Kyle Considering Ordinance Limiting Where Sex Offender May Live Within City Limits
Staff Reports
The Kyle City Council is considering a new ordinance, which will define residency guidelines for registered sex offenders within the city limits.
According to Kyle Police Chief Jeff Barnett, 68 registered sex offenders live within the city limits, with approximately 60 of those involving minors.
The proposed ordinance creates Child Safety Zones to protect children and families and implements residency guidelines for registered offenders.
Barnett provided a presentation to city council with a draft ordinance on Feb. 2 City Council meeting to get feedback.
According to KPD officer Dago Pates, who manages the city’s sex offender registry, the inspiration for the ordinance came from a conversation with a new Kyle resident, who is a registered sex offender, why he moved to Kyle.
Pates said the individual had initially wanted to live in Cedar Park.
“He said, and I quote, ‘I can’t throw a rock without being in violation [of distance requirements] in that city,” Pates said.
Pates noted the city’s affordability and proximity to Austin contribute to Kyle’s growing population of registered sex offenders.
The ordinance was modeled off similar documents in nearby cities, including Cedar Park and Pflugerville, and defines places within the city where children commonly gather, such as parks.
Under the ordinance, sex offenders would not be allowed, by law, to live permanently or temporarily within 1,500 feet of any place where children commonly gather. These areas would be designated as child safety zones.
Registered offenders would be required to discourage children from visiting their homes on Halloween by not decorating their homes and leaving their lights off on Halloween.
Those caught violating the new law would be charged with a Class C misdemeanor. However, the ordinance would include a grandfather clause, which would allow a sex offender who is on the registry to maintain their current residency UNTIL their rental agreement was up for renewal or they changed their dwelling.
According to an unofficial map provided to the council, the ordinance would make residency within 95% of Kyle off-limits for registered sex offenders.
Several councilmembers thanked the police department and Officer Pates for bringing the ordinance forward.
Mayor Travis Mitchell asked the department if they could reduce the distance required to open up a little more of the city and balance a strong ordinance with creating a nuance for convicted sex offenders living in the city.
Mitchell said it bothered him that potential residents, who had lived in the city for perhaps several years, may be forced to move with only three months’ notice.
Barnett said the police department would explore decreasing the city’s percentage, where possible, which would be off-limits.
“This is a good conversation for us to have,” Mitchell said preferring to act in favor of children’s safety. “I just don’t know if it’s right [that they assume] a child would feel unsafe because three blocks down the road, there is someone who, ten years ago, was convicted of a crime that they paid the consequences for and [is] trying to live there peacefully.”
A law that restricts living arrangement according to distance from supposed places where children gather is DANGEROUS to public safety.
This is true for multiple reasons. First off, most offenders will not be able to go home or to family. There literally will be people living on the streets who have a perfectly good home they can live at but for the law. Is the town stating that it is safer an offender is homeless verses having a home within the prohibited zones?
Secondly, there is admission that the imputes for this law is because of other townships having a law. This is a race to the bottom. Town must enact these restrictions lest they are inundated with offenders looking for a place to live.
There has never been even ONE offense anywhere where the distance an offender lived had any relevancy to the offense. This law isn’t to protect, but to deter offenders from living in the community. It is a banishment law.
An offender isolated, alone and unable to integrate into the community is far and away more dangerous to community safety. This law does not protect the community but actually, and provably puts the community in more danger.
I understand, the town sees and understands public safety in terms of banishment. If the offender doesn’t exist who could argue that the public safety was not enhanced? However, it is illegal to create laws simply to shift a danger to some other community, because you all don’t want them.
I left the registry. It was taking my home, I was unable to keep a job and I was growing increasingly isolated. You all can’t pass laws ,especially ex-post facto, that purports to be for public safety, but all it does is takes my safety away. That is irrational and illegal. I now have stability in my life because I am not on a registry. The community is safer and I am a productive member of it. – all impossible under a registry given to the public in unlimited ways for the express purpose of social isolation.
In other words, the registry has become so dangerous to public safety that it becomes safer to not register and offers legal cover to avoid that registry in any way possible.
No ex-post facto laws, no double punishment, due process and equal protection. All of those things are violated with impunity for the sake of a public safety that is proven not to exist.
I am sorry about your registry. It is not credible. Credibility to manage and restrict flows from a court, not from a legislature. Non credible laws do not have be followed.
Nothing is more common than for a free people, in times of heat and
violence, to gratify momentary passions, by letting into the
government, principles and precedents which afterwards prove fatal to
themselves. Of this kind is the doctrine of disqualification,
disfranchisement and banishment by acts of legislature. The dangerous
consequences of this power are manifest. If the legislature can
disfranchise any number of citizens at pleasure by general
descriptions, it may soon confine all the votes to a small number of
partizans, and establish an aristocracy or an oligarchy; if it may
banish at discretion all those whom particular circumstances render
obnoxious, without hearing or trial, no man can be safe, nor know when
he may be the innocent victim of a prevailing faction. The name of
liberty applied to such a government would be a mockery of common
sense. Alexander Hamilton.
Thank you.
Rudy tells us
‘Nothing is more common than for a free people, in times of heat and violence, to gratify momentary passions….’
What Predator Rudy does not want to admit:
Nothing is more common than for a
free peoplechild predators in times of heat and violence, to gratify their own self-centered momentary passions at the cost of a child’s innocence and trust, and next try to somehow blame society for their own evil acts which remain in that child’s mind for the remainder of their lives.The registry has been in effect over two decades; many studies, both academic and governmental, have been done evaluating its effectiveness; it has failed miserably. It does not predict who will commit new crimes as 95% of new sexual crime is committed by persons not on the registry. It does not reduce re-offense; reoffense by those punished for an initial crime and then living in the community has held steady at, on average, 5% since long before the registry went into effect and is still at that percentage. It does not reduce new offenses; it does not protect children as virtually all sexual crime against children is committed by persons in their lives: their family members, peers, and authority figures, persons who are not on a registry.
Two of the most popular (with the public) restrictions it has produced, residency restrictions and Halloween restrictions, have ZERO evidence, based on a plethora of studies, that they make an iota of difference or produce an iota of public safety. These are the two that Kyle is attempting to put in place. Please, please do some research. With this ordinance you will not only be narrowing the options that registered persons have in seeking homes in which to raise their families and establish themselves as productive citizens, you will also be displacing some of the citizens already there, citizens who have not reoffended, citizens who stand to lose the very stability that is a major factor in their not reoffending.
With all of your fingerpointing, you offer absolutely no solution —other than “let them back into your society” ? Even with medical science admitting these people are incurable, that their minds are “fixed” and they will seek their gratification at all costs no matter the impediments–you nevertheless say “let them back into society”
Go live in your third world paradise with your angelic felons and leave us alone here with our children. We don’t want you pointing fingers at us. You have no solutions other than saying ‘It’s all good’. NO IT IS NOT ALL GOOD —-INCLUDING YOUR WORTHLESS WORDS.
One comment was not approved due to the threatening language used in the last paragraph. Please be respectful of the opinions of your fellow commenters.
Before these types of laws are considered, the sexual offender laws need major revisions. A sex offender can be someone who was caught urinating in the bushes, having consensual sex in public, and it can also mean someone who is a pedophile. There is a major difference in having pedophiles live x number of miles from a school verses kicking someone out of the city for urinating in public. Not all sexual offenses are a threat to society. The laws must be changed to categorize these offenses in terms that facilitate the degree of the sexual act to better inform the public. There have also been changes to sexual offender laws such as the Romeo and Juliet law however those who were convicted prior to that are still registering, their records should be updated automatically to avoid costs legal action to have that removed. As stated in the previous post, most offenders live in secrecy and often have low paying jobs.
NOTICE TO COMMENTERS: Please be respectful and considerate of a sensitive topic for members of any community, especially parents.
Worst Enemy, I am sorry that you feel so angry and so threatened by the facts that I presented. I read over what I wrote and do not find any finger pointing or accusations. I was merely stating facts and stressing the need for research before enacting legislation.
No, medical science does not say that those who have sexually offended are incurable. It says absolutely nothing of the sort. There are a tiny percentage who either cannot or will not alter their behavior, but with an average, across the board reoffense rate of 5% for decades, successful rehabilitation is apparent. You need to understand that there are two different categories of people being discussed here. One is everyone on the registry, which is who you are disturbed about. The solution that you demand is this: recognize that a subset of them need no treatment whatsoever. What “cure” would you offer teenagers and young adults having underage sex except some counseling about pregnancy, venereal disease, and refraining if someone is underage? What advice would you give teenagers for sexting except to have better sense? What would you tell children as young as nine whose curiosity is totally age appropriate?
For everyone else, let’s try what research tells us is most effective: for the vast majority, treatment shown to be effective with reentry initiatives readily available after a short prison term and / or a short probation period structured toward helping the persons be successful; for those identified as having the potential for more serious problems, more intensive therapy and treatment, an appropriate prison sentence, and a longer, more structured probation with more law enforcement oversight also focused on success and the same or even greater access to reentry initiatives, housing, employment, and needed services.
The other category is those who are not on the registry but are and will be committing 95-96% of all new sexual crime. We can help them or treat them because no one knows who they are, not until they are identified and brought into the system, and then the most common response is shock that someone like that, the family pastor, the third grade teacher, the father or uncle or brother, the respected pillar of the community, could do that. And from that point on, approximately 95% of them, once living in the community, will never do it again.
Before anyone consider any law, I’d suggest watching two films. First is a 60 Minutes Australia segment called “Village of the Damned.” The other a PBS/POV who titled “Pervert Park.”
I’m not saying that solution is good or bad. But those films highlight some of the issues that need to be considered.
Some of the hateful rhetoric here is common among those who participate in ‘othering’ but don’t be too quick to judge. The laws are changing the net getting wider and more accusations being made. What does that have to do with you? You tell me! If the statute of limitations has been dropped in your state or being considered is there anything in your past, daily, or future relations that could be life-altering? Don’t be silly or dismissive of that question.
Women Against Registry advocates for the families who have loved ones required to register. According to the NCMEC’s last published figures there are over 912,000 men, women and children (as young as 8 and 10 in some states) required to register. The NCMEC has ceased publishing the number of registered citizens as it will soon top 1,000,000. The “crimes” range from urinating in public (indecent exposure), sexting, incest, mooning, exposure, false accusations by a soon-to-be ex-wife, angry girlfriend, or spiteful student, viewing abusive OR suggestive images of anyone 18 years old or younger, playing doctor, prostitution, solicitation, Romeo and Juliet consensual sexual dating relationships, rape, endangering the welfare of a child, the old bait-n-switch internet stings (taking sometimes 12 months before a person steps over the line) guys on the autism spectrum or with intellectual disabilities and many others.
Multiply that number by 2 or 3 family members you can clearly see there are well over 3 million wives, children, moms, aunts, girlfriends, grandmothers and other family members who experience the collateral damage of being murdered, harassed, threatened, children beaten, have signs placed in their yards, homes set on fire, vehicles damaged, asked to leave their churches and other organizations, children passed over for educational opportunities, have flyers distributed around their neighborhood, wives lose their jobs when someone learns they are married to a registrant. Academics and researchers indicate 3 things are needed for successful reintegration; a job, a place to live and a “positive” support system. Banning a registered citizen from drug treatment centers is not positive support.
The Supreme Court’s Crucial Mistake About Sexual Crime Statistics – ‘Frightening and High’ (Debunks the high recidivism rate cited by retired SCOTUS Justice Kennedy)
It is very important that you read the abstract below and then the full 12-page essay by Ira Mark and Tara Ellman.
ABSTRACT This brief essay reveals that the sources relied upon by the Supreme Court in Smith v. Doe, a heavily cited constitutional decision on sexual offense registries, in fact provide no support at all for the facts about re-offense rates that the Court treats as central to its constitutional conclusions. This misreading of the social science was abetted in part by the Solicitor General’s misrepresentations in the amicus brief it filed in this case. The false “facts” stated in the opinion have since been relied upon repeatedly by other courts in their own constitutional decisions, thus infecting an entire field of law as well as policy-making by legislative bodies. Decisions by the Pennsylvania and California supreme courts establish principles that would support major judicial reforms of registries if they were applied to the facts. This paper appeared in Constitutional Commentary Fall, 2015. (Google: Frightening and High)
A study reviewing sex crimes as reported to police revealed that:
a) 93% of child sexual abuse victims knew their abuser;
b) 34.2% were family members;
c) 58.7% were acquaintances;
d) Only 7% of the perpetrators of child victims were strangers;
e) 40% of sexual assaults take place in the victim’s own home;
f) 20% take place in the home of a friend, neighbor or relative (Jill Levenson, PhD, Lynn University)
There is a tremendous need to fund programs like “Stop It Now” that teaches parents how to begin and maintain a dialog with their children to intervene before harm occurs and about grooming behaviors as well as other things at age-appropriate levels in their Circles of Safety.
Our question to the public is one of, when does redemption begin? When are those required to register given their lives back without the stigma and hate?
We support the principles of Restorative/Transformative Justice; restore the victim, offender AND the community.
Our country is evidently proud to be ‘the incarceration nation’ with 5% of the world’s population and 25% of the world’s incarcerated.
Here is an example of how our families are harmed. A well-meaning teacher printed out profile pictures of local registrants and put them on the board around the classroom. She promoted her effort to protect her students by suggesting they look at and remember those people. One student pointed at one picture and said, “Katie isn’t that your dad?” It was….