Also its important to keep in mind when reading the following report, this report was done when Kansas was still a ten yr registration state , and it was 3 yrs ago, costs of many things have risen in general, not to mention that as of 7.01.11 a large number of registered offenders who were about to be released from their ten yrs of having to register got the boot and had anywhere from 15 to life,. added to the amount of time to register…

Here is a story published in LJworld.com about SO’s never making it out of the SOTP in Larned State Hospital, and about the cost to maintain these individuals.. So I felt that the article as it discussed the cost’s and the public’s reactions to the cost prompted me to provide a more clear idea of the measure of the cost.. The cost that can not be accurately measured ever…

Here is my reply

I would like to add here that while SRS is asking only an add 2mil for anticipated this report does not touch on the subject of the monies requested by the dept. of corrections due to the passage of SB 37. Under the new set of laws adopted in 2011, the “registry” will be overloaded. With steep and often unwarranted extensions to the amount of time registered offenders are required to register, and the laws governing compliance… It’s easy to foresee a tremendous influx of previously convicted offenders who served out their probation or in some cases prison time, to find themselves unwittingly out of compliance for say, having to leave state in an emergency due to death or illness or accident to a family member. The law clearly reads if an offender should find themselves out of compliance:

(d) No plea bargaining agreement shall be entered into nor shall
any judge approve a plea bargaining agreement entered into for the
purpose of permitting a person charged with violation or aggravated
violation of the Kansas offender registration act to avoid the severity
level of the offense and the mandated penalties established by law

Now while this does not come right out and say it’s a sentence to prison, if you read further into the Adam Walsh Act it goes on to say that there is no defense for being out of compliance. That being said, again, with the rigor at which the Registration requirements are spiraling and changing, there is going to be a great number of “offenders ” who while perhaps being good upstanding and contributing members of society, due to a simple oversight, will find themselves incarcerated. Why do I say incarcerated? Well under the Kansas Sentencing Guild-lines adopted in 1999, there is a alpha/numeric designation attached to each and every criminal offense. So for example a 19 yr old male who met and had a relation with a minor of the age being 16 -14 , and it was an isolated event, and the person prior to the event had no other criminal history, would fall into the approx. category of say an I – 5 , which is what’s called a presumptive probation box. So more than likely, said offender revives probation for 36 up to 60 months in some cases. Now let’s take that same offender, and let’s say that since the incident, he has gone on to build a life, successfully complete all the conditions of his probation, gets married and has gone on to have several children . Now let’s say there is a sudden and tragic accident involving his out of state or out of country parents. He responds immediately to get to his family, due to the nature of the situation, he forgets he must notify the KBI and the BI of the incoming Jurisdiction in advance of his travels. Now let’s say that while in the state where the incident occurred, he gets a speeding ticket. Well now the KBI is notified of his failure to maintain compliance. Under these new sets of laws, this guy who maybe owns a local business that employs say 100 people and is socially active and responsible. A good father, and a good husband and community member. Well now he faces prison, as there is no tolerance policy for failure to maintain compliance. Now back to the sentencing grid, since he was originally an I-5 now he has a person felony which is also a sex offence, for sentencing purposes he is a B-2 or there about. So he is in what is called a presumptive prison box. I.E , there is a no defense/ no tolerance policy, and he is unable to take a plea for probation… His incidental occurrence to notify before hurrying to the side of his family in the midst of a crisis will place him into the Custody of the Department of Corrections, yes prison. Not for being a criminal, not for committing another crime no matter the nature, but for acting on his own humanness to be by the side of his family in a dire time of need. For doing what any caring and concerned family member would do. However due to his indiscretion that occurred maybe 8 years ago, to which he completed his sentence of Sex offender treatment, 60 months of probation, and any other conditions of his probation. It’s this guy who will go to prison for a few years… How will this affect his family, the one who pays for a crime he committed and paid for years ago? What will be the cost to the community to house this person, when that bed-space could be used for a more worthy criminal? So what you read in this article is only a small percentage of the cost of sex offenders on the “system” and the community as a whole. Now the above example was the decent guy or gal who made an error in judgment once, or perhaps in some cases was misled about the age of the other party involved. There are a great number of registered offenders who are on the registry who are no more criminals or dangerous than those of you reading this. On the contrary, I would like to say also there are offenders on the registry whom myself questions why they are even walking the streets. But for the most part, most of the Kansas offender database is comprised with those who represent the group who pose zero threat. Yet they are costing the state a bundle. Also it should be mentioned that there are many homeless offenders who will no doubt fall out of compliance quickly due to the extreme requirements specifically geared toward the homeless offender. These folks will continue to fold in and out of prison, not for criminal behavior but because they were unable to maintain the compliance issue due to their homeless status, which in some cases is a direct result of a failure to be able to gain employment because of the offender website. Not all cases but some. So these laws have not supported the community, they have not kept victims from being violated and they have not rehabilitated those who are not able to be rehabilitated, and for those people whose offense was incidental, well they didn’t need rehabilitated, they just needed to understand and correct themselves and begin to try to move forward in a society where they are labeled no differently than the men discussed in this article. It’s a bleak and heavy load. We are spending astronomical amounts of money on this one select group of people, with whom a good majority of are not criminal in nature… Guilt by error in judgment, stupidity in some cases, being misled in some, and in some cases there was no victim, it was indecent exposure or some other ridiculous act that while yes is unacceptable, not one that warrants having their face and info all over the net posted as a sex offender.

None of this is simple to address, and the laws have lumped and huge group of peoples into one category for the sake of simplicity. It’s a mess, all of it is just one big mess. In the coming years we will have peoples incarcerated who have no need to be there, and the Dept. of corrections getting their 2 cents in on any statute that involves potential prison sentences , saying we predict we will need this much for this that and about twenty other things..DOC has a direct interest in the laws governing “sex offenders”. The easiest group of people to target simply because of the stigma associated with it. There has been zero public education done to inform the public of the real truth about the sex offender registry and who these people are and how they really came to be there and what potential threat any given person may or may not possess. So what happens is this data base creates a blanket idea that Kansas is just riddled with sickos and freaks … Does not look good to those who may be looking to relocate to Kansas. Kansas has chosen not to deal with the offenders of the statutes by risk, but rather by statute code. As a result I can personally testify that there are people who received plea bargains where the charges were lessened down, and in some cases substantially and therefor appear to be less dangerous, and there are those who gave the DA the facts and truth and were therefor charged by statute in a manner that would make them appear to be a monster, every variation in between. So when a member of the community, who has no REAL knowledge of the court process or the laws etc., goes onto the registry, well wow… It freaks me out and I deal with all this daily.

So again, this article only touches on one small side of the sex offender issue where money is concerned. We need to clean up the registry so that its more accurate in terms of its purpose, as to notify the community about real and genuine threats, not a registry that’s so overloaded that is boggles the minds of any standard citizen who is looking to try to be aware. In cleaning it up we remove many people who need not be on there and subsequently remove the potential for unwarranted incarceration of individuals who have moved on and forward and pose no risk.. Thus saving money to be used for those who need to be incarcerated no matter what the crime.
As parents we need to work closely with our children to develop strong communication based relationships that nurture and foster a sense of safety so that in the event a family friend or otherwise trusted adult acts out towards our children in appropriately, our children feel safe and comfortable to come to us… Facts don’t lie.. A majority of sex offenses involve someone trusted or close to the child. Stranger danger is the least of the concern where sexual issues are concerned. We need to of course make our children aware of potential dangers and how to combat them in the event they find themselves in a situation. In this society where parents are so busy making money to pay for the activities that our children participate where more often than not, it’s within the context of those types of relationships where sexual assault on our children happens… Ironic isn’t it. We spend our lives working to pay for the activity where our children come into direct contact with a person to whom they may trust deeply, and depend on in some cases for advancement in their field, its these people who we must watch out for… The boogeyman in the bush is actually the football coach or the youth group leader at the church or the seemingly overly nice teacher who takes a special interest in your child… Its not the guy walking down the street. It’s the people who you have invited into your homes. Yet society wants to rage against the boogeyman… While the real predator smiles when he shakes your hand and takes your permission slip for the overnight travel trip.

We need to take a huge step back and really look at how we need to deal with these issues across the board. And the first place to start is within your own home with your relationships with your children. If they are young, making sure to nurture closeness and a confidence in safety to share the experiences they have when not in your presence, and for the older kids, you must really reach out …Telling your daughter to not have sex till she is married is not enough to combat her decision to have a relationship with a 19 yr. old guy, or a guy her age for that matter. Telling a 14 yr. old girl that it’s her soul that is at stake is not tangible enough to her to sway her, neither is the threat of hell…Spending your days working 10 hours and when you do spend time with your kids it’s about homework and dinner and activities and all the stuff you work to pay for… It’s not enough… Move into a smaller home, don’t get yourself in needless debt to keep up with the Joneses, and start keeping up with your kids and who and what they are doing all those hours your away working. This is where is begins… It is evident by the number of sexually related offenses and alongside with the divorce numbers … We wonder why this is happening? In our pursuit of the almighty dollar, we have lost genuine contact not only with ourselves but with our children… And it’s those children who are markedly vulnerable to falling into the trappings of comfort from that trusted individual…

Now you may ask who am I to speak out like this.. I am a registered offender, I am a parent, I was a young girl from a broken home, I was sexually violated at a very early age by several trusted individuals, never by a stranger… I have lived through and with every side of this issue.. Now having disclosed this, if you feel the need to be rude or arrogant, tell me how I should have been sent through the wood shredder… Speak as you must…But in the meantime I will work diligently to correct laws, to educate the public on all the various issues that pool into this one big issue… As we over spend when we are broke, on things totally unneeded, and then the real needs go unmet… We will continue to see the same numbers in sexually related offenses each year, we will still spend billions of dollars holding, and feeding and providing medical care to many individuals who need not be incarcerated, we will continue to see the issue affect the families of once prosecuted offenders as those family’s fall apart under the stress and strain of having one of the parents of an elder sibling incarcerated , not for the sex offense but for not being able to maintain compliance for whatever reason, when maybe that person was supposed to be off the registry in a year, but now due to law changes is on it for another 15 yrs. and in some cases life. What happens twenty years from now when an offender is ageing and has to go in for emergency surgery due to health complications and he is unable to get in to the sheriffs dept. for failure to register that month. Maybe that 53 yr. old offender went in for emergency surgery and has been under medication and hospitalized for some time and was unable and perhaps due to circumstances didn’t even realize… According to the way the law is written now, that guy is out of compliance and there is no argument for such, and no plea “to avoid the severity level of the offense and the mandated penalties established by law” …guilty as charged, and prison is imminent… We the taxpayers foot this bill, while our kids, you know the ones we are protecting from this 53 yr. old guy who is registered for public indecency when he was drunk at age 23, its those kids who will lose more and more educators and school programs and the list goes on… We really need to go all the way back to the beginning. Over the past 15 yrs. we have learned much.. Now it’s time instead of throwing a bunch of junk into the game, we need to step back and really analyze the reals facts and how best to deal with the great variants involved.

I will be most pleased to have an ongoing dialogue with anyone who has ideas that serve the whole, not just the sum of the parts.. For those of you who wish to slander, or otherwise harass, well this will speak volumes about your character … For those of you who truly want to participate in the governing of our peoples and take a genuine interest in working towards goals that honor the constitution this country was founded on, while protecting all individuals, and co creating a society where we can feel safe to interact with, please feel free to contact me.. I don’t have cooties, I’m not contagious, and I’m far from being a freak or otherwise any other stereotype you can conjure up … I am however very interested in a world that is safe for my children, just as you are.. I’m also interested in world where we deal with peoples based on their situation not on a catch all…As this is the essence of a democratic society. People are fallible, some people make genuine errors or mistakes, and some people truly and genuinely are sociopaths and lack the faculties to help themselves. And like the rainbow, there is every variation in between. This is a democracy… “By the people for the people” not a Totalitarian regime. If we continue to allow blanket laws under which people must succumb, we are by proxy giving away the very core of power the fuels and propels forward a democratic society. If we allow one group of people to be isolated out, we are by proxy saying it’s ok to isolate out any group of peoples who according to any current trend is undesirable. And what do we do with what we deem trash? We cast it aside; throw it into a big hole in the ground far away from our homes… But the unseen truth about our trash if you will, is as it is removed from our home and sight, it’s still there, and it costs to remove it, and to maintain the land upon which we hide it away, it still cost’s when some trash is hazardous material, then we pay for the spills, the cleanups, the collateral damage… Not all “offenders” meet the criteria met by those who the state has deemed “a dangerous predator”… However we are spending so much money on those who are not a predator. I urge you to begin to openly do the research yourselves… Agreed there are some persons, as sad as it is to say, that for whatever reason have digressed into a lesser being, and lack values, cares and concerns, impulse control, and a litany of many other issues that prevents them from being able to participate in a community setting… If you believe that we are one family, then surely this is a sadness for us all, when one of us falls we all fall in some small way. Is it not our responsibility to deal with these individuals in a humane and dignified way… Animalistic they may be, I know that if your family dog became hostile over time and posed a threat to your toddler? You wouldn’t just send it away to a dank dark hole to be at the mercy of those left to guard him, yes you may first try obedience classes, and if after that the problem still existed, what then would you do? Yes a moral question indeed… But isn’t that what the entire sex offender issue is all about… Laws that we as a people (family) have deemed collectively to be based on morals of what we have determined is appropriate behavior and what is not? When thinking of the issue of our family pet, some would try to find a more suitable home, and some may simply take the dog out back behind the shed…And there will be solutions, based on the lives of whom are directly affected and close to the dog and their values etc. as to what solution might be best. Again a wide set of variances. There are so many variables to take into account under the umbrella of “sex offenders” that there are no easy one step solutions. As a one-step solution would not take into the account the variables. To ignore the variables, gives rise to first grouping peoples into a whole, then isolating that group of peoples and doing as we see fit when we so choose. In doing so we “rape” some persons of their individuality and of their rights granted for and by the constitution. The very code of laws under which we decided upon, and built this country, our collective home upon. When we as a whole decide its ok to isolate any one group and strip them of their rights, we, by proxy of allowing this to happen to one, says we will allow it to any. It’s the old saying about having boundaries.. Why have boundaries if you will allow them to be crossed… Why have the Constitution if we can selectively at will choose to ignore it. In allowing this we place every single person at risk to be singled out to have their rights ignored, over looked or justified by law that is put into place after the fact.

So again I wish to reiterate. First there are a wide variety of peoples who have for whatever violation of whatever statute, is now a registered offender. Based on the recent changes (SB 37) of the Kansas Offender registration act, all offenders currently required to register as of 7/01/2011 had their length of registration time extended by a minimum of 15 yrs. and a max of life. Whereas before it was for ten years upon a first conviction, and life upon a second (with a few exceptions). The issue that this change presents is a huge financial issue right out of the gate with monitoring all of these peoples. Then second, the issue when there is a failure to comply with the SORNA aspect of the new law. A failure to maintain compliance can be a precursor to an otherwise decent law abiding citizen to find himself in the custody of the DOC. In that event, the costs to house, cloth, feed, and provide medical care is extremely costly. The likelihood of a good percent of non-threatening offenders ending up in DOC custody is good based on the rigor of the compliance laws. So as we watch our education system downsize and wait for possibly an hour on hold when attempting to contact a government agency, or stand in a 2 hr. line to get our tags current, we can be glad that we are instead paying for the incarceration of a non-threat “sex offender”. Not to mention the burden placed on the state to now possibly foot the bill to feed and house the family the offender had to leave behind. As we feel the pinch of Social Services draining on our tax dollars, we can celebrate that the 19 yr. old offender who was placed on probation for having had “contact” with his 15 yr. old girlfriend that he grew up with since her birth, and is now incarcerated for not having his registration info current and up to date. As you may see here, like I said this article only has the scope to address a small percentage of the dollars being utilized to “deal” with sex offenders. Some of the offenders in this story are the ones whom the state has decided to civilly commit based on their history and gravity of their offenses. Justly or not, that’s who is reflected in this story. A small percentage of the entire sex offender population in Kansas. The issue of sex offenders is enormous and requires a very acute and sensitive understanding of all peoples and areas of life affected. Not just in the interest of a political bag of tricks to be used when the time for reelection is drawing close. While is sounds good to speak out and tell the public “It’s for you my public that I vote for …..” As the public’s fears and concerns are being ironically exploited to manipulate their vote. No one is stepping up to explain to the public how all these laws work and what the true cost of implementing them and enforcing them are on all branches of the legal system as well as social services and the private sector in many cases as they are affected… It sounds great on paper! Protect our kids! But no one is discussing the real efficacy of the laws and how the cost and efficacy are weighed against each other, and if there is a better way to achieve the goal at a cost much less in dollars and greater in sense… No one is telling the public that based on these new set of laws, that even them or their own may just one day be one this registry or another registry we devise as we allow the constitution to be eroded in the name of protecting society from the elusive boogeyman. No one is telling the public about the extreme problems inherent to the registered offender, of homelessness, joblessness, and families falling apart and creating a whole new group of social issues…Who is brave enough to stand up to speak out about the truths of how these registries are creating more fear and suspicion than they are protecting anyone, yet they are costing taxpayers by the millions to maintain the websites, monitor all the offenders, the staff to do all this, the LEO’s to be in the field going from home to home to verify addresses and car tags etc., the court systems, etc. etc… The “sex offender” industry is alive and well, the outpatient offender treatment programs at the rate of 40 bucks `a week per offender, and in some case more depending on how many times a week they have to go to group “therapy”. And the companies doing the court ordered lie detector testing, which can if found to be inconclusive or comes back showing deception, will cause an offender on probation or parole to get placed into custody. Yet a lie detection test has been shown to be erroneous enough that it holds no weight in court. But can send a nervous offender to prison. So again this article shows only a very small percentage of the true costs.
Please again don’t misunderstand… I firmly believe that some persons without doubt need to be incarcerated. And as far as this registry thing is concerned, I feel that is they pose enough of a threat that they need to be babysat, then what the heck are they doing out in the community to begin with. But again, the cost of incarcerating individuals is high and where is the line between who should be incarcerated and who should not. Not to mention the fallible nature of the prison system. We all know stories about those who come out by far worse and more criminally educated then before they went in, we all have heard stories about those who have become institutionalized, so it’s difficult to determine who should stay and who should go. However at what benefit is it if the courts have decided this person can stay, yet they are on a public registry that creates problems to get jobs simply because many companies don’t want their address on the public registry with the offender, to be made publicly known that they hire and employ sex offenders for fear of losing business. Even if they know the guy and know his situation and know that he is safe and a generally good person, they don’t want the negative attention that could possibly be drawn to their companies. And again the downward spiral that many registered offenders whose “ crime” was not of enough gravity to warrant incarceration, are penalized in a by far worse way, by public humiliation, threats, job loss, home loss, family loss, ostracized from the community, and living with the constant worry that they may find themselves out of compliance and end up going to prison anyway. From all of this, is created homelessness, psychiatric disorders, physical dis-ease, and other criminal activity in order to survive and feed their families… Now back to the cost… Can the real cost even begin to be truly measured?
The way we have things set up now is not working… And in the meantime we are footing the bill. Someone needs to push past the fear of being stigmatized and demand that these issues be brought to the forefront and be dealt with from a logical and less emotion based or politically motivated position.
If concerted action to begin to radically deal with and change some of these laws, this whole sex offender issue is going to blow up in our faces and who knows how that backlash may manifest.
In the meantime as our state is allegedly broke, it is paying the bills to deal with all the aspects of this costly issue.

Victoria Bliss

Here is just a small tid bit to get us started when looking to the direction of cost to i Kansas to accept the federal deal to implement SORNA

The Justice Policy Institute has calculated the expected costs for each state, and that the costs far exceed the amount that would be forfeited for non-compliance. Here are the estimates for Kansas:

Implementation cost: $4,502,553

Federal funds lost for failure to implement: $203,600

This info found originally on a blog HERE

some addtional info from the lone star state

NY Times Series on Civil Commitment and Sex Offenders

I was pleased and found it refreshing and forward thinking… so check out Kentucky..

“It will behoove the Supreme Court Justices of other states as well as the USSC to begin to look closely at the current laws of their jurisdiction, and to begin to move in a forward thinking direction, rather than continue to be held back by a fearful and socially negligent position that serves not the public, but only a narrow understanding of the intent and virtues of the very constitution in which they have been charged with the duty to uphold.

It is when we begin to make one exception to the rule , that is becomes quite simple to make another and then again another. To find proof of this, ask any parent who caved in and stopped at McDonald’s that one time, when at first they said no..” Oh just this one time a weary parent mocks as they pull in to the drive thru, only to hear the echos of the twenty times before when they said they same litany of words… If we can make an exception to whom the constitution applies and does not apply, in one instance, it will be but a matter of time before we find ourselves making more and more exceptions to the very rules that give structure to the foundation of this country. It is the liberties and goals of the democratic ideal, that was written into the fabric of the constitution by the men who risked life and limb in search of freedom from an oppressive government… It is this that we are challenging… To place a quick stop to the deterioration of the fabric that our forefathers so carefully wove, the fabric that provided the warmth, strength and courage to become the country we once were, but are slowly falling away from with each small allowed decay to encroach on the very liberties insured by the document we call the United States Constitution.” – Victoria Bliss