the person being enquired about has a criminal record for sexual crimes. That information obtained could then be passed onto the victim or his or her family via the volunteer. The program could be called the Sexual Predator’s Risk Initiative. ( SPRI )
Section 63.7 of the Criminal Records Act permits the police to disclose to authorized persons who are recognized by the police as being responsible for the wellbeing of children with respect to them evaluating volunteers who wish to work with children, information on any potential volunteer that may disclose a criminal record as a sex offender so it follows that an amendment to that Act could be created so that it would apply to members of SPRI. The disclosure to the child’s parents doesn’t have to be specific but it could disclose the fact that the person being enquired is a person that shouldn’t be near children.
Those in need of its services could be single mothers whose boyfriends have shown an unusual interest in their children, parents whose children appear to spend a lot of time in single adult’s homes, parents who feel that their children’s friends of the same sex are far too old for their children to be playing with, parents who have suspicions about the conduct of their babysitters or wives who have suspicions about their husbands molesting their children or visa versa.
The reasons for any parent being suspicious could be that the adult or older child is spending too much time roughhousing with the younger child or is constantly inviting the younger child to sit on his lap, is constantly telling jokes or stories of a sexual nature, is always wanting to be the one to bathe the child in the bathtub, or the child is afraid to be near a particular adult, or an adult is constantly giving money or gifts to the child or permitting the child to drink alcohol in the presence of the adult or wants to take the child on overnight camping trips all the time during the warm months of the year.
If professionals like my daughter and I can be fooled as we were, what about those persons who are untrained in recognizing sexual deviance in others. Unless something like SPRI is brought about, victims such as my granddaughter and her mother and thousands more like them will only learn of the sexual predator’s intentions after the sexual attacks have been committed on them or their loved ones and only learn during the sentencing aspect of the predator’s trials, when it is too late, about the sexual predators’ previous sex crimes.
posted by Dahn Batchelor | 9:27 AM
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