Dec 20, 2003 - 23:12:33 CST
"Ron" was working at a Bismarck call center the other day when some of his coworkers logged onto a Web site that identifies some of North Dakota's sex offenders -- complete with their photos, addresses and descriptions of their crimes.Ron is one of them.
"Yep, it's me," he told his coworkers.
Ron's immediate supervisors knew about his past, but for many of his coworkers, it was a shock.
"It was a really quiet day," he said.
He's been a sex offender for some 30 years, so he's been dealing with that reality for a long time. But for his coworkers, the dealing was about to begin.
"It's more their problem than mine," he said.
Ron isn't one to curl up in a corner when confronted with his past: He has a history of sexually abusing boys.
"I am a sex offender," he says loud and clear, without hesitation. "There's not a darn thing I can do about it. I can't take back what I did."
He did two stints in prison and has lived in Bismarck for about eight years. He lives in a residential neighborhood, but his apartment building has no children. He has no friends with children. He works in a place where there are no children. He's been involved in a Sex Offenders Anonymous group for 19 years.
Clearly, he has come to a place where he has accepted himself, works to make sure he doesn't fall into temptation and doesn't care what others think.
"I don't hide who I am," he said. "I'm not ashamed of who I am. It's embarrassing, what I did. I'm ashamed of what I did, but I'm not ashamed of who I am."
On the other hand, he didn't want his name used in this story. He knows what the public thinks of sex offenders. He said he doesn't mind the fact that his photo is on the state's sex offender Web site, but he said he believes it's unfortunate that his photo didn't go online until 16 years after he committed his crimes.
"I did what I did," he said. "I understand my crime is horrific."
But he finds it odd that there's no Web site for convicted murderers who also are on the streets -- and there are some on the streets. Including one who often heckled Ron in prison, until one day Ron had enough, and said loudly, in an area crowded with about 200 prisoners, "Hey, I hear my victims are doing well. How are yours doing?"
Sex offenders on the streets
Ron's coworkers aren't the only ones who are suddenly interested in finding out whether there's a sex offender in their midst.
Record numbers of people are logging onto the state's Web site, http://www.ndsexoffender.com, which identifies high-risk sex offenders and sex offenders who must register for life. The Web site has been more widely publicized since the Nov. 22 disappearance of 22-year-old University of North Dakota student Dru Sjodin and the arrest of 50-year-old convicted sex offender Alfonso Rodriguez Jr. He is charged with kidnapping Sjodin from the parking lot of a Grand Forks mall. She has not been found.
Sex offenders are feeling the heat as the public vents outrage over the Sjodin case and becomes more aware of sex offenders on the streets.
One Bismarck man recently found his neighborhood papered with fliers identifying him as a sex offender.
Another Bismarck sex offender was recently told he has to move out of his mobile home because the neighbors are complaining to the landlord.
Another Bismarck offender has received threatening letters in the mail.
When the Web site first went online two years ago, it averaged 7,500 hits per month. During the second year it averaged 10,000 per month. But in the two days after Rodriguez was arrested, the Web site had 10,000 hits. Since Rodriguez's Dec. 1 arrest, the site has had more than 30,000 hits.
Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem said the burgeoning interest in the Web site is good.
"That's what the Web site is for -- to see who is living in your area," he said. "Those are serious offenders. Those are not people who are innocent."
Stenehjem also has been receiving e-mails from concerned citizens.
"People are concerned and the public is worried," he said.
Jon Byers, who prosecutes sex offenders statewide, said he's been getting about 30 phone calls a day from police, prosecutors and citizens concerned about issues in light of the Sjodin case. Citizens are checking out the Web site and worrying about sex offenders who live near them, and authorities are wondering whether they're doing everything to make sure they don't have the next Rodriguez type of arrest.
"I hardly get anything else done," he said.
He explains to citizens that sex offenders have a right to go on with their lives once they do their time.
"There have always been sex offenders living in Bismarck and any other city and certain measures can be taken to help protect the public, but the fact of the matter is we're never going to be able to put sex offenders in a barbed-wire enclosure," he said.
Even imprisoned sex offenders can feel the piercing eyes of the community upon them -- the prison community. Already at the bottom of the prison food chain, sex offenders are being harassed even more than usual these days, said Steve Larson, who treats sex offenders in the State Penitentiary.
Sex offenders who are early in the treatment process often respond to the harassment by feeling sorry for themselves.
"They get angry that they're all being treated like serial rapists or child abductors," Larson said.
Those further along in treatment use the Sjodin case as an "exercise in empathy," Larson said. They talk about how horrible Sjodin's family must be feeling. What it would feel like to be them.
"Some realize that they fear that they may be capable of such a thing," Larson said.
'Don't go home'
But how worried should the public be?
Dennis Larkin evaluates sex offenders at the West Central Human Service Center in Bismarck and said he rarely sees people who fit the profile of Rodriguez. While he doesn't want to minimize the horror of sexual abuse, he said the vast majority of sex offenders, up to 85 percent, victimize people they know.
"These aren't the dirty old men," he said. "Unfortunately, it's the fathers and brothers and uncles and cousins that are perpetrators."
Larkin said one expert on sexual abuse was asked the No. 1 thing parents can tell their children to avoid being sexually abused, and he replied, "Don't go home."
"There are a lot of sex offenders walking next to you every day that are doing no harm," Larkin said. "Most of them I've dealt with are really trying to stay out of trouble and not re-offend."
Dr. Myron Venstra is a clinical psychologist who supervises a nationally acclaimed sex offender treatment program in Grand Forks and serves on the committee that classifies North Dakota sex offenders as high, moderate or low risk.
He said that while he encourages people to be aware of sex offenders, the problem is that people tend to assume sex offenders are all the same -- that every sex offender is a threat to themselves or their children.
But the vast majority of sex offenders in North Dakota -- about 60 percent -- are considered to be a low risk to the public. Another 25 percent are deemed to be a moderate risk, and 10 percent to 13 percent are high risk. There are 406 low-, 181 moderate- and 81 high-risk sex offenders walking the streets of North Dakota. The number of sadistic rapists-killers is minuscule.
"It's easy to get into a lot of fear of an offender who has been treated and has a lot of family supports," Venstra said.
While sex offenders are never considered "cured," less than 5 percent of the sex offenders Venstra works with have re-offended in 17 years. Larkin said one study of 34 treatment programs in four countries found that the recidivism rate for sex offenders who complete treatment dropped to 10 percent.
Venstra's problem with lists of sex offenders is that they don't give people enough information about the offender to help them know what to watch out for. He said most sex offenders are unlikely to victimize people who live near them; it's usually not within their comfort zone.
"Probably the individuals living next door to high (risk) offenders would be the safest because he's not going to create a ruckus where the police are going to come looking for him," Venstra said. "It's typically not going to be the person next door. But obviously, it's good to know that they live there."
Still, he understands that "emotionally, it's very disturbing to kids and families" to know a sex offender lives nearby.
"I wouldn't minimize the terror of living next door to a sex offender," he said.
In the current climate of fear and paranoia, it's easy for people to want to lock up all the sex offenders indefinitely, but Venstra said that unless communities are prepared to start building more prisons, they should scrutinize the treatment programs in place and demand aggressive programs with seamlessness between the prison program and aftercare.
Venstra said families of sex offenders are tormented right now because the community doesn't understand why families are sometimes reunited after sexual abuse. Sex offenders are more reluctant to go out in public because everywhere they go, people are talking about the Sjodin case and venting frustration about the system.
"They feel shame, guilt and isolation -- that isolation is the risk for re-offending," he said. "It's kind of a quiet desperation. ... They're really tore up all over again. The isolation is so acute and alienating for them they don't know where to turn."
He said the more an offender and family is isolated, the more the offender is likely to re-offend.
Dr. Ed Kehrwald, a clinical psychologist for West Central Human Service Center in Bismarck, said one of the hardest things for people to understand is why sex offenders are released back into communities. But he said most offenders don't do it again, and while many people see sex offenders as monsters, "They're still human monsters," he said. "They're not from another planet. They're still people."
The process of integrating a sex offender back into the community includes disclosing the perpetrator's past to appropriate people in his family, church and work place so they can all watch for subtle signs of relapse. Venstra's program includes a "safety plan" that requires the offender to be accountable for his time. Family members are trained to watch for any subtle changes in behavior that would be red flags, such as putting an inordinate number of miles on a vehicle.
He said the watchful eyes of a community can be better than a probation officer at keeping a sex offender in line because then it's as though the offender is surrounded by probation officers.
"I've come to see how important community is in this," he said.
He advises people to look at sex offenders with "hopeful skepticism."
"Don't give them your faith and trust," he said, "but support good (their) decisions."
Byers said that if you have a high-risk sex offender in your neighborhood, don't panic. Get as much information as possible and show your children their photo and tell them to steer clear.
He often tells people that it's kind of like playing a game of Hearts. It's better to have the queen of spades in your hand, "because you know where it's at and you can control what happens."
"What you need to be concerned about is when you don't have the queen of spades in your hand," he said.
He said people probably have just as much of a chance of being victimized by someone who's not on the list of sex offenders.
"We're at a time right now where a highly visible case has caused concern, but we still have to use common sense, be calm and collected about how we interact with our neighbors, and not let the case destroy what people have worked at for years," Byers said, "People do make changes in their lives. Not every sex offender is the same as the person who did this to Dru."
(Reach Deena Winter at 250-8251 or deena.winter@bismarcktribune.com.)
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