Sex Offenders in Your Neighborhood: What Parents Can (and Can’t) Do

By Ursula Furi-Perry, Esq.

A few months ago, an anonymous flyer was placed under the door of every house on our street. It was a print out from the Massachusetts Sex Offender Registry Board’s Web site, warning neighbors that a convicted sex offender had moved next door.

As a mother, I admit I appreciated the information—after all, I have three little boys to protect. But as a lawyer, the flyer made me cringe. Was it in violation of personal privacy rights?

Recent high-profile cases involving released sex offenders who struck again – including the New Bedford case where Corey Saunders, a released sex offender raped a 6-year-old boy in a public library – understandably have parents calling to modify sex offender classifications and the way offenders are released. But what can parents really do to protect their kids and communities from sex offenders living among them—and just as importantly, what can’t they do?

“A key problem is that the public has a legitimate fear of sex offenders and that fear is driving public policy,” says Laurie Guidry, Psy. D., president of the Massachusetts Association for the Treatment of Sex Offenders. And that can make for misinformation and misdirected attention.

For example, Guidry points out that child abductions by strangers are highly publicized, even though they only account for a small percentage of abuse cases. Guidry estimates that 93 percent of sex abuse cases are perpetrated by someone who has an established relationship with the child.

For the courts and the legislature, the key is balancing the collective safety rights of the community with the individual rights of sex offenders, explains Professor Paula Kaldis, who teaches family law and juvenile law at the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover. “Even though it is a public safety statute, it also cannot violate constitutional rights,” says Kaldis. Those include procedural due process rights afforded to all other citizens. The offender “is also a person, who has the right to live, to work,” Kaldis says.

Accordingly, the state’s sex offender registry statute had to be carefully constructed and written—and among other issues, it spells out some of the things that parents and others cannot do with information on a convicted sex offender. The statute includes a warning about criminal penalties for those who use sex offender information to commit a crime, engage in illegal discrimination, or harass others, says Kaldis.

The statute also makes it clear that sex offender information is to be used for one’s own protection and the protection of one’s children, Kaldis adds. So, while parents in a community can certainly band together and watch out for suspicious activity in their neighborhood, the line between sharing information with other individuals and disseminating information to the community is more blurry.

Here are some things parents can do to help protect their kids and communities:

• Stay informed. “If we all want to be more effective, we need to be smarter and more informed,” says Guidry, who cautions parents against “only reacting and not seeking information.” To better understand what you can and cannot do about sex offenders in your neighborhood, read the statute, Kaldis recommends. See http://www.lawlib.state.ma.us/sexoffenders.html for links to the statute, as well as other information about sex offender laws in Massachusetts.

• Focus on prevention. “It starts with prevention at the earliest level,” says Guidry, which includes educating kids about being safe and talking to other adults about any concerns. Parents for Megan’s Law, a national organization dedicated to the prevention and treatment of sexual abuse, lists prevention tips at www.parentsformeganslaw.com. Among other issues, parents can read about identifying behavioral and physical indicators of sexual abuse, red flags to watch out for, and tips for talking to kids. Look for prevention materials that go beyond outdated “stranger danger” information and focus on preventing sex abuse by those who have an established relationship with children—the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has great resources on its Web site, www.missingkids.com.

• Turn to the SORB (http://sorb.chs.state.ma.us/) for information about sex offenders in your area. The Web site lists the number of level 2 and 3 offenders living in each town, and also gives detailed information – including home and work addresses – for level 3 offenders. The statute also allows adults to request sex offender information from their local police departments, Kaldis adds, as long as they appear in person, present proper identification, and sign a record of inquiry.

• Use information for your personal protection—and not someone else’s. The statute requires that information be used for one’s own protection or the protection of a child under his or her care or custody. For both personal and online inquiries, the Board makes it clear that misuse of sex offender information is punishable by jail time and fines.

Ursula Furi-Perry, JD is a nationally published writer, college professor, and mother of two from Haverhill. Her book “50 Legal Careers for Non-Attorneys” will be published by American Bar Association Publishing in 2008. She can be reached at www.furiperry.com.