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THURSDAY MAY 12. 2005
2005
SEX CRIMES
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offenders in our community than are on the list and most are known to the victim — family members, friends, people we trust. We need to teach our kids what they need to know from an early age: That certain behaviors are simply wrong, no matter who is doing them, and to tell us when they happen."
Yvonne Cournoyer, program director for Stop It Now!, a nationwide group that offers counseling to those who fear they might become sex offenders, said the list by itself wasn't protecting the community because so many people are not on it.
"It creates a big sense of," if someone is not on that list, I don't need to worry about them, and that's a big fallacy." Cournoy said.
McAllister said that some offenders would continue to commit their crimes even if they knew they were being watched, and that the list only told the public where they lived, not what they actually did.
Critics of the list also argue that the public knowing that an offender lives nearby doesn't do much to protect them anyway.
Jonathon Bourgeois
Registered sex offender
The registry won't reveal where they work, either. But for many of the registered sex offenders, the registry makes a job difficult to come by, even as a condition for their parole.
"A lot of them are going to reoffend even if it's known," McAllister said. "All it tells you is where they live, not where they're going to be."
UNEQUAL OPPORTUNITY
EMPLOYMENT
Bourgeois said it was the stigma he faced as a registered sex offender that made it nearly impossible to get a job. Because he was required to disclose his offense to employers, he found it difficult to be taken seriously by those he interviewed with, especially when they discovered the offense involved a child.
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When asked on an application bother, he had
It's demoralizing. It makes you feel like other people think you're a degenerate."
been convicted of a felony, he would write. "Yes, will discuss in interview." He said it always came up in the interview, and employers would not react favorably when they learned that his felony was sexual in nature, and more so when they learned the technical charge involved a child.
"If you have a pile of applications and you have 15 people applying for one job and you've written that you're a sex offender, you go to the bottom of the pile." Bourgeois said.
And when they discussed it in the interview?
offense,' you could see the way they would react, and you would know," Bourgeois said, his voice trailing off.
Another convicted sex offender who lives in Lawrence said he encountered trouble keeping jobs when his coworkers learned about his criminal past from the registry.
"Paul," who asked that his real name not be used for this story, said that after his conviction for aggravated indecent liberties with a child, he lost his job as a telemarketer when a female co-worker discovered his conviction on the Web site. He was fired one day after she complained to management.
"As soon as you say, 'sexual
He didn't disclose his conviction when he later applied for and received a job at Wal-Mart. But management eventually found out about it and it became an issue at work, he said.
"She said she didn't feel safe at work," Paul said. "I looked through all their policies; the only thing you had to report was for drugs. In Kansas, you can get fired for anything."
"I do believe it affected job promotion and pay." he said.
"Everything
I did wrong was looked at with a magnifying glass. I wanted to work in sporting goods but you can't sell guns when you have a felony. Even though I knew every computer system there, I couldn't take a promotion."
He eventually grew tired of his dead-end status at Wal-Mart and quit.
He now works in construction in Lawrence, where he said no longer had to worry about job
"I'm pissed off at the world at this point," he said.
map makes the offender an outcast in the neighborhood. Many don't feel welcome and have difficulty finding a landlord willing to
security related to his offense now that he holds a union card.
Crenshaw, the then apist, said a rocky and inconsistent job situation was dangerous for sex offenders and made it more difficult to return to their normal lives.
"If people can't get jobs, then they suffer, and their family suffers," Crenshaw said. "Moreover, joblessness can be a significant contributor to further antisocial behavior. Working is a key to rehabilitation."
Stacey Mann, advocacy services coordinator for the Kansas Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence, said it was inappropriate for sex offenders like Bourgeois to blame their plight on the registry.
"That is a concern and a problem that all sex offenders face," Mann said. "Mone convictions are public record, regardless of it being a sex offense or being on a registry."
weren't any different.
Branson, the district attorney, said all criminals had to face the prospect of disclosing their criminal background to a prospective employer, and sex offenders
don't think that's different from any other person who has committed a felony," Branson said. "The moral of that is: If you're worried about getting a job in the future, don't commit a crime now."
Fischli, the corrections specialist,
agreed that there would be some
show that they had changed from the time they had been convicted.
"For most jobs, it really comes down to the offender articulating where he is now as opposed to where he was then," Fischli said.
lease to them.
It doesn't get much easier when the offender seeks a place to live. The stigma of being a sex offender in a community and having the residence appear on a
lease to them
Teresa Jacobs, program
HOME ISN'T WHERE THE SEX OFFENDER IS
Teresa jacobs, program manager for the Jacob Wetterling Foundation — a victims rights organization named after an 8-year-old Minnesota boy who disappeared in 1989 — said the inability to maintain a steady living environment was a danger to the offender and the community.
"The less stable the living situation, the more at-risk they are to re-offend." Jacobs said.
Bourgeois didn't re-offend, but he said finding a place to live was infuriating.
When he was released from the correctional facility, he couldn't immediately find a landlord who would approve his rental application. He bounced around from one friend's house to another, never staying in one place for long.
STILL THERE McAllister said
His transience prevented him from receiving mail from the KBI that was supposed to track where he was. This made him automatically in violation of his registration. Once he finally did find a place to live, he was arrested for failing to keep up with his registration.
despite many problems with the sex offender registry law, the list isn't going away anytime soon because it's too popular politically.
However, Rep. Sloan said that even with its benefits, he didn't rule out the possibility that the list might need to be altered somewhat.
"It serves the public by giving them some notice," Sloan said. "Whether the list is updated regularly enough or accurate enough, that's something that technically needs to be addressed."
Even with its shortcomings, district attorney Branson said they pailed in comparison to the possibility of even one more child falling victim to a sex offender.
"There are few crimes out there that evoke a response from the public like sex crimes," Branson said. "There's not a community outcry that there is a theft offender next door."
As for Bourgeois, he still lives in Lawrence where he is engaged. His fiancée is four
years younger than he is, a larger age difference than the one that got him arrested at age 18.
"That age separation means nothing now, but I still get lumped together with these other sex offenders," Bourgeois said.
He also has a two-and-a half year old son.
He works construction in Kansas City and hopes to save enough money to go to school. He is off parole and has paid his final court fees.
Bourgeois said he was close to finally moving forward with his life, but having his name and photo on the list — his scarlet letter — was one hurdle he
couldn't quite leap over.
He was recently brought in for questioning by Lawrence police who were investigating an incident where a man exposed himself to young girls in a nearby park.
Bourgeois said investigators told him it was routine procedure to question all sex offenders in the area.
Although he was quickly cleared of involvement, he said the stigma of his scarlet letter was still hurtful.
"It's demoralizing." Bourgeois said. "It makes you feel like other people think you're a degenerate."
Right now, he's working to get the offense itself expunged from his record.
"I can get it expunged next year. It would be nice not to have to deal with it anymore," he said.
Through it all, he has never visited the KBI Web site to look at his own name and picture on the list.
"I told myself I didn't need it," Bourgeois said. "I know what's happened in my life and I know what I've done. I felt it would lend credibility to it, which it doesn't have."
— Edited by Azita Tafreshi
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