Sexual Predators and Megan's Law
Price of Paradise · Hawaii Public Radio · aired 1997-07-20
Guests: Kathy Shimata (parole officer, Hawaii Paroling Authority); Adriana Ramelli (Director, Sex Abuse Treatment Center); Connie Brinton (psychotherapist); Tom Heinrich (attorney, American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii); Leanne Moriyama (Hawaii Criminal Justice Data Center)
Duration: 1:00:53

[00:00:00] Randall Roth: This is Randy, we're broadcast live Sunday mornings on KHPR and KKUA and then rebroadcast Sunday evenings beginning at 8 o'clock on KIFO. Everyone who works to bring this program to you is a volunteer who believes in the importance of lively and informed public dialogue. We believe the brightness of any community's future is directly related to the level of activity in its marketplace of ideas. Our topic today is Hawaii's version of what's known as Megan's Law. With me in the studio to discuss it are Adriana Ramelli, who is the executive director of the Sex Abuse Treatment Center, Connie Brinton, a psychotherapist who works exclusively with sex offenders, and Kathy Shimada, a parole officer in the Sex Offender Unit.
[00:00:40] Randall Roth: Joining us by phone is Leanne Moriyama, who heads up the state's Criminal Justice Data Center. Leanne, you're with us by phone. Good morning.
[00:00:48] Kathy Shimata: Good morning, Randy.
[00:00:49] Randall Roth: Uh, you're the person who's more or less in charge of the uh, registration or notification part of of Megan's Law. Could you tell us real briefly, what is Megan's Law?
[00:01:01] Kathy Shimata: Well, what Megan's Law does is provide for public notification of registration information on sex offenders. And that's it in a nutshell.
[00:01:10] Randall Roth: And when you say sex offenders, just how broadly or narrowly is that term defined?
[00:01:16] Kathy Shimata: Um, it's pretty broad. Um, there are categories that the Hawaii statute has laid out. Um, basically um the sex-oriented crimes and it applies in Hawaii's case for lifetime registration of all sex offenders, previously convicted or to be convicted.
[00:01:36] Randall Roth: So if someone committed a a sex offense 15 years ago or 25 years ago, regardless of when they completed their sentence, uh they're going to be subject to this new law.
[00:01:47] Kathy Shimata: That's correct.
[00:01:48] Randall Roth: And so, they register all sorts of information. How much of that information is available to the public?
[00:01:56] Kathy Shimata: Um, there are certain fields that are pieces of information that are available to the public and um that includes um of course the um the name and any aliases used by the sex offender, the street name and not the um exact address, the zip code, uh the sex offender's photo, um vehicle registration, and why the sex offender has been registered. In other words, their um their the the charge for which they were convicted.
[00:02:28] Randall Roth: And where is this information physically held?
[00:02:32] Kathy Shimata: Okay, there are right now five locations, um with the um Criminal Justice Data Center um being the the main point of contact, and the four County Police main stations. Very shortly, and I believe it's next week, Hilo County Hawaii County will be making it available also at the Kona police station.
[00:02:54] Randall Roth: And as I understand it, this is passive notification rather than active notification, which I think means that if I want to know if a sex offender has moved into my neighborhood, I need to go to one of those locations and I need to do the search in order to determine that information.
[00:03:09] Kathy Shimata: That's correct.
[00:03:11] Randall Roth: And how easy or hard is it right now? I mean, do I have to really know what I'm doing or is it pretty easy to find this information once I get to where you're located?
[00:03:21] Kathy Shimata: Well, it's pretty easy to um to to look through. Right now, um what we have are manuals um with the actual um regis- physical registration form that has been sanitized. There's blacked out information um that um the legislature determined would not be available to the public. And uh you just come in and look through the manuals that are um organized by county and alphabetical within county. Um it has been um uh it can be a little cumbersome uh but what we were trying to do was to have the information available as of July 1st.
[00:03:59] Randall Roth: How much activity have you had down there so far as as normal citizens are concerned as opposed to to members of the media who obviously've been very interested in this because it's brand new. How much activity has there been with respect to this so far as normal citizens are concerned?
[00:04:14] Kathy Shimata: Right, absolutely right. The media interest has been high, but as far as the public interest, it's been very limited with um I would say maybe one to two persons accessing the data daily at any of the five locations.
[00:04:27] Randall Roth: Okay. Uh that's Leanne Moriyama who heads up the Criminal Justice Data Center. Leanne, I know you've got some other commitments this morning, but if you can stay on the line the line at least for a while, why we'll we'll get back to you a little bit later in the show.
[00:04:39] Kathy Shimata: Okay.
[00:04:40] Randall Roth: Uh, our next guest that you'll hear from is Adriana Ramelli, who is the executive director of the Sex Abuse Treatment Center. Adriana, I know from your piece in this morning's paper that you think this is a step in the right direction. You have some questions yet, and you're waiting for answers, but tell us a little bit about why you think this is a step in the right direction.
[00:05:00] Adriana Ramelli: It's important that I think we recognize for years, there's been innocent people um assaulted and had you know serious pain inflicted upon them by others in our community. It's time that the community knows who these people are, that they know where they're living, that they know what kind of crime that they have committed so that they can um scrutinize these people in a sense, and so they know where they're living. If they're in fact in their neighborhood, that they can take precautions to um perhaps limit some contact with this person in terms of again, if you've got um let's say if you're a parent and you have a child, you may not in fact want that child over at this person's house if you know in fact this is someone who has assaulted children in the past. It could be something as simple as that.
[00:05:43] Randall Roth: I know as a as a parent, I would like to know if if a dangerous person has moved into the neighborhood and you say this way they'll know where they're living, but as I understand it all they really know is the person's name, the street name, and the zip code and I'm not sure it would be helpful to have a common name, uh King Street, and 96813 or some zip code that obviously is a very broad area, how practical is it to think that this really is going to alert somebody that there is [unintelligible — audio glitch] danger in their community.
[00:06:14] Adriana Ramelli: Well, it has also has a photo that goes with that, so that's a start. Um, you have to start somewhere and I think that's what this law is all about. Um it may not be perfect right now, I think it is far from perfect the fact that it's only at the police station. I think makes accessibility very, very difficult. It needs to get automated, it needs to be in our public libraries, so people have easy access to the information. Um at some point I think we need to look at the dangerous predator. Um there is a several of these sex offenders who are still in prison right now that in they're around the year 2000, they're going to come out into our community. I think at that point, we need to look at some real active notification.
[00:06:49] Randall Roth: And by active notification, that's where somebody takes it upon themselves, let's say the police department, to actually tell people in the neighborhood that a sex offender has moved in.
[00:06:58] Adriana Ramelli: Right. These are serial rapists, who are very, very dangerous men that will come out into this community in Hawaii. More than likely they're going to stay in this community because this is where their families are. They're not going to be moving anywhere. And so I think the public has an right to know who they are and where they're living. Although these are not, I think your, um the type of offender that you most often see. A lot of these offenders are your child molesters who are already in close proximity to children within neighborhoods, within um church organizations, within civic groups, and so again I've concerns about their proximity to children and therefore I think it's important for either community groups or people to know where they're living.
[00:07:37] Randall Roth: Okay, that's Adriana Ramelli who is the executive director of the Sex Abuse Treatment Center. We have Kathy Shimada next. Good morning, Kathy.
[00:07:44] Kathy Shimada: Good morning.
[00:07:45] Randall Roth: Kathy is a parole officer in the Sex Offender Unit, and Kathy, I assume that means among other things that you deal with sex offenders on a daily basis. Is that right?
[00:07:54] Kathy Shimada: That's correct.
[00:07:55] Randall Roth: What are they saying about this new law? Are they upset? Do they understand it? Just what's their reaction so far?
[00:08:02] Kathy Shimada: I think it's important for you to understand that before a sex offender comes out into the community on parole, he has had a couple of years at least of specialized treatment. The foundation of the treatment is that the offender accepts responsibility for his behavior, he admits exactly what he did, and he takes steps to see that he doesn't do it again. I think the responses that we've seen to Megan's Law are fairly indicative of where that offender is in his own healing, in his own treatment. Those who have understood the victimization that they have they have created, are the ones who understand the importance of being open and honest with the community.
[00:08:42] Randall Roth: Now, you mention treatment. I've had other programs where we talked about uh budget problems and reasons for overcrowding in prisons and consequences of that, and I'm under the impression that there aren't as many treatment programs available, um not just in the area of sex offender, but especially because it's our topic today in this area, I'm under the impression that there aren't treatment programs as available as they as they should be. Is that accurate?
[00:09:08] Kathy Shimada: That's true, although I'm happy to say that in this current fiscal year, there has been more money made available by the legislature and we are looking forward to to treating more sex offenders.
[00:09:21] Randall Roth: Okay, now from your article in this morning's paper, as I understand it, Megan's Law in Hawaii is a reaction to a a federal Megan's Law. The federal Megan's Law basically says each state will lose some federal funding if it doesn't enact some version of what we're calling Megan's Law. But the federal government gives each state certain choices. And from your article, I think Hawaii decided not to limit this just to the most dangerous offenders, that we've included far more offenders than what we had to in order to satisfy federal law. Do I have that right?
[00:09:54] Kathy Shimada: You do.
[00:09:55] Randall Roth: And what are the implications of that to you?
[00:09:59] Kathy Shimada: The implication is that some people who appear to be lower risk offenders are being treated in the same way as others who are much higher risk offenders. There is a provision in the law that says after 5 years that a person may apply to the courts in order to have their duty to register removed. And we'll be very curious to see exactly how that's going to be implemented because there are some sex offenders that we think the public should always know their whereabouts.
[00:10:32] Randall Roth: Okay, and just generally, as of right now, and this law is brand new, uh you think it's a pretty good idea, and you think it's working reasonably well?
[00:10:40] Kathy Shimada: We're satisfied. Um all of our offenders are are registered, they keep their registrations up to date. We're about to move backwards to the offenders who I mean in time backwards, to um start notifying those people whose sentences have expired already, who may not be aware that they have to register.
[00:10:57] Randall Roth: And you're not overly concerned that a significant number of them are going to go underground rather than live life under a microscope?
[00:11:05] Kathy Shimada: We have not seen that happen, but um should there be an incident and there have been on the mainland of of people being harassed, it may lead to that.
[00:11:15] Randall Roth: Okay, thank you. That's Kathy Shimada, who's a parole officer in the Sex Offender Unit. Well, our last voice this morning as we're just setting up uh the discussion that's about to follow is Connie Brinton, and Connie is a psychotherapist who works exclusively with sex offenders. Good morning, Connie.
[00:11:30] Connie Brinton: Good morning.
[00:11:31] Randall Roth: Connie, I know from your article in this morning's paper, which was co-authored by Tom Heinrich, who's the new staff attorney at the ACLU, from that article, I know that you don't think Megan's Law in general and you don't think Megan's Law as enacted here in Hawaii in particular, is a good idea.
[00:11:47] Connie Brinton: That's very true.
[00:11:48] Randall Roth: Uh real briefly, why?
[00:11:50] Connie Brinton: Okay. Uh the primary reason is that we feel, that's I'm speaking for Tom and myself, that Hawaii actually uh rushed to uh join the other states in enacting a version of Megan's Law in order to satisfy the need to um comply with federal law and get funding. While we agree, totally we agree with the uh notion that they've uh innocent victims of society need to be protected, our primary uh uh issue is is this the best way to do uh to protect society's victims, are there other ways that that might be done more efficiently? And what another of our major issues is that in the Hawaii's version of Megan's Law all sex offenders are painted with the same brush. There is not an attempt to to differentiate those offenders who are really dangerous predators from those uh offenders who committed perhaps one minor offense 20 years ago, they all get put in the same category and are treated the same.
[00:12:52] Randall Roth: Okay, now you mentioned that that we rushed to do this, but I think we were one of the last states to do it, weren't we?
[00:12:59] Connie Brinton: Uh yes, that is true that we are one of the last states, but I think again that the whole concept of Megan's Law came from uh the emotional outrage of the public at some for really horrendous sexual crimes, and because of that the public perception is that all sex offenders are somehow like the person who committed the offense against Megan or like Jeffrey Dahmer or like some of the other uh very notorious sex criminals, when in fact that's a very extremely small percentage of the sex offender population.
[00:13:28] Randall Roth: Okay. Now my understanding is that there are some people who feel that this law was enacted in Hawaii because by golly it's a good law and we really need it. But what I'm hearing from you, and I and I've heard from others, is that an awful lot of people in the legislature went for this because they felt they were painted into a corner, that they were going to lose a lot of federal funding if they didn't enact this. In fact, I've I've got just one sentence from uh one of the bills that was in the legislature, in the uh the preamble it said the legislature finds that immediate action is necessary to ensure that the federal funds desperately needed by law enforcement agencies are not lost. So I guess they were signaling to the community that in part, this is motivated by a desire not to lose some federal funds.
[00:14:09] Connie Brinton: That is correct.
[00:14:10] Randall Roth: Vigilantism, that's a word that I've heard discussed in these circles talking about Megan's Law. How big a concern is it that the offenders themselves are going to become the the hunted, the targeted, uh harassed by neighbors?
[00:14:24] Connie Brinton: That has occurred in other states. For instance, in Washington State which has had a similar law for for a number of years, uh when they had, but they had the more active notification system where they were they were putting posters um around the community and notifying um uh community members of [unintelligible — audio glitch] presence of a of a dangerous person in the community. What happened is some of the community members, uh um became very uh emotionally aroused and retaliated and then in some cases, chased that person out of the community or burned down houses of people that were uh uh thought to have been sex offenders when in fact a couple of cases the sex offender didn't even live there. So, so innocent people got victimized just because a false street address had been uh given out.
[00:15:09] Randall Roth: So maybe that's one of the reasons Hawaii chose just to give a street name and a zip code rather than an exact address.
[00:15:15] Connie Brinton: Yes, but unfortunately, and especially in a place like Hawaii, where you have a lot of Kims and Lees and Wongs, uh there could be a lot of people with the same name, and I know Adrien had pointed out that there's [unintelligible — audio glitch] picture, but then you have to look at the quality of the picture too and does this look like somebody else? And um, aside from the actual offenders themselves, the persons who committed the crime being targeted, we we have concerns about innocent people who have a similar address or or looks or name also being targeted.
[00:15:42] Randall Roth: Okay, and as I understand it, you think that for most of these offenders, um that they can be rehabilitated and they they would under normal circumstances be rehabilitated, but that in many cases they will be so stigmatized and their families will be so stigmatized by Megan's Law that it will hamper attempts to rehabilitate them.
[00:16:03] Connie Brinton: From a statistical uh uh perspective, you have sex offenders that that basically uh have a bite what's called a bimodal distribution. You have a few, small number of offenders, who each have committed a large number of crimes, and then that might be less than 10% of the offenders as a group.
[00:16:20] Randall Roth: So they might not be rehabilitated.
[00:16:22] Connie Brinton: No, those are perhaps But they might go underground. Those are the the dangerous repetitive kinds of sex offenders. The other, perhaps 90% of the sex offenders are less dangerous, not that they haven't committed a crime, but their recidivism rate even without treatment tends to be very low. So, but they're all put in the same category. For instance, if you had one offender who committed 100 crimes and you had nine offenders that committed one crime each and you put them all in the same pile and added up the crimes, you'd come to an average of 10 crimes per per offender, which mathematically is correct, but it gives a distorted perception of the dangerousness of each individual offender.
[00:16:59] Randall Roth: So one of your complaints about Hawaii's versions of Megan's Law is that we don't really distinguish one from another.
[00:17:05] Connie Brinton: We don't. That's true, and there are ways of doing that. No, uh risk of dangerousness is 100% accurate, but there are ways in which we can separate out those who look to be really dangerous from those who appear to be less dangerous. And of those who appear to be less dangerous, the vast majority respond to treatment very well and and don't go on to commit other crimes.
[00:17:28] Randall Roth: Okay, that's Connie Brinton, a sex therapist, or works with sex offenders. She's a psychotherapist. Um in just one minute, I'm going to ask my guests to give me a reaction to what they've been hearing from other guests, but first I want to let people who may have tuned in a bit late know that this is the Price of Paradise Radio Show. My name is Randy Roth. We're talking about Hawaii's version of Megan's Law. And this is the time in the hour that you should be grabbing your telephone. If you've got a question or a comment that you would like to make, please call us at 955-8821. If you're on a neighbor island, the number is 1-800-955-8821. If you would like to get involved in this discussion via the internet, take a look at www.popweb.org. We've got an internet discussion of Hawaii's version of Megan's Law that will continue this week. We also have Rod and Tone and Hans the cameraman from KHON Channel 2 News here. They're filming the show, and we expect a report to be on KHON Channel 2 News tonight at 6 and 10. You might tune them in and see how they uh uh report on our show. Again, the topic is Hawaii's version of Megan's Law, and the number to call is 955-8821.
[00:18:43] Randall Roth: Adriana Ramelli, the executive director of the Sex Abuse Treatment Center, um a couple of things that were said over the last 10 minutes. I think I noted you wince a little bit as though you didn't completely agree. Uh do we have time to go through the list?
[00:18:58] Adriana Ramelli: Absolutely, I hope so. I want I want to make a reaction, I guess, or a comment to the statement about that we rushed in because of federal funding. I was at several hearings during the legislative session and you know, rarely did I hear that we had to do this just so that we can ensure some federal funds coming into the state. There was testimony about looking at it as an issue of community safety, that the goal be public safety. I think our legislators were very responsible in saying what do we need to do to look at the whole problem of sex crimes in the state. What other vehicle can we create for public safety? There's a number of vehicles that need to be put in place, and this is merely one of them.
[00:19:38] Adriana Ramelli: We also have to look at educating the community more about sex offenders and who they are. We need the community input in terms of Megan's law, and then we also need to look at prevention education so that children and others are aware of what sex assault is about. Kathy was talking about that there's more money put towards sex offender treatment. Well, let me tell you, there was no additional money put towards victim treatment. And so there has been a tremendous amount of of attention on sex offenders, and I think we have tend to glorify who sex offenders are with Megan's Law. And you need to understand, these are people who have created harm to very innocent people.
[00:20:15] Adriana Ramelli: And if we lump them all into one category, well, I'm not too concerned. We, you know, there have been victims who've been coming in for years to our center. I've been there over 15 years now and, um, you know, they come in from, you know, having um been harmed again, maybe one time by somebody or it could be over a series of times by one person. I mean, the fact is I don't see that any offense is a minor offense.
[00:20:40] Rod: So for for understandable reasons, the media hasn't brought the circumstances of the victim to the public's attention the way it will focus in on the offender.
[00:20:49] Adriana Ramelli: Yeah, we're worried about this offender. We're worried about what's going to happen to him because we created Megan's law. I don't think we need to worry.
[00:20:55] Rod: Okay. Let let me go to a caller and and I know my other guests have some reactions to that, but we got a caller Jim from Honolulu. Good morning, Jim.
[00:21:02] Jim: Hi, how are you doing, sir?
[00:21:03] Rod: Good.
[00:21:04] Jim: Hey sir, I just wanted to make a comment about how I I'm backing this Megan's law because I had a specific instance where a person was convicted of a sexual crime in Arizona, came to Honolulu and my community was the people were not notified in the area. And this person had gone and committed a re-offense, and everybody in the community was so outraged because this person was able to be in the community, play with all our children and then turn around and lure children into his apartment and and commit this kind of a crime. You know, I I'm sure that I guess this Connie Britain was kind of I understand her point of view where we shouldn't, uh, you know, prosecute these people or seek them out, but I think on the other hand that it should probably be up to us to find out through active, not passive.
[00:21:48] Jim: I think we should be notified and it should be given to us, the the people who could be the victims, whether we want, you know, and people who seek retribution against these people should be punished, I accept that. But we should have the right to know in that community.
[00:22:00] Rod: Jim, what would you do if a police officer knocked on your door and said, "Jim, somewhere in your neighborhood," and maybe they gave you an exact address? They said, "We've got a fellow just got out of jail, he spent 10 years there because he raped a woman or he or he did some terrible crime that that's covered by Megan's law." What would you do?
[00:22:20] Jim: Uh, what I would do is probably I would I would find out where that person live. I would, uh, probably notify all my neighbors and just ask them to keep a low-key approach to it and you know, just to protect all my friends and myself and my children, you know? That's what I would do.
[00:22:33] Rod: Okay, let me get a reaction from a couple of our guests. Connie Brittain, your name was mentioned in particular. What's your reaction to what you're listening to from Jim?
[00:22:41] Connie Brittain: I'm very much in agreement with that, and sympathy with with his statement. And I'm saying, um, from our perspective, we we agree that the community needs to be protected. The question is how to best do that. And from a community, uh, safety perspective as Adriana Remelli was speaking of before, is this the best way to protect the community? And our belief is that just notifying the community that there's a dangerous person in within their their midst is not necessarily going to be helpful because 85% of victims already knew their perpetrator in advance. So just knowing that a person is there doesn't give a false sense of safety. We're saying that we would like to protect victims, but we believe the best way that can be done is to, first of all, give the offender treatment, give him the skills so he doesn't reoffend again.
[00:23:40] Connie Brittain: And that will reduce the number of victims in the community because we agree that there's been terrible harm done to the victims. But if you can prevent the victimization to begin with and that's that fear of victims in the community. I like it to, if you have a bathtub and the bathtub is overflowing, one of the ways to prevent the bathtub from overflowing, rather than just mopping up the floor, is to turn off the water. That's why we're in favor of treatment. We want to prevent victimization.
[00:24:09] Rod: Okay. Jim, you started this. I'm going to give you the final word, and then I'm going to go to another caller.
[00:24:13] Jim: Okay, great. Adriana, I do agree with you. I do agree that they should be rehabilitated, but I don't see the problem with us knowing in the beginning if this person has come out in our community and alerting us to that effect. But I do believe in the rehabilitation and and I do believe in treatment. But, uh, thank you for the time. Okay, have a great day guys.
[00:24:30] Rod: Thanks for the call, Jim. We go to Barbara in Kailua. Good morning, Barbara.
[00:24:34] Barbara: Um, good morning. Um, I don't understand what the hubbub is about sex crimes. Um, I'm not saying that they're not heinous offenses or anything. But I don't care if somebody who commits a sex crime moves down the street from me. I don't get told who's murdering moves in next door or somebody else who commits something else moves on the other side of me. Um, I don't know, I just think Americans, um, the way they get so hung up on sex. It doesn't it doesn't make any difference.
[00:25:01] Rod: Barbara, let me ask you a question. Which way does that cut? In other words, are you saying that we shouldn't have notification with respect to sex offenders?
[00:25:08] Barbara: No, absolutely, I don't think we should have notification with respect to any offenses.
[00:25:10] Rod: Because some people you realize would listen to what you've said and say, "Barbara, that's a great idea. I want to know if there's a murderer who moves in next door."
[00:25:18] Barbara: No, no, no, I'm sorry. If people, they they if they commit something or they are convicted of committing something, they do whatever society says that they should do. And then let it go.
[00:25:29] Rod: Okay, well let me get Adriana Remelli's reaction because in your piece this morning, Adriana, you addressed this argument that notification is punishment on top of punishment, double punishment.
[00:25:39] Barbara: That's that's true.
[00:25:39] Rod: That's what it is. Adriana, what's your reaction?
[00:25:42] Adriana Ramelli: My reaction is these are folks who I have to keep saying they've created harm. It's repeat behavior. Oftentimes it's not one time that they've done it. It's 10 times, it's 50 times. If the person in the neighborhood know this is a person who commits sex offenses, they're aware of who this person is, they can make their full choices about whether they want to come in contact with this person, whether they want their children playing with the kids of this person. They had they can make some serious choices about the behavior of that neighbor. And therefore they have that that right.
[00:26:13] Barbara: They can also make some other serious social choices as to whether or not to shun this person, whether or not to to pick at him, whether or not to move out of the neighborhood, whether or not to spread other nasty rumors about this person. And that doesn't help in his real rehabilitative process.
[00:26:27] Rod: Okay, Adriana Remelli.
[00:26:29] Adriana Ramelli: You know, the victims who come into the center, along with the parents of victims who come into the center in the 15 years that I've worked there, I have never seen a parent um turn around and harm the offender. They come in, and they are responsible citizens. They report it to the law.
[00:26:45] Barbara: Government would. I think the the fascist pigs out there would. People that overreact that are extremely um right in their view viewpoints of life. And I mean right in a not in a a as being correct, but being very, very straightlaced.
[00:27:00] Rod: A people who don't care too much about civil liberties.
[00:27:03] Barbara: Exactly.
[00:27:05] Rod: Um, Connie Brittain.
[00:27:06] Connie Brittain: Um in line with your thinking, Barbara, I happen to agree and that's one of our complaints that for every other type of offender, they've served their sentence, they've they've paid their dues to society and they're pal. In the case of sex offenders, they with this new Megan Law, they're permanently stigmatized as second-class citizens for the rest of their life. They have never they never pay their due. And in fact, if you take a look at the statistics uh put out by the National, um, Bureau, you'll find that the chance of recidivism among general felons is about 40% within three years, where in fact, with sex offenders, it's only about 20%. So the actual risk of committing a new crime is higher for other types of felons than for sex offenders.
[00:27:49] Rod: Well, and as I understand it, the the definition is is more arbitrary than what I think even the name suggests. As I understand it, anyone who's committed a crime where a minor was the victim, that they fall into this category. So if you rob somebody who's 18 years old, you're not a sex offender, if you rob somebody who's 17 years old. And and maybe I've got this wrong, but I've read that any crime where the victim is a minor.
[00:28:14] Kathy Shimada: Kathy, you're looking at at me as though I've got it wrong. Tell me what what the right treatment is. What what does it mean, a crime where a minor is the victim? There still has to be a sexual element to the crime.
[00:28:26] Rod: What do we mean by sexual, if it's hitting somebody, a sexual element?
[00:28:30] Kathy Shimada: Not unless you hit them in their private parts.
[00:28:32] Rod: Okay. Okay, well I I had that wrong. Barbara, you get the last word on this one, then we're going to move on.
[00:28:37] Barbara: Well, I I do think that the rate of recidivism will increase that among sex offenders if they are being ostracized in this manner, because it will make them think, "Well, it doesn't make any difference whether or not I do anything, I might as well, because everybody thinks I'm going to anyway."
[00:28:52] Rod: Okay. Barbara, thank thanks for your call.
[00:38:00] Connie Brinton: Salt second degree, two times, and um uh unlawful imprisonment one time. You wouldn't know though by looking at that how many incidents actually occurred. You also wouldn't know what kind of plea bargaining went on. That those offenses might have been far more serious.
[00:38:17] Speaker 2: Okay. Um Steve, thank you. I get that answers my question. Thanks for your call.
[00:38:21] Connie Brinton: I would like to briefly. This is Connie Brinton. I'm sorry, you'd like to briefly add to that. Uh there are some distortions in the way the figures are are um calculated. For instance, you could have a person who uh an individual who broke into into a home with the intention of raping them, but intention to rape is very difficult to prove. You know, what that what was in his mind. Therefore, he might be arrested for breaking and enter uh convicted for breaking and entering when in fact he he was a sex offender. So you have distortions on both sides of that.
[00:38:52] Speaker 2: Okay. We go to Dennis in Kailua. Good morning, Dennis.
[00:38:54] Dennis: Good morning. Uh I guess I just wanted to make a couple of clarifications about some of the issues that have been discussed, and I guess most of it has to do with uh how much of a change or a problem is caused by this new law. And I I guess the fact that we already have public access and public information about people who are convicted of crimes, would to me suggest that this is just an enhancement of what already exists. Anybody who's convicted of a crime, the information is available to the public, not only at the time that it occurs in terms of, you know, publicity in the media, but also information is available later on through the Criminal Justice Data Center. Right now we can go and get the names of people who are convicted of crimes. Um this this is not something that's different. And as far as they're concerned about you know, this being targeted at certain offenders. Um I I think that people are right. What we need to do is to make this type of information available to the public more easily about all offenders. So that we do know who the people are in our community who are dangerous. So this discussion about putting information online, all the information that's available about people who are convicted of crime should be available online.
[00:40:00] Speaker 2: Okay.
[00:40:01] Dennis: I don't see what the problem is and and as far as they're concerned about vigilantism, this information about people who are convicted is already available. I know a very few situations of that have occurred. I mean, most most of the time it's pretty easy to figure out who the person is. I agree that sometimes there's confusion and what this does I think it helps get better identification right now. Um if someone commits a crime, the names in the paper whatever, it's easy to look up in the phone book or even just go down the street and take a look and match up the person. Um you know, that's not like this is a a dramatic dramatic change from what we have right now. It just makes it better. It makes it easier for the average citizen.
[00:40:35] Speaker 2: Okay. Dennis, thank you for your call. We appreciate it. Um Jeff, our technician, do we still have uh Leanne Moriyama on the phone? Leanne are you still there?
[00:40:44] Kathy Shimata: Yes, I'm still here.
[00:40:45] Speaker 2: Leanne is in charge of the um uh Criminal Justice Data Center. You've been listening to [unintelligible — audio glitch] lot of things. Leanne, I want to get your reaction to what you've been listening to and then I've got a a question to ask you about people moving in from out of state. But anything you've been listening to, you'd like to react to first.
[00:41:00] Kathy Shimata: Yes, um there's two things. I wanted to state um about our plans for automation because um when I spoke earlier about the manual process being um uh cumbersome, uh we all recognize that and that we're working very hard to get all of this automated so that the public can can come in to the uh Criminal Justice Data Center and the police stations to search of on sex offenders by their name or by the street name and the zip code to get a listing of sex offenders. And in the next year we also hope to digitize the mug shots so that um the current copy of the um the photograph that's available will be um online uh along with um the sex offender information and the criminal history record information, which Dennis from Kailua is absolutely right. It it's already available at the Criminal Justice Data Center. We're trying to get the sex offender information on that same public access type of facility.
[00:41:58] Speaker 2: But Leanne, people don't go down there generally and when I hear you say it's all going to be online, will I be able to access it from my home computer?
[00:42:07] Kathy Shimata: Not right, not initially. Um the criminal the conviction information is um available right now at all Criminal Justice agencies statewide, not just the five stations that were talked about. Um there is a provision in the bill that talks about some internet access. What we're proceeding rather slowly in that area because we are concerned about the ability to get it out but also the um security of the information because it can be um updated um unintentionally. So, uh that's one area for the future.
[00:42:21] Speaker 2: Okay. Um question that that a a caller asked me to to ask you and that is, when somebody moves into Hawaii from out of state, they're a dangerous sexual predator, but they didn't commit their crime and do their time in Hawaii, are we going to know about that?
[00:42:58] Kathy Shimata: They're required by um the the Jacob Wetterling Act, which is the basis for all of this, um to start up with to register um in the state that they move to and we are also to be notified by the state from which that person came from.
[00:43:13] Speaker 2: So, earlier when the comment was made uh because of our Megan's law, people might move out of the state wherever they're moving from or to, as a practical matter, probably isn't going to make much difference to them. They're going to be, they're going to be required by law to register and that there there will probably be some form of notification, whether it's passive like we have in Hawaii or active, which many other states have, there will be some form of notification.
[00:43:37] Kathy Shimata: That's correct. Hawaii's version of the bill puts burden on the Attorney General's Office to um notify the FBI and the state to which the sex offender is moving to.
[00:43:48] Speaker 2: Okay. Leanne, thank you very much for participating with us this morning.
[00:43:51] Kathy Shimata: Okay. Randy, I just had one other thing. Um I think Kathy mentioned that there's um uh there's a provision in the bill to apply for relief after five years. I believe that was in the original bill and the new version of the bill repeals that. So, there is lifetime registration.
[00:44:07] Speaker 2: Okay. And from from the offender's point of view, lifetime is a a long time to be subject to um to this law.
[00:44:14] Kathy Shimata: It sure is.
[00:44:15] Speaker 2: Thank you, Leanne. We really appreciate uh your being with us this morning. I've got two more callers who've been waiting real patiently and I'm going to get to them and then we're going to use the last 10 minutes or so just to let our our guests in the studio, uh kind of sum this whole thing up. Michael from Manoa, you've been waiting patiently, good morning.
[00:44:31] Michael: Good morning Randy. Aloha to everyone in your group this morning. I'm a little surprised. I fact I'm very surprised, considering the history of your show that you have no one on the other side this morning. Someone perhaps from ACLU who would be advocating for the rights of people who've been incarcerated for a given crime and uh who haven't you know, no there's really no way of knowing whether they're going to commit another crime. And yet uh we would be doing things to them which would be patently illegal if for any other any other category of crime. Other crime or restraining or any number of uh of other Supreme Court rulings. I'm just curious why you don't have anybody else. My perception is that Connie Brinton is squarely on that side of of this issue, but it's interesting to me that that Well, it's interesting to me that that you don't perceive what she's saying is as being on that side of the issue. So, what you're saying is that you haven't heard from our guests this morning somebody with outrage who's saying that this is a terrible violation of civil liberties.
[00:45:28] Michael: Well, I haven't heard anyone state the the actual case law or as you usually have an attorney who's you know, based in this area who who could cite specific case law saying why this is illegal prior restraint for instance. I mean, you know, other countries have registered uh offenders of various natures, including homosexuals, and uh uh that was of course a crime. I guess that would be a sexual offense and and it was until recently in some states. Uh including the most communist countries register offenders of various kinds and and incarcerate them and follow them the rest of their lives. Uh and to my knowledge, it hasn't stopped these offenses there.
[00:46:02] Speaker 2: Okay, and and the one point you're making, and it does need to be said and emphasized, there are some constitutional issues raised by Megan's Law that haven't yet been addressed.
[00:46:12] Michael: I'm surprised that no offender has raised these issues when they've been required to.
[00:46:16] Speaker 2: This law has been in effect for a couple of weeks and and I'm sure In other states as well, I'm I'm sure these issues will be raised and in due time, the courts will tell us. But in the meantime, Megan's Law is the law, and even though there are some constitutional issues, uh people who work in the system, and I'm I'm looking for example, at Kathy Shimada, uh anyone who works in the system has to treat this as the law, unless and until the courts tell us that that it's unconstitutional for one reason or another.
[00:46:41] Michael: Well, if if that's the case that we can register this category of offender, then why don't we register other categories which are equally as damaging to society as a whole. For instance blue collar criminals, corporate criminals. I'd like to see those registered, uh, political criminals. You could find them.
[00:46:54] Speaker 2: Now, be careful. Be careful. You're saying that suggesting therefore, Megan's Law to be repealed. There are a lot of people out there that would say, yeah, Michael, I'm with you. Let's really broaden this out and let's know about everybody that's committed any kind of of uh crime. Michael, I really appreciate uh your input this morning. You you've added a lot to our conversation. We go to Marianne from the Uh, we go to Marianne from the Big Island. Marianne, are you there?
[00:47:18] Marianne: Morning. Yes. You're on the air. Yes, yes. Thank you. This is an interesting show. What's happening to me as I listen is, you know, it's like consciousness raising. But um, unfortunately, the impression I'm getting is when you talk about Megan's Law, it's like closing the barn door after the horse has run away. And so, I'm kind of wondering, yeah, this tells you how uninformed I am. The media and um you know, popular television tend to um focus on these crimes where there's been terrible abuse or you know, child abuse or rape, you see the news. But I don't even know how often that happens. You know, how many how many offenders actually repeat their crime?
[00:48:01] Marianne: Somebody on your show had mentioned that that's that's really where that the majority of the people, even without any punishment, you know aren't going to do it again.
[00:48:10] Speaker 2: Okay. Marianne, let me let me get a reaction from Adriana Romelli, who's the executive director of the uh Sex Abuse Treatment Center. Um what's your reaction to what you're hearing from Marianne?
[00:48:20] Adriana Romelli: Yeah, first of all, Mary, let me tell you that um at the center we treat over 500 victims every year um who are again, any kind of sex crime, anything from sexual harassment all the way up to penetration. The Attorney General's office did a study a couple of years ago where they found that um there was night over 9,000 women had experienced some form of sexual contact in the course of one year. In terms of offenders, they tend to repeat their behavior. I think treatment is very important, controls in terms of their behavior is very important so that they don't reoffend. However, our experience with victims is that we do see um these perpetrators who have offended more than one victim. And so, we have victims coming in, multiple victims who've been assaulted by one person.
[00:49:02] Speaker 2: Marianne, thanks for your call. We're we're getting down to the last 10 minutes. We're going to have to move on. We've got one more person who's been waiting patiently and that is Dick from Honolulu. Dick, what's up?
[00:49:11] Dick: Morning, Randy. Good morning. Uh two questions. I didn't catch all of the show, but um I I keep hearing the pronoun he. I'm curious, are there any women sex offenders, and are they going to be registered as well?
[00:49:22] Speaker 2: Okay. Let me take that question first and then we'll come back to you, Dick. Connie Brinton is a psychotherapist who works exclusively with sex offenders. Is this a strictly male thing so far as the offender side is concerned?
[00:49:33] Connie Brinton: Absolutely not. There are a large number of women offenders out there. And uh in fact, a lot of the offenders we have have been victimized themselves when they were children by females. And while the exact numbers are currently unknown, it's thought that probably they're for every male for every four male offenders, there's probably one female offender out there.
[00:49:54] Speaker 2: Okay. Dick, you had another question?
[00:49:56] Dick: Yes, I'm concerned that people will will forget about this availability of information until something happens and then it restimulates it. And it it looks like as you said it's very passive. On Oahu, would it make sense to make this information available for perhaps the uh the neighborhood board system so that people might have greater access and greater knowledge to those potential dangers.
[00:50:19] Speaker 2: You know, I I'm told and Leanne I don't think is still on the line, uh Oh, Leanne, you're there. Leanne is in charge of uh of the data system. Uh Leanne, I was told that some of the neighborhood boards had indicated that they were going to check regularly, and when somebody that they thought was dangerous moved into their neighborhood, they were going to try to notify members of that community. Have you heard anything along those lines?
[00:50:41] Kathy Shimata: We have heard similar things and what they are waiting for is the automation that we're going to be doing because by the street name and the zip code, they'll be able then to um have uh sex offenders um uh listed uh by community areas.
[00:50:57] Speaker 2: Okay. Leanne, since I've got you on the line one last time. We're down to the last uh eight minutes and that gives you about a minute and a half to add anything that needs to be added or or emphasize something that's been said but it really does need to be highlighted.
[00:51:11] Kathy Shimata: Okay. Thank you. Um I just wanted to um say that we're we're very cognizant that the initial implementation of um uh of this bill as far as um getting notification out to the public has been somewhat cumbersome, but the way we've proceeded is that on the very short notification, we thought that it would be worse to have no information available to the public on July 1st. So we proceeded in that manner. We are working very hard to get automation out to the public. I would say within the next two to three months, and that um currently we have 526 total registered sex offenders in the state with um and that number will be growing because as we talked about earlier, um the Hawaii's implementation of this act is very broad and so we would have to go after all sex offenders that need to be registered, um who have ever been convicted in the state of Hawaii.
[00:52:06] Speaker 2: Okay. Leanne, thank you very much uh for participating this morning. Uh, that's Leanne Moriyami, who is the uh administrator of the Hawaii Criminal Justice Data Center. Connie Brinton, you're a psychotherapist who works exclusively with sex offenders and at least I perceive you as being on the ACLU side of of this argument. Uh anything you want to add or emphasize?
[00:52:28] Connie Brinton: Yes, I would. Uh in regard to what Michael said, I agree 100% and that is our our position that sex offenders as a group are are being punished uh in a way that's different from other uh kinds of criminals, that they are being punished for acts they could possibly do in the future and for continuing punishment beyond what their sentence was and we do feel that this is a discriminatory, unfair. But aside from that, aside from the personal liberties issues, we feel that the Meg Megan Law as it's written does not uh is a very simplistic solution to a very complex problem and will not do what it's supposed to do, i.e. um protect the the community safety.
[00:53:09] Speaker 2: So, you recognize that it's enormously popular. You think though, it's giving us a false sense of security, and what bothers me more than anything about what I'm hearing from you, is that you think it could be counterproductive that it could create more problems than solutions.
[00:53:24] Connie Brinton: That is correct. Absolutely correct. And uh in addition to something that was said earlier, when you take a look at sex crimes across the United States, even people who have committed consenting sexual acts with a mutually consenting adult partner uh can be considered sex criminals, and that is as and then if they should move to Hawaii, that's a a stigma that they will be carrying for life.
[00:53:45] Speaker 2: Okay. Adriana Romelli, executive director of the Sex Abuse Treatment Center, you're the one that works with victims every single day and it's understandable that you would say any balancing has to, you know, go to to the innocent party side as opposed to the perpetrator side. Uh what do you need to add to this conversation during the last couple minutes or highlight?
[00:54:04] Adriana Romelli: I think we need to say that this is not about punishing the sex offender. It's about asking that first sex offender to participate in community safety. Take responsibility. You created a crime. It means registering so the people in our community know who you are and what your behavior is all about. So, I do not see it as punitive. I see it as part of their responsibility for having created a very, very heinous crime. Um, I believe it needs to be balanced towards the innocent, and so I think that's why Megan's law is important. I think it's, you know, the first step. I think, you know, we still need to look at some of those real dangerous predators and what we can do to change laws around this particular category, sex offenders. Um, I think we need to look at bringing the community more into Megan's Law, getting more input from them, working with them. And I also believe we have to look at the whole area of prevention and education. We need to get out there and educate the community, so as I think the one caller said about a parent, he can take um better steps and better action towards protecting his children because that's what it's all about as well, but the sex offenders can participate with us in this big step of community safety. It's time.
[00:55:04] Speaker 2: And when you say balancing, in your article in this morning's paper, you had some statistics, you said that of of children under the age of 18, 25% of the girls and 17% of the boys can be expected to be sexually assaulted. Whereas the studies in the State of Washington, which has had a Megan's Law for some time, indicates that 3.5% of the offenders have been harassed as a result of this notification. That's the kind of balancing that you have in mind?
[00:56:04] Adriana Romelli: Yeah, [unintelligible — audio glitch] offenders here are getting, you know, harassed and feeling victimized are very few, whereas the number of children who are getting assaulted are very, very high, as well as the number of adults. So, sex assault is a serious problem in our community and I think we need to put our efforts and energies into reducing sex assault and into supporting the victim and looking at the offender behavior and how he can contribute to protecting society.
[00:56:04] Speaker 2: Okay. Kathy Shimada, we're down to two minutes and you've got about a minute and a half of them. You're a parole officer in the sex offender unit, you're dealing with the offenders every single day. What do we need to know before we close out this show?
[00:56:06] Kathy Shimada: We support the law. We think um registration and community notification are important to protect the community. As I said at the beginning, um the whole goal of treatment is to make offenders accountable for their behavior, and we think that this is another step in that direction. We are very supportive of Leanne's efforts to um get this information more current and more widely available.
[00:56:30] Speaker 2: And you don't think this is necessarily going to be harmful so far as attempts to rehabilitate those who can be rehabilitated, and you don't think it's necessarily going to force those who can't be rehabilitated into the so-called underground where they're, you know, not subject to the notification, simply because they're not cooperating with it. You're not overly concerned about those concerns that have been expressed by others?
[00:56:55] Kathy Shimada: We are very concerned that there are a number of offenders who are in prison right now who
[00:57:00] Speaker 1: refused to accept responsibility for what they did. They refused to ask for treatment. And um we would support uh legislation for civil commitment for some of these people. We we think there are some untreated sex offenders who should not ever be released into the community.
[00:57:14] Speaker 2: Okay. But you're saying they should somehow be identified as opposed to treated like everyone else who falls into the category?
[00:57:22] Speaker 1: We think I want to make sure I've got this right. We think that there is a minority of sex offenders who will not comply with registration, who will go underground.
[00:57:30] Speaker 2: Okay. That's Kathy Shimada, a professor in the sex offender unit. Well, that's our show, folks. Uh, the Price of Paradise Radio Show is produced by Susie Roth. The director of operations at Hawaii Public Radio is Jeff Ailardy. We've been talking about Hawaii's version of Megan's Law. If you would like to share your thoughts, questions, or comments on this important topic, then go to the internet: www.popweb.org. That's p-o-p-w-e-b.org, org. Watch tonight 6 and 10, KHON, channel 2 News. You're going to see a report by Rod Antone and the handy work of Hans the cameraman. You've been listening to Pop Radio. Aloha.
[00:57:14] Speaker 1: community.
[00:57:14] Speaker 2: Okay, but you're saying they should somehow be identified as opposed to treated like everyone else who falls into the category?
[00:57:22] Speaker 1: I want to make sure I've got this right.
[00:57:24] Speaker 2: We think that there is a minority of sex offenders who will not comply with registration, who will go underground.
[00:57:30] Speaker 1: Okay, that's Kathy Shimada, a professor in the sex offender unit.
[00:57:34] Speaker 1: Well, that's our show folks. The Price of Paradise radio show is produced by Susie Roth, the director of operations at Hawaii Public Radio is Jeff Ailardy.
[00:57:43] Speaker 1: We've been talking about Hawaii's version of Megan's Law. If you would like to share your thoughts, questions or comments on this important topic, then go to the internet: www.popweb.org, that's P O P W E B . O R G.
[00:57:58] Speaker 1: Watch tonight 6 and 10, KH010 channel 2 news. You're going to see a report by Rod Antone and the handy work of Hans the cameraman. You've been listening to pop radio, Aloha.
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