By JOEL ELLIOTT
Staff Writer Tuesday, December 26, 2006

An entire stretch of Messalonskee Stream, along with hundreds of feet from either bank, had disappeared. Cra-ters, each large enough to swallow 150 football fields, had been stricken from the landscape, wiping out most of the downtown area and portions of the surrounding countryside.

The map shows how Oakland looks to registered sex offenders who want to live there, Town Manager Steven Dyer said as he smoothed out a six-foot map of the town.

"We figure between 40 and 50 percent of the areas in the town are restricted," he said, pointing to black circles that represent sections of town that are off-limits to registered sex offenders.

At the center of each circle is either a school, a registered child-care center or a public area, such as a trail or a park. The ordinance the town council adopted last month carves out 1,500-foot swaths around these locations where sex offenders are not allowed to live.

The new look seems to have caught on.

Oakland has joined a growing movement in Maine to restrict where registered sex offenders are allowed to live.

While only a handful of towns have so far adopted residency restrictions, more are considering them, and state legislators are bracing for a raft of bills on the subject in January.

Proponents of such measures say that they are aimed at protecting children.

Others say that residency restrictions infringe on the freedoms of people who already have served their sentences while offering little or no actual safeguards.

The public seems to accept the idea of residency restrictions as a method of keeping children safe from sexual predators. Town councilors in Oakland, for example, passed their ordinance with little or no opposition, or even much comment from residents, despite multiple public hearings on the matter.

The councilor who brought up the idea, Ralph Farnham Jr., said he did so at the request of two mothers concerned about the safety of their children. When asked if residency restrictions are likely to be an effective measure to cutting down on the number of incidents of predatory sexual behavior, Farnham said he was uncertain.

"I don't know that," he said. "I guess it's a place to start with."

A high-profile case in Waterboro, in which a child sex offender set off fierce protests by moving to within 840 feet of a school, resulted in an overwhelming vote in favor of one of the toughest residency restriction ordinances in the nation. Registered sex offenders must stay out of a nearly half-mile buffer zone around all schools in Waterboro.

Sex offenders are lying low for the most part, and voices from the public in opposition to residency restrictions are rare.

PUSHING FOR LIMITS

Some proponents of residency restrictions say using a state law to standardize enforcement across Maine would be an effective measure for keeping predators away from children.

Rep. Lawrence "Larry" Jacobsen, R-Waterboro, plans to present a bill titled "An Act to Ensure the Safety of the Public and Victims of Sexual Assault" that would aim to do just that.

The single largest driving factor behind residency restrictions is public opinion, Jacobsen said.

"People don't want violent sex offenders living next to schools and places where young people gather," he said. "And you have a lot of these sex offenders that look for jobs in school settings and volunteer in groups of young people. They are attracted to places where young people are, and this is just a matter of saying 'No. You're not going to be there.' "

Jacobsen said he also wants a system that would distinguish between high-risk sex offenders and those convicted of less violent crimes, such as statutory rape (sexual intercourse with a person who has not reached the age of consent -- regardless of whether both parties participated willingly). Jacobsen's legislation would provide for 1,000-foot buffer zones around schools in most towns in the state of Maine.

The buffer zone would shrink to 500 feet in cities with populations of more than 30,000, but this would only affect a handful of municipalities in Maine.

Cutting in half the size of the buffer zones in larger municipalities, such as Lewiston or Portland, would avoid the perception of banishment, Jacobsen said.

But if the goal is to reduce the number of sex crimes against children, wouldn't it still be a simple matter for a predator to walk a couple of blocks to get to a playground?

"Unfortunately, yes," Jacobsen said. "It's a little close. I'd like to see 2,500 feet. But I believe that if a lot of towns start doing that, it'll probably be found unconstitutional or taken to court by the Civil Liberties Union."

Jacobsen also is proposing legislation that would prohibit sex offenders from living within 10 miles of the residence of one of their victims or within 10 miles of where the crime took place.

PROBLEMS

Some experts and legislators are raising questions about the effectiveness and constitutionality of laws that penalize people who already have served time in jail for their offenses.

Laws restricting where a person can live probably will be challenged in court, according to Sen. Bill Diamond, D-Windham, chairman of the state Criminal Justice Public Safety Committee.

"It sounds like an easy fix, but it's a two-edged sword," he said. "Once the state starts saying there is a buffer zone between where sex offenders live and 'where children gather,' it's a difficult issue, because it would force all of the sex offenders out of the cities."

Diamond said another possible result could be even more chilling. If residency restrictions become too stringent, sex offenders may stop registering at all. When sex offenders "go underground," there is no way for law enforcement agencies to track them, much less keep them away from children.

Sex offenders whose whereabouts are unknown pose a real danger.

Jessica Lunsford, the 9-year-old girl whose tragic death created the impetus for "Jessica's Law," was raped and murdered by a registered sex offender who, several weeks before, had moved to a different address without notifying authorities. Jessica's parents had no way of knowing that a sexual predator lived nearby. The Jessica Lunsford Act now requires sex offenders in Florida to wear electronic tracking devices at all times.

While more than 500,000 sex offenders faithfully update local law enforcement agencies about their whereabouts, a "conservative estimate" of the number of missing sex offenders nationwide is at least 100,000, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

"Our concern is that these laws may give a false sense of security," Carolyn Atwell-Davis, director of legislative affairs for the Center, told The Washington Post. "We're not aware of any evidence that residency restrictions have prevented a child from being victimized."

Since then, the center has backed away from this position, and has stopped taking any official stance on the matter.

One of the more outspoken organizations is the American Civil Liberties Union, which argues that residency restrictions amount to banishment and are unconstitutional.

"We are concerned that such restrictions in a state like Maine could result in sex offenders being removed from housing with family and friends near services that they need ... to prevent reoffending," said Shenna Bellows, executive director of the organization's Maine office.

The Maine Municipal Association hasn't taken a stance on the matter.

The organization has been fielding requests for advice from all over the state, but neither encourages nor attempts to dissuade municipalities from adopting residency restrictions, spokesman Michael Starn said.

"It's a local decision that communities can make if they want," he said. "We are concerned about communities enacting any type of ordinance that might get overturned by a court, but sometimes that's how you determine the extent of your local law-making powers. This one clearly is one that may have some legal questions."

IN OTHER STATES

People in other states have been debating residency restrictions for at least the past 15 years. Nineteen states have residency, activity or employment restrictions on sex offenders, according to the National Center for Missing or Exploited Children.

Some of the buffer zones are as small as 500 feet, as in states such as Illinois. In California, sex offenders on probation are prohibited from living within a mile of schools.

Castration is used on certain sex offenders in eight states, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

California was the first state to pass a law providing for "chemical castration," followed by Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Montana, Wisconsin, Texas and Oregon.

Chemical castration attempts to curb sexual urges with hormone or other chemical injections.

Texas also allows for surgical castration.

States with these laws try not to classify castration procedures as "punishment," but rather call it a "treatment," according to a criminal justice program director for the National Conference of State Legislatures, Donna Lyons.

Another approach to attempting to control sex offenders is requiring them to wearing electronic tracking devices that communicate with Global Positioning System satellites. Twelve states do this in some fashion.

'WHERE DOES IT END?'

Conspicuously quiet in the debate are the sex offenders themselves.

Not known as a particularly outspoken bunch, the people on Maine's sex offender registry have become particularly reticent after a Canadian man in April stalked and killed two of them. He had researched them on the Maine sex offender registry, which provides the home address, photos, criminal record and other information upon request.

Most of those on the sex offender registry are keeping out of the debate about residency restrictions, choosing rather to stay as far as possible from the public eye.

Those who are willing to talk tell about a lifetime of regret and rejection.

Wilfred Gordon of Norridgewock spent a year in jail after a 1995 conviction of unlawful sexual contact. But Gordon, who is both a father and a grandfather, said his punishment didn't end with his jail time.

"I done my time, finished my sentence, and haven't had any remote instance (of recurrence)," he said. "I made a mistake way back in my past, and I paid for it -- Where does it end?"

Gordon said that the proposed legislation probably wouldn't affect him as much it would others on the registry, as he doesn't plan to move near any of the taboo locations.

While Gordon seemed to speak fairly freely about his situation, many are not so transparent.

The most dangerous sex offenders frequently are those who have never been caught, or simply refuse to register, according to another man who is on the sex offender registry, David W. Berry of Millinockett. The fact that the worst sex offenders already do not care what boundaries they cross makes legislating residency restrictions an ineffective measure, Berry said.

"If an offender is looking for a victim, you increase the area of safety around a school, fantastic, but he will go somewhere else," he said.

"I agree with limitations to try to keep offenders away from minors and victim-age children, but a lot of it is a false sense of security."

Berry, who was convicted in 2002 of possession of child pornography, said he doesn't personally object to residency restrictions, because he already makes a point of avoiding places where children gather.

But he said that programs such as Dateline NBC's "To Catch a Predator," in which police officers catch predators in an online sting operation, work much better as a deterrent.

Others advocate various treatment programs as methods of avoiding recidivism.

Gary Huntley of Augusta, who in 1995 was convicted of gross sexual assault and incest, said chemical castration has cut down on inappropriate thoughts and urges.

Chemical castration reduces sexual urges by chemically inhibiting hormones that stimulate testosterone production.

"I'm a person who has offended most of his life," Huntley said. "I'll be 60 years old. And it's possible for a person to change."

POISED FOR A STRUGGLE

The movement by towns such as Oakland and Waterboro to adopt residency restrictions is gaining momentum. Concern is growing that towns that don't have such restrictions will become a dumping ground for sex offenders who have nowhere else to go. Towns such as Saco and Norridgewock are pushing for residency restrictions to be unified with a state law.

But proposed legislation for statewide residency restrictions aren't likely to pass as quietly as did Oakland's ordinance, and Diamond, the Windham senator, expects much debate in the Criminal Justice Public Safety Committee, where the bills will first appear. If the Maine House eventually delivers a statewide residency restriction, that probably won't be the last word, Diamond said.

"Is it constitutional, once someone has served their time, to tell them where they can live and can't live?" he asked. "I expect someone or some group will pose that challenge, and I hope they do, so it can be answered."

Diamond, like Jacobsen, said the state needs to concentrate on identifying high-risk, repeat offenders. But, like the MCLU, Diamond worries that the matter has become too politicized.

"It's just such a serious issue," he said. "The problem is that so many legislators are going to want to be seen as being tough, but the problem with the tough game is finding something that is going to work. We want something that is serious and meaningful, and not just window dressing."

Joel Elliott -- 861-9252

jelliott@centralmaine.com