The march continues. The latest cause celebre in the social engineering world appears to be sex offenders, now that the bloom is off the rose on domestic violence... every time a cop is called to a domestic dispute nowadays pretty much anywhere, he or she spends more time filling out meaningless forms than actually intervening in whatever is going on. We have every kind of civilian oversight group in the world meeting regularly to second guess the decisions that the cops made at any given DV call; money has been thrown at the problem and stolen, misspent or just wasted creating all kinds of new beaurocracies of people who have never seen the inside of a working cop's car; marches and crusades and finger pointing go on all the time, and the root problem hasn't changed one iota. If anything, it appears to be worse than ever in most places.

So now we have Sex Offenders in the community. Heaven forbid these people go to jail and actually stay there... we now live in a world where it is perfectly normal to release people who have committed incredible, horrific acts against helpless children and adolescents. But of course they have rights, and the rest of us basically get to sit around and wait until one of them attacks someone we know, and then we can join a victims' advocacy group, or go to candlelight vigils, or find other new and interesting ways to spend our time.

Okay, so once it became public knowledge that these people were out there, some scrambling had to be done by political types, and here came Sex Offender Registries. Now there's a great thought! Never mind that in New York State at least, for several years while I was still a working cop, we were not allowed to release any more than absolute bare bones information, and then only on Level 3 offenders... the lower level guys were just cited as being in a general jurisdiction, since their privacy rights were more important than the those of normal, law abiding citizens.

And isn't it a fine thing that we actually accept a world where we not only have known sexual predators walking around among us, but there are so many of them that we actually classify them! Does anyone else see the sickness in that? Is there some status or award that goes with being kidnapped by a Level 3 offender instead of a Level 1 or 2? Do we win a prize?

Moving right along, in my day these guys had to check in with the local police at set intervals. That'll make you feel safe, for sure. Of course half of them never did, and the various probation authorities never went out and apprehended anyone anyhow... and the ones that did check in were subjected to the most rigorous cross examination (again, what we were allowed to ask):

"So, you still living in the same place?"

"Yep."

"Working anywhere?"

"Nope."

"Okay, we'll see you in three months! Have a great day!"


Ah, but a problem exists! If they have to check in with the cops and whether they do or not, something unpleasant happens, there could be some liability for the County! I mean, heaven forbid the county authorities who are supposed to keep track of these people - having had them dumped in their laps from the State - actually have to do that... there must be an answer...

And of course the solution is simple, once you look for it: Let's take the cops, who are already well on their way to being social workers anyhow, and stick them with the responsibility. Perfect! If someone acts up now, either the cops are at fault for not going out and finding him every three months - they've got nothing else to do, after all - or the cop who DID go out showed poor judgement and is personally responsible along with the police department. It doesn't matter... it's all cash on the pile for the lawsuit. If another child is damaged for life or even killed, well, that's just the way it is.


When I read a story in a regional newspaper the other day and saw that the police in that county have now actually been mandated to go and seek out their sex offenders on a regular basis - and therefore become responsible for what they may do under the "special relationship" court precedents (check out Torrington, Ct and a domestic violence murder that happened several years ago) - I was once again relieved to be out of the active game, and paradoxically faced with an opportunity arising out of this crap. We went back to the Sex Offenders file we created a year ago and really wound it up tight, added a ton of function to it, and have started calling around on it. Hopefully we can actually help out some of these agencies without costing them an arm or a leg, and that's a great thing. Too bad we even have that opportunity to benefit from ridiculous circumstances like these, though.


***Don't for one minute mistake this as an attack on the probation or parole people, either... they're drowning under all these mandates as well, the people actually in the trenches. But stuff tends to flow downhill, and the PD always seems to be the last stop. In a few years, the cops and the probation people will probably be taking turns delivering the Meals On Wheels to the Elderly Sex Offender Society people anyhow.