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TV warnings on predators stir debate
By SHARON TUBBS © St. Petersburg Times, published January 31, 1999 The TV show titles are catchy, the hosts usually are local officers clad in uniform, and for a segment the featured faces are those of sexual predators in a neighborhood near you. Since the state passed a law in 1996 that required law enforcement agencies to tell the public when a sexual predator moves into the community, more local police chiefs have decided to use television as a mechanism to get the word out. They show the ex-convicts' faces and tell their addresses and, in one case, show maps to better pinpoint the predators' neighborhoods. Tampa was among the first, using its city-produced cable show, Safe Streets. St. Petersburg wasn't far behind, giving sex criminals about 15 minutes of exposure on Special Report. In the past six months, Clearwater followed suit with air time on BlueLine: CPD. And Largo aired its first batch of offenders on government Channel 15 last week. But civil liberties groups and therapists who treat sex predators and offenders contend that officials are playing politics. The law says the public must be notified but does not stipulate how. Putting a criminal's mug shot on TV is "in." "I'm not certain it's been proven that doing things like that really makes people safer," said Larry Spalding, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida. "Are we sort of jumping on the bandwagon of the day?" Spalding said of area police departments. "It sounds to me like a little political posturing." Communities are setting risky precedents by flashing the faces and addresses of convicts who have finished their prison time or who are on parole and trying to live their lives, said Deloris Roys, a criminal psychologist who treats sex offenders at Highland Institute for Behavioral Change in Atlanta. "It's always a danger when you give a societal message that these are people that it's okay to hate," Roys said. "We're singling out a certain kind of criminal." Yet even Roys acknowledges that "no sex offender is ever cured." They are not mentally ill, she said, but they must work hard to control a set of behaviors brought on by their own distorted thinking. That's all the evidence law enforcement officers say they need to justify their TV shows. To critics, Largo police Chief Jerry Bloechle poses a question: "If you were the parent of a child and you had a predator living next door, wouldn't you like to know about it?" Governments in California and Georgia make the same argument, then make sure their studio time is in place. Florida's law makes a distinction between sexual predators and offenders. A sexual predator is a person convicted of a sexual offense that carries a penalty of death or life imprisonment, or convicted of a first-degree felony, and some second-degree felonies that resulted in the person being declared a sexual predator by a court. Sexual offenders are people who are considered to have committed lesser sexual crimes and are declared so by the court. Both are required to register with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement when they are released from prison or jail. They must tell the authorities whenever they move to a new address. The department forwards the information to county sheriffs who pass the news on to local communities. FDLE records show 467 predators are listed in the state, including 19 in Pinellas County and 55 in Hillsborough County. Offenders are more common with nearly 12,000 statewide, 624 of whom are in Pinellas and 837 in Hillsborough. Police agencies must notify day-care centers and schools in a 1-mile radius of a predator's address within 48 hours of being notified by the state. An officer usually goes to the site in person, or a letter is sent. The law also requires agencies to make an effort to tell residents in a surrounding community. How agencies do that varies. Some agencies put fliers on people's doors. Largo Detective Steve McMullen said he went to an apartment complex several weeks ago to tell management that one of its tenants was a sexual predator. The predator got kicked out of the complex and is no longer in Largo, McMullen said. He had lied on his apartment application by not stipulating that he was a felon. Some residents might applaud the results of McMullen's actions. But people like Roys, the psychologist, say incidents where offenders and predators are shunned and forced to move are prime examples of how contradictory disclosure can be. "You have said, "Go and heal yourself and we're going to make it impossible.' " Putting the information on TV only makes matters worse, she said. Spalding said he's heard other tales of sex offenders who have had stones thrown their way or faced harassment after people saw their face on a news show or government channel. Also, he said, the ACLU has received calls from people who want to retire to Florida, but are afraid. They want to know whether a sex offense that happened decades ago will result in their names and faces being on television today. Some of them are offenders, not predators, who made childhood mistakes, such as having sex with a 15-year-old girl when they were 18, Spalding said. For the sex offender or predator, there is no end in sight. Law officials say they will publicize the same offenders regularly for as long as people carry the labels, which may be until they die. Predators can only shed those titles under special circumstances, such as receiving a pardon or where a ruling has been set aside. "When you throw out the net, hopefully you're going to catch some bad guys," Spalding said. "But you're going to catch some good guys, too." On Channel 35 in St. Petersburg, residents can tune in as police spokesman Bill Doniel talks with an investigator in the city's sex crimes unit. The investigator briefs the audience on the case and the person's address and photo appear on screen. The St. Petersburg program, like those of other cities, runs several times throughout a given week or month. "The community likes it," Doniel said. Neighborhood associations and community groups cried out for the public display of sexual offenders and predators, as well as prostitutes and johns, Doniel said. The show heightens awareness and may be a deterrent to crime, he said. In Largo, the mug shots are accompanied by a map that gives viewers a better idea of where the sex offender lives in their city. These announcements are not part of a show, but rather appear on the screen regularly as do other public announcements and local listings. Naysayers believe all this does the community little good. For those people who want to know whether a sex offender or predator lives nearby, the FDLE already offers that information on its Web site. The TV shows dupe residents into a phony sense of security, Spalding said. The people think, "Let's put it on this public access channel and we're all safe and everybody knows who they are," Spalding said. But sex offenders make up only a small percentage of crimes today, both Spalding and Roys pointed out. Other offenses such as drugs and assaults are far more prevalent. Yet Roys did say that, when it comes to some sexual predators who actively seek out young children to victimize, it is smart to alert the public. "My focus is, we have to promote community safety and we have to protect children," she said. Whether TV is the best vehicle to do that is up for debate, she said. Truth is, Roys said, if the public is looking to get safer by alerting people of dangerous criminals in their neighborhoods, perhaps police should consider some other kinds of offenders: "We don't do this to murderers, why don't we?" Roys said. "What about children who are beaten bloody messes and killed? Are those abusers put on the Internet? "We have focused on one small percentage of a larger societal problem," she said. "It's called crime."
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