[NYAPRS Enews] NY's Sex Offender Law Questioned In Wake Of Shooting

[Matt Canuteson]

NYAPRS Note: In the wake of a series of incidents involving people freed
from prison under NY's two year old sex offender civil confinement law,
several Republican lawmakers seek a review of the law, charging that it
is too easy for some sex offenders to be returned to the streets. 

NY's Sex Offender Management Treatment Act (SOMTA) builds on the
capacity to keep sex offenders whose prison sentences are expiring in
several forms of custody due to a finding of "mental abnormality,"
ranging from long term commitment to state mental health facilities to
closely monitored intensive community supervision. Studies that find
that only 6% of sex offenders have formal mental illnesses point out the
problems in relying on mental health assessments over time of the
civilly committed offenders. This finding also supports long time
concerns by mental  health advocates about the legitimacy of this
approach, the extraodinary strain such programs place on our mental
health system and the undue stigma that is spread by this
unsubstantiated connection.

 

Sex Offender Law Questioned In Wake Of Shooting

By MICHAEL GORMLEY Associated Press May 31, 2009 

 

ALBANY, N.Y. - At least two of New York's nine most dangerous sex
offenders freed under a two-year old civil confinement law have faced
arrest on sex charges again, including one who this week shot a police
officer then killed himself. 

 

State lawmakers said they'll study the law, designed to restrict and
monitor some sex offenders after they leave prison, to see if it's too
easy for some offenders to be returned to the streets. 

 

The latest was Ken-Tweal Catts, who was freed from civil confinement by
a jury in September, about a year after his release from prison. Catts
was picked up Wednesday and was being charged with rape when he grabbed
a Dutchess County detective's pistol and fired a shot that grazed the
officer's head. He then holed up for three hours in the county building
before shooting himself. 

 

The first sex offender freed in the jury stage of the 2007 state law,
Douglas Junco of Washington County, was accused of rape and kidnapping a
woman in Georgia a year ago. That was eight months after a jury found
there wasn't enough evidence of a mental abnormality, as required under
the law, to confine him or order him to be strictly supervised in the
community. 

 

"The question is, what does the jury really know?" said Assemblyman Joel
Miller, a Dutchess County Republican. "Judges normally do that and it's
only when we play this game when people claim mental illness that we
fool the jury. This isn't supposed to be a game. People with competence
should make the decisions, not turn it over to lay people." 

 

The Republican said he will seek changes in the Democrat-controlled
chamber to improve the sex offender management law because of the
shooting. 

 

"Frankly, I don't like any part of the current system," said Miller,
noting that it provides a false sense of security. "I think we created a
charade that misleads the public." 

 

The state now confines 81 sex offenders in mental health facilities.
They can petition a court for release annually. 

 

The next highest level of "civil management" under the law is to require
"strict and intensive supervision" in the community. The state has put
65 offenders in that category so far. Of them, 29 violated the
conditions of their release and 10 were charged with sex-related
violations or new offenses. Of those, five did not involve physical
contact, according to state records. 

 

"It's a new law and a new experience and we are constantly monitoring
and evaluating it," said John Caher, spokesman for the state Division of
Criminal Justice Services. "I don't believe there are any concrete
proposals on the table at the moment to effect any major changes." 

 

There was no immediate comment from the Democratic majorities in the
Senate and Assembly, or Democratic Gov. David Paterson. 

 

"We have big concerns," said Sen. Dale Volker of Erie County who was
part of then-Republican majority in the Senate that supported the 2007
law. "The reason we passed the civil confinement law is because there
are some people you need to keep in confinement. We'll look into this." 

 

The law was aimed at a void in the criminal justice system: Once sex
offenders who often repeat their crimes especially without
rehabilitation completed their prison terms and parole, there was little
way to monitor or help them. The 2007 law sought to rehabilitate, rather
than punish, the sex offenders. 

 

The system creates a series of checks and reviews by medical and
judicial officials. 

 

Since it was effective in April 2007, the state prison system and Parole
Division has referred 3,252 sex offenders. The state Office of Mental
Health rejected 2,691 cases as not warranting supervision or confinement
beyond their jail sentences. The other steps in the process, including
psychiatric evaluations and judicial reviews, which can eliminate cases
from consideration for further confinement, further winnowed the group.
That left only the nine who were confined and 65 on strict and intensive
supervision in a community. Many cases are pending the jury stage, which
is at the end of the process. 

 

"There is no hole dark or deep enough for these sick and twisted
predators," said Assemblyman Greg Ball, a Republican whose district
includes Dutchess County. He said the most serious offenders must be
confined permanently. 

 

Catts was convicted in 2004 of felony sexual abuse in a case involving a
17-year-old. He had spent more than 500 days in jail before that, and
was released twice from prison and returned for parole violations,
according to state prison records. 

 

In prison, he logged 27 disciplinary incidents, including fighting,
harassment, smoking and an unnamed sex offense, according to corrections
records. He was released in 2007. 

 

Junco had served nearly 15 years in prison for an attempted first-degree
rape conviction in 1993 in Albany. 

 

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--sexoffenderlaw0
531may31,0,7608134.story 

 

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