Too Close For Comfort

Reps. Anthony Weiner at left and Edolphus Towns at right, released a new study earlier this week that shows sex offenders across the five boroughs are living too close to our city's school children. Congressmember Anthony Weiner has conducted the first ever analysis of all the information on the state's sex offender data-base and found that 85 percent of New York City's worst sex offenders live within five blocks of public, private and parochial schools.

The lawmaker said many city schools have multiple sex offenders living "just minutes away from where children learn and play".

One example cited by the Queens/Brooklyn legislator showed that an individual known to be a sexually violent offender lives only 138 feet from Our Lady of Perpetual Help School in South Ozone Park.

On the basis of the information Weiner found in the study, and using information provided by cartographers at the Library of Congress who have used a Global Positioning System (GPS) to plot the location of every school in the city and every sex offender's residence, the lawmaker plans to file legislation to create a sex offender surveillance system.

Weiner's study found that of the 2,114 sex offenders in the state database who live in New York City, Brooklyn has the most (671), followed by The Bronx (500). Queens has 428, followed by Manhattan (420) and Staten Island with 95.

Queens, however, has the highest percentage (40 percent) of sex offenders living within two blocks of a school, as 173 of its 428 sex offenders fall into this category.

Under the GPS monitoring system, Weiner said, "Sex offenders who choose to live within two blocks of New York City schools would be required to wear a satellite tracking device, such as an ankle bracelet, so that their movements can be monitored, recorded and archived."

With the GPS technology, he added, "School properties would be designated as off limits 'exclusion zones' and an immediate alert could be sent to the NYPD if a sex offender encroaches on school grounds.

"Data can also be stored and, as an example, used as evidence at a trial."

Other legislation planned by Weiner to deal with the sex offender problem would create a national task force for reducing sex offenses. He also proposes adding more search options for the public and cracking down on sex offenders who violate laws requiring them always to be registered if they move.

Another bill Weiner has co-sponsored will require sex offenders to register their MySpace™ accounts, Instant Messenger™ screen names and e-mail addresses with law enforcement agencies. The bipartisan bill is sponsored by Senators Charles Schumer and John McCain in the Senate chamber.

Under Weiner's bill creating a federal grant program to fund sex offender surveillance, $100 million would be provided every year for local law

enforcement agencies throughout the United States.

As an incentive to spur local coordination, Weiner said, more funds will go to states that share resources and coordinate tracking efforts.

This would, for example, permit a joint New York- New Jersey effort to track a sex offender from a neighboring state who drives into New York City and commits a sex crime, Weiner said.

Weiner also explained that a GPS setup in New York State would be patterned after a Massachusetts pilot program implemented in 2004 that uses active GPS monitoring devices to track all Level 3 registered sex offenders who are on parole or probation.

(Level 3 offenders are "the most dangerous criminals, who had committed the most heinous crimes", according to New York State law.)

Sketching out cost assessments, Weiner said the GPS technology "costs $10 per person per day, and if used for all the registered offenders living within two blocks of a New York City school, it would cost $2.4 million a year".

Wisconsin already has a GPS monitoring system which tracks the state's 200 worst sex offenders, Weiner said.

The lawmaker said the national task force to reduce sex offenses would be created by the federal Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services. The task force would be required to report back to Congress within a year on the best practices for housing sex offenders and successful integration of psychiatric treatment in prison to reduce the risk of repeat offenses.

Addressing sex offenders moving and violating the law by not registering a new address, which he sees as the largest problem with sex offender registries, Weiner would create teams of retired criminal investigators to locate and apprehend violators statewide.

He would also expand the tools for citizens who use the Internet to search for or keep track of sexual predators. Presently they have only ZIP Code, name and county to go by, but Weiner would add more options for parent searches, such as the address of a child's school.