10A NATION
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2007
>>CRIME
Sex offenders declare homelessness state has difficulty tracking them
Laws restricting where offenders can live prove troublesome
Department of Corrections parole agents Jerry Ramirez and Guilleermo Viero Ross talk with a sex offender parolee who wished to remain unidentified in Oakland, Calif. Hundreds of recently paroled sex offenders are listing themselves as homeless.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BY DON THOMPSON
ASSOCIATED PRESS
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Hundreds of California sex offenders who face tough new restrictions on where they can live are declaring themselves homeless — truthfully or not — and that's making it difficult for the state to track them.
Jessica's Law, approved by 70 percent of California voters a year ago, bars registered sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or park where children gather. That leaves few places where offenders can live legally.
Some who have had trouble finding a place to live are avoiding rearest by reporting — falsely, in some cases — that they are homeless.
Experts say it is hard to monitor sex offenders when they lie about their address or are living day-to-day in cheap hotels, homeless shelters or on the street. It also means they may not be getting the treatment they need.
Similar laws in Iowa and Florida have driven offenders underground or onto the streets.
"We could potentially be making the world more dangerous rather than less dangerous," said therapist Gerry Blasingame, past chairman of the California Coalition on Sexual Offending.
tors.
"They drop off the registry because they don't want to admit living in a prohibited zone," said Corwin Ritchie, executive director of the association of Iowa prosecu-
The organization tried unsuccessfully in the past two years to persuade lawmakers to repeal the state's 2,000-foot residency restriction.
"Most legislators know in their hearts that the law is no good and a waste of time, but they're afraid of the politics of it," Ritchie said.
The problem is worsening in Florida as about 100 local ordinances add restrictions to the state's 1,000-foot rule, said Florida Corrections Department spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger. Sixteen homeless offenders are now living under a Miami bridge, while one another took to sleeping on a bench outside a probation office.
"As society has imposed restrictions, it becomes almost impossible for them to find places to live," Plessinger said.
Twenty-two states have distance restrictions varying from 500 feet to 2,000 feet, according to California researchers. But most impose the offender-free zones only around schools, and several apply only to child molesters, not all sex offenders.
California's law requires paroles to live in the county of their last legal residence. But in San Francisco, for example, all homes are within 2,000 feet of a school or park.
"The state is requiring parolees to find eligible housing in San Francisco, knowing full well there isn't any," said Mike Jimenez, president of the California parole officers union. "It will be impossible for parole agents to enforce Jessica's Law in certain areas, and encouraging 'transient' living arrangements just allows sex offenders to avoid it altogether."
State figures show a 27 percent increase in homelessness among California's 67,000 registered sex offenders since the law took effect in November 2006. Since August, the number of offenders with no permanent address rose by 560 to 2,622.
"This is a huge surge," said Deputy Attorney General Janet Neeley, whose office maintains the database. "Any law enforcement officer would tell you we would prefer to have offenders at addresses
where we can locate them."
Offenders who declare themselves homeless must tell their parole officer each day where they spent the previous night.
Those who declare themselves homeless are still legally bound by the 2,000-foot rule; they cannot stay under a bridge near where children gather, for example. But it is more difficult for parole officers to keep tabs on them.
Parole officers said some offenders are registering as homeless, then sneaking back to homes that violate the law. That's easy to do because fewer than 30 percent of transient offenders currently wear the Global Positioning System tracking devices required by Jessica's Law.
IMMIGRATION
ProAmerica Web site discourages hiring of illegal immigrants
BY JOHN HANNA ASSOCIATED PRESS
LAWRENCE — Josh Link sometimes spends 15 or 20 minutes shaping a single stone for a wall. He's proud of using a Flemish bond pattern — not the standard American one — for a brick walkway. And he points out that Winston Churchill laid bricks as a hobby.
He lists his company, Masonry Art, of Kansas City, Mo., on a 5-month-old Web site operated by a Dallas-based nonprofit, ProAmerica Company. He took a pledge not to knowingly hire illegal immigrants.
Link specializes in projects for homes like the gray mansion he's working on west of Lawrence, and he worries about being undercut by companies hiring illegal immigrants. He also said the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks jarred him into thinking about issues such as national security and immigration.
His decision earlier this year made him part of ProAmerica's fledgling effort to encourage firms not to hire illegal immigrants and help consumers patronize businesses that don't. The thinking is that illegal wonts come to the United States if they can't find jobs.
"They're running from Mexico. If they had a job over there, they wouldn't want to leave," he said.
"They work hard. They want money for their families. They can't get it in Mexico."
ProAmerica's effort began while Congress struggled with illegal immigration. Comprehensive legislation failed in June, and last week, a measure designed to give some children of illegal immigrants a path to legal status stalled in the Senate, probably dooming further work this year.
Also this year, some Kansas legislators sought stiffer penalties for businesses hiring illegal immigrants. Their bill stalled, and the only immigration-related measure to pass designated English as the state's official language.
A Gallup poll in June said about a third of the nearly 2,400 Americans surveyed thought illegal immigrants
Last year, the Pew Hispanic Center estimated that between 11 million and 12 million illegal immigrants were living in the United States, with between 40,000 and 70,000 in Kansas.
"They're running from Mexico. If they had a job over there, they wouldn't want to leave."
were hurting their or their families' job opportunities. Nearly half said immigration should be decreased.
"When was the last time you saw a teenager mowing a lawn?" he said during an interview. "Someone is going to have to be there, picking the fruits and vegetables."
But Michael Barrera, chief executive of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, said that Americans had expressed frustration with immigration throughout history and that Latinos were "the flavor of the decade." He said illegal immigrants filled jobs requiring manual labor that Americans didn't fill.
Stepping into the ongoing debate was David Marlett, a Dallas attorney, accountant and political consultant. He formed ProAmerica in June and launched its Web site.
Marlett said ProAmerica arose
Businesses can list themselves as not hiring illegal immigrants and receive help in verifying workers' status as legal. Marlett said Wednesday that ProAmerica also plans a Webbased catalog of Christmas gifts offered by participating companies.
JOSH LINK Owner of Masonry Art
"I think you ought to sav.
from a personal experience. Around Christmas 2006, his wife wanted several rooms in their home painted. Marlett said he loathes painting and tried to hire someone.
A ProAmerica chapter formed in the Kansas City area in September, and about 600 businesses now are listed on the Web site. Besides Link's business, they include an aircraft parts distributor in Dallas, an advertising firm in Panama City, Fla., and a sandwich shop in Geneva, Neb.
'Are you sure all your employees are legal? If you care, you'll ask; that's my opinion', he said. "I ended up painting those rooms. I made about 10 phone calls and wasn't happy with any of the answers."
This week, as California battled wildfires, his group issued a statement saying the state should verify the status of workers hired to clean up debris and rebuild businesses.
Still, he said, many responses to illegal immigration should come from outside government: "How about we as a collective society say, 'OK, now wait a minute. We have laws. We need to follow them.' What are we teaching our kids?"
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