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Divisions of labor in policing: Police, communities and sex offender control

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Divisions of labor in policing: Police, communities and sex offender control

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DIVISIONS OF LABOR IN POLICING: POLICE, COMMUNITIES AND SEX
OFFENDER CONTROL
by
Django Sibley
A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfilment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(GEOGRAPHY)
May 2002
Copyright 2002 Django Sibley
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UMI Number: 1411805
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UNIVERSITY O F S O U T H E R N CALIFORNIA
TH E GRADUATE SCH O O L
UNIVERSITY PARK
LOS ANG ELES. CALIFO RNIA S 0 0 0 7
This thesis, written by
u\ tsis Committee,
and approved by all its members, has been pre
sented to and accepted by the Dean of The
Graduate School, in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
D ua
!
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ii
Acknowledgements
The successful completion of this thesis was only possible thanks to the
assistance and advice that I received from a great many people, to all of whom I
owe a debt of gratitude.
Michael Dear provided me with the academic advisement and mentorship
upon which this work relied greatly. He taught me much, and constantly
challenged me to refine my thinking and expression.
Chief Joseph Santoro and Detective John Abbott of the Monrovia Police
Department were most generous with their time and energy in providing me with
detailed accounts of an incident of sex offender control that occurred in their
jurisdiction, and in granting me extensive access to their documentary records
relating to the case.
Commander Garrett Zimmon of the Los Angeles Police Department took
the time to discuss my ideas about Megan’s Law with me, as well as to provide
me with insight into policing issues from his senior position in Southern
California’s largest police department.
Finally, I owe a great deal to the numerous friends and colleagues in
Humberside Police who provided me with sustained assistance, advice and
encouragement throughout the process of producing this work. Their practical
expertise and perspective helped me retain the ‘real world’ slant in my thinking
that an academic working environment can so easily threaten to erode.
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ill
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements ii
List of Figures v
List of Tables vi
Chapter 1: Policing and sex offenders
1.1 A fight in the library 1
1.2 Thesis goals 4
1.3 Sex offenders 5
1.4 Policing 7
1.5 My positionality . 8
1.6 Thesis structure 11
1.7 Significance of thesis 12
Chapter 2: Sex offenders, community policing, and NIMBY
2.1 Sex offenders 14
2.2 NIMBY 21
2.3 Community policing 27
2.4 Geography and policing 38
2.5 Divisions of labor 41
Chapter 3: Sex offender policing and Megan’s Law: key dimensions
3.1 Gauging the dimensions 44
3.2 The rise of Megan’s Law 47
3.3 California’s Megan’s Law 56
3.4 Megan’s Law: operational dimensions 66
3.5 Preliminary case studies 67
3.5.1 ‘Name and shame’ 67
3.5.2 Montana, Massachusetts, and the cannibal 73
3.5.3 Community notification: typical responses 75
Chapter 4: Divisions of labor in policing
4.1.1 The need for conceptualization 78
4.1.2 Actors 79
4.1.3 Process 83
4.1.4 Stages of negotiation 89
4.1.5 Additional dimensions 91
4.2 Case study: methods, data, and sources 93
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List of Figures
Figure 1: Sex offender exclusion - model
Figure 2: Map of Monrovia and environs
Figure 3: Flyer
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vi
List of Tables
Table I: Hierarchy of individual acceptance 22
Table 2: Monrovia and Linares: stage summary 128
Table 3: Stage 1: Routine Monrovian policing 147
Table 4: Stage 2: Reaction - Linares in Monrovia 151
Table 4: Stage 3: Post-Linares’ expulsion 151
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Chapter 1: Policing and Sex Offenders
l
1.1 A fight at the library
One evening in the summer of 1999 I was patrolling the streets of the
North Bransholme estate, Hull, in my capacity as the police officer assigned to
that beat. I received a call on my radio instructing me to attend a local High
school to investigate a report of a fight talcing place there. The dispatcher
informed me that the fight was in the school library, which was kept open in the
evenings for the use of the local community. It was with little real concern, then,
that I rolled up outside the school doors.
As I walked towards the entrance I was met by a member of the school’s
staff. She was clearly upset to see that only one officer had been sent in response
to her call. She pointed me in the direction of the library, telling me that the
librarians had locked themselves inside a large cupboard to shelter from the
melee. As I entered the library the extent of the fight immediately became
obvious to me. A crowd of some fifteen or so young people were kicking and
punching a young male who was, by this time, lying huddled on the floor. The
young man’s blood was splattered across the floor, walls, and library books. I
hurriedly began pulling members of the crowd off the victim, but, being severely
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outnumbered, was not in a position to bring the incident to an immediate halt. I
radioed to the dispatcher that I would need some additional assistance.
Then, from the direction of the school’s entrance, I heard a wail from the
member of staff who had shown me in. I abandoned my futile efforts to stop the
assault and ran to see what the problem was. As I reached the doors I saw two
car-loads of adults screech to a halt at the front of the school. It was clear to me
that they had not come for library books. They alighted from their vehicles and
came purposefully towards me. A woman at the front of the group shouted to me
that I had better not try and stop them from getting the ‘nonce’ (a local term
meaning ’sex offender1 ). I shouted a reply to the effect that they were not to enter
the school and, sensing that a lack of co-operation was imminent, drew my baton
and issued an ’urgent assistance’ call over the police radio. After thirty seconds
or so of combat, several of the adults had made it in to the school and several
more were still violently resisting my attempts to prevent their entry. Fortunately
for me, and for the young man who was still being assaulted, my assistance
began to arrive. Some minutes, and several violent arrests later, an uneasy order
began to return to the school library. The assault victim was rescued by officers
and the remaining twenty-or-so members of the angry crowd were moved outside
of the building. The librarians were told that they could safely come out of the
cupboard, and I was able to tend to my bruises and sprains.
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The injured young man required hospitalization, and it was decided that
he should be removed from the scene in a police vehicle. When officers brought
him out of the building and towards the vehicle trouble flared again, as members
of the crowd tried to break through the circle of police officers to further assault
their victim. Only when he had been driven away did the situation begin to cool.
After telling us that we were a disgrace for taking the side of a ‘nonce’, the
crowd melted away.
When the arrestees were interviewed later that same evening the story
behind the incident was revealed. Some young children on the estate had been
taking off their clothes in order to go swimming. They thought they saw an older
male watching them undress from some nearby bushes. They informed some
relatives of this, and a group was quickly assembled to track down and punish the
deviant individual. Upon finding himself being chased by the group, the young
man who was subsequently assaulted had run into the school looking for
somewhere to hide. Far from being remorseful for their violence, those arrested
were proud of the action they had taken. It had been done in order to protect the
local kids, they told me.
This anecdote demonstrates several interrelated points. Firstly, that
individuals perceived to be sex offenders can provoke strong feeling in, as well
as strong responses from, members of the public. Secondly, that members of the
public are typically keen to see sex offenders stringently controlled. And thirdly,
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that the question of how sex offenders should be controlled can be a matter for
(sometimes dramatically conducted) negotiation between the police and certain
members of the public.
1.2 Thesis goals
This thesis examines the consequences for sex offender policing of a
series of legislation in the United States known collectively as ‘Megan’s Law’.
Megan’s Law is a response the problem of controlling sex offenders that has
been implemented across all States since 1996. It operates through the
registration of convicted sex offenders following their release from custody, and
the public release of information identifying certain registrants. Megan’s Law
facilitates increased public involvement in sex offender policing, and is intended
to provide the public with information they can use to protect themselves and
their children. It represents a new paradigm in sex offender policing, and its
impacts on the practice of controlling offenders have been profound.
The specific goals of this thesis are as follows:
• To demonstrate that the public involvement in sex offender policing
facilitated by Megan’s Law promotes a model of offender control based upon
spatial exclusion.
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• To propose, test, and evaluate a conceptual framework that accounts for
sex offender exclusion as the outcome of a process of negotiation over a division
o f labor in policing.
• To suggest considerations for sex offender policing policy.
These goals relate to an issue that is both complex and politically
charged. The following paragraphs seek to contextualize the issue by introducing
the nature of the sex offender problem and the policing issues it gives rise to.
1.3 Sex offenders
The ‘sex offender’ term can be applied to individuals who engage in a
diverse range of behaviors. The definitions of what constitutes offending
behavior vary widely across time and between places. This is an issue that will be
examined in more depth in later chapters. However, as a starting point I will take
the position that there are individuals in society whose sexual behavior is viewed
as seriously deviant and in need of regulation through policing.
Whilst this project will take a case in California as its primary focus, the
problem it examines has international dimensions. Recent years have seen
massive outpourings of public concern in both Europe and North America over
the ways in which sex offenders are regulated. At the core of this concern is the
issue of how best to protect children from pedophilic sexual predators. Events
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1.4 Policing
Formal police agencies have been a feature of societies in North America
and Europe for well over one hundred years. In their institutional form, the police
have a broad range of responsibilities that range from the protection of national
security, to the maintenance of public order, crime control, and matters of public
safety such as traffic control. It is very difficult to define the roles of the police,
and every police agency operates according to dynamic mandate. Given their
unique position of power and their ability to influence matters of great public
consequence, police agencies find themselves under constant, and often
contradictory, pressures and demands which force a constant dynamism in
prioritizations, policy positions, resource allocations, and operating practices. My
own experiences working as a Constable in Hull, England, from 1995 to 1999
only served to bolster my view that policing is a highly complex and infinitely
interesting business. Not surprisingly, policing is an issue that also attracts much
attention from academics, as well as from the media, and numerous groups
within the general public.
Whilst official police agencies find themselves at the center of matters
concerning social control, they are never the sole agents o f its applications. The
nature of police relationships with other agencies, including the general public,
are fundamental to determining the nature and effectiveness of any form of social
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control. This study foregrounds the role of these relationships in determining the
nature and effectiveness of policing practices.
1.5 Mv positionality
The police find themselves at the center of many social debates and
controversies, and are consequently in a position that can provide useful insight
into a range o f issues. I am a police officer, and the perspective I shall
demonstrate in this thesis will inevitably be shaped by my position. As such, I
hope it will make a useful contribution to the issues examined as the voices of
police practitioners are seldom heard in academic debates over policing issues. I
embarked upon this research project with a significant degree of knowledge
about policing issues, much of which was learned through my experience of four
years of police service. My practical experience of policing included some direct
involvement in the investigation of sexual offenses, dealing with sex offenders,
and both cooperating with and resisting various types of public involvement in
sex offender control. Whilst most of my policing experience lay outside the arena
of sexual offenses, the general issue of police-public relationships in crime
control permeated almost every aspect of my work. This knowledge and
experience inevitably shaped the perspective I brought to this project. The
overwhelming majority of analysts and researchers who have produced the
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existing literature on policing are from non-police backgrounds. The legal and
operational requirements oblige police organizations to manage much of the
information they hold in a restrictive manner. Policing has an occupational
culture that, in my experience, differs substantially from its academic
counterpart. These factors can combine to raise barriers to effective exchanges of
information between police officers and non-police researchers. Mutual suspicion
may exacerbate such difficulties, especially when, as is commonly the case in
policing matters, the subject matter being investigated is politically charged. My
position minimizes these access problems to a degree that a non-police researcher
might never realistically attain.
Existing academic analyses of policing often tend to exhibit suspicion of
the police. This suspicion can be considered as being based upon a belief that
policing is intrinsically malevolent and, therefore, that the exercise of police
powers is to be viewed negatively. The ability of police agencies to determine
policing outcomes can, from a police perspective, seem exaggerated in such
work, whilst the role of non-police agents in influencing police activity is
simultaneously downplayed. My personal experience of policing has made me
conscious of the ever-present limitations to action faced by police officers. In
particular, I became strongly aware that failure by police officers to take account
of public sentiments when deciding upon courses of policing action can provoke
anything from complaints and legal action to violence and disorder. My position,
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then, promises much in that it opens up a different realm of access,
understanding, and analytical possibilities to that provided by most existing
academic work.
A further aspect of my positionality that should be borne in mind is the
fact that I am from an English policing background. I consequently bring a
perspective shaped by my situated knowledge and experience to a study of
policing in the United States. The comparisons this perspective allowed me to
make were often useful in bringing into relief issues that might have otherwise
remained invisible. However, officially expressed opinions as to what constitutes
effective sex offender policing, particularly with respect to the question of
whether to notify communities of sex offenders’ identities (a central issue in this
thesis), vary dramatically between England and the United States. From the
outset my sympathy has been with the English position, and the research I
conducted in order to complete this thesis served to significantly bolster this
sentiment. Whilst the avoidance of bias in any piece of may be impossible,
readers should at all times remember who wrote the words they are reading.
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1.6 Thesis structure
This thesis will proceed according to the following structure:
• A review of the existing body of work concerning sex offenders,
community policing, and community control strategies.
• A determination of the key dimensions of the sex offender policing
problematic, and of Megan’s Law.
• A reconceptualization of the practice of policing sex offenders in terms of
a ‘division of labor’ analysis, which foregrounds the consequences of role
allocation between the police and the public in the control and regulation of sex
offenders. The spatial components of policing practices will form an important
element of this analysis.
• A case study of an incidence of sex offender policing in California.
• An analysis of the case study in terms of the conceptual framework.
• An evaluation of the framework, with suggestions for refinements and
further research.
• The suggestion of policy considerations for sex offender policing.
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1.7 Significance of thesis
Whilst this thesis offers a range of information concerning the under
researched topics of sex offender control and Megan’s Law, its centerpiece is the
presentation of a reconceptualization of the process by which sex offender
policing strategies are produced. This new conceptual framework is significant to
at least three fields of inquiry. The first of these is the ongoing debate concerning
community notification laws and sex offenders. The question of how legislation
such as Megan’s Law might impact control strategies for sex offenders, and the
geographical dimensions of such strategies, is one that has been largely missed in
a conversation dominated by questions of individuals’ rights.
The second field to which this framework contributes is the body of work
produced over the last two decades concerning ‘community policing’. As will be
demonstrated in chapter 2, community policing has reached the status of
orthodoxy in police thinking, and is consequently received with little critical
thought. By demonstrating that police-public collaboration in sex offender
policing can be shown to produce an outcome that may not be effective to crime
control, my contribution challenges the paradigmatic position that such
partnership is necessarily beneficial to policing. Additionally, the process by
which policing strategies are produced through police-public interaction is not
explicitly theorized in most of the existing literature. My contribution goes some
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way to addressing this weakness by adding a novel theoretical perspective.
Furthermore, it provides an analysis that demonstrates the importance of the
geographical dimension of the community policing movement: the dimension
that is routinely overlooked in existing work.
Thirdly, my framework contributes to existing work on ‘not in my
backyard’ (NIMBY) movements, by demonstrating that a process of negotiation
between police and public is being used to strengthen the ability of communities
to exert exclusionary control over their spaces. This is a process that had not
previously been identified.
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Chapter 2: Sex offenders, Community Policing, and NIMBY
2.1 Sex offenders
As with all types of criminality, the limits that define ‘normal’ and
‘deviant’ sexual behavior are socially constructed. Although a large body of
work concerning the social construction of deviance exists, the questions of how
and why the ‘sex offender’ construct is produced is not a primary concern of this
thesis. An in-depth study of this particular field is, therefore, unnecessary.
However, in order to achieve some understanding of what constitutes a ‘sex
offender’, and why their behavior can trigger such strong sentiments of
disapproval, it is necessary to briefly examine introduce the nature of their
construction.
According to Thomas (2000), sex offending ‘is often considered inherently
‘different’ from other kinds of offending’, and occupies a ‘special place in
contemporary society’s secular demono logy’ (1). His analysis suggests that the
special status accorded to sex offending can account for the exceptional level of
public anxiety relating to the issue of their control.
Peiss and Simmons (1989) highlight the dynamic nature of the
construction of normal sexuality, and the political and social power of the
sexuality issue. They argue that ‘sexuality has increasingly become a core
element of modem social identity, constitutive of being, consciousness and
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action’, and that out of struggles over sexual issues ‘come new assertions of
political power and cultural authority by dominant groups seeking to classify and
control sexuality’ (4). As such, their analysis suggests a reason why a sex
offender may occupy the ‘different’ category noted by Thomas, although why the
ordering of sexuality should carry such power, above and beyond other aspects of
human behavior, is not made fully clear. Nevertheless, the validity of their claim
is well supported by the material that will be presented later in this chapter.
Contemporary concerns over sex offending are overwhelmingly focused
on the activities of males. Freidman (1989) charts the historical rise of social
concern with the control of male sexual behavior. She shows that in nineteenth
century America concerns about the maintenance of norms of sexuality revolved
around the issue of protecting female purity. Women were understood as being
innately pure. ‘Unwomanly’ behavior was seen as the threat to the sexual order
(201). In the early decades of the twentieth century, however, this concept broke
down and the emphasis in defining the bounds of normal sexual behavior shifted
towards controlling men. She demonstrates that men who had sex with children
increasingly drew public attention, noting that the 1930s witnessed several cases
of predatory sexual behavior by men against children that were widely reported
in the media. These cases caused widespread outrage, and changes were
introduced in legislation that defined such behavior as ‘psychopathic’ (205).
Politicians who proposed the new legislation appeared to be acting in response to
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deep public concern. J. Edgar Hoover, then the director of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, ‘played an important role in fueling the national hysteria’, when, in
1937, he ‘called for a ‘War on the sex criminal’ and charged that ‘the sex fiend,
most loathsome of all the vast army of crime, has become a sinister threat to the
safety of American childhood and womanhood” (206). The concern with male
sexual behavior is interpreted as speaking to ‘deeper concerns about the meaning
of sexuality’ (211). Deviant males, as newly characterized, then, could be seen as
having a defining role in situating the limits of socially acceptable sexual
behavior. The construction of this normality also encompassed issues of gender
and childhood, both of which could be considered as important aspects of the
overall social order. Freidman’s work offers an account of the social construction
of sexual deviance that supports the notion that the predatory pedophile is likely
to pose the greatest affront to public sensibilities. This point is further supported
by Simon, who, in his 1996 examination o f ‘postmodern sexualities’, discusses
the meanings of sexual perversions, and concludes that within the broad
spectrum of behaviors, pedophilia is the ‘dominant claimant...to center stage of
current perversions’ (215).
That sex offenders may be considered as operating to various degrees
outside the boundaries of prized social norms does not in itself entirely account
for their demonic status in contemporary society. An added, and fundamentally
important, ingredient is their construction as dangerous individuals. Thomas
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(2000) argues that the latter quarter of the twentieth century saw the word
‘dangerous’ change from ‘an adjective used to describe certain behaviour....into
a noun as we looked for the ‘dangerous person” . He demonstrates that sex
offenders are understood as ‘dangerous’, and are often considered in terms of the
‘risk’ they pose to society (13). If sex offenders are thought of as the very
embodiment of danger, then, the high level of public concern relating to them is
more easily understood.
The perspectives provided here go some way to showing that the
meanings o f ‘sex offender’ are constructed, and what that construction can look
like. The perspective they provide can be enriched through the examination of
examples of this construction in practice.
Given that this thesis seeks to examine the policing of sex offenders, it is
useful to consider the terms by which law enforcement agencies understand sex
offenders. Given the nature of their role, legal definitions are fundamental in
defining law enforcement’s conceptualization of the sex offender. Laws vary
State by State, and consequently so do legal definitions of offenders. However, in
the broadest terms, the contemporary sex offender is someone who engages in
sexual activity with another person who does not, or cannot, give consent to the
act being committed. There are important exceptions to this broad definition,
most notably concerning sexual acts conducted with the consent of both parties
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in public places. Nevertheless, the matter of consent is at the core of most legal
definitions of sexual offenses.
Law enforcement agencies usually have primary responsible for the
investigation of sex offenses. It is common practice for such agencies to classify
‘types’ of sex offenders for practical investigative purposes. These classifications
amount to a further level of construction that is commonly more complex than
legalistic definitions would allow for. There are too many law enforcement
agencies to permit simple summarization of such classifications. However, an
example provided by Lanning (1995) can provide useful insight into how such
categorization occurs in practice. Lanning writes as a Supervisory Special Agent
with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and describes the typologies used
by the FBI to investigate sex offenses against children. Offenders who commit
sex crimes against children can, he argues, be divided into ‘preferential’ and
‘situational’ sub-groups. As the names suggest, the former ‘have a definite sexual
preference for children’ (326), whilst the latter do not. Each of these sub-groups
is then broken down into several more narrowly defined classifications.
Preferential offenders, for example, can operate by ‘seduction’, be ‘introverted’,
or ‘sadistic’ (328). Individuals who merit inclusion in any one of these sub
categories engage in ‘highly predictable sexual behavior’ (327), and the nature o f
this behavior varies dramatically between categories. For instance, certain types
of preferential offenders will assault several hundred victims in their lifetimes,
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whilst a ‘sexually indiscriminate’ situational offender may only offend on a
single occasion. The perspective Lanning provides illustrates the variety of
behaviors that can be masked by legal definitions of sex offenders, and that
different types of offenders can present radically differing kinds of threats to
public safety. His work can also be seen to demonstrate the point that the
constructions of sex offenders that different groups will deploy are governed to
an important degree by the particular agenda of that group.
Given their key role in providing information to the public, another
agency that must be considered when examining the construction of the sex
offender is the news media. Again, an in-depth examination will not be attempted
here. Rather, what follows is intended to convey something of the flavor of
media treatment of sex offenders. The news media have played a central role in
generating public awareness of sex offending, and in motivating consequent
action. Therefore, the constructions employed in this arena warrant particular
attention for the purposes of this thesis.
Broadly speaking, the most striking aspect of the way sex offenders are
portrayed in the news media is the lack of complexity applied to their definition.
Thus, in contrast to the differentiation employed by, for instance, the FBI, the
‘sex offender’ label is often deployed to describe offenders as members of a
homogenous group. Emphasis is placed upon predatory and dangerous behaviors,
and child victimization is foregrounded. Characteristics that might otherwise be
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applied only to the most threatening individuals thus become attributed to all
who fall under the title. The following excerpts from press reports in the United
States media illustrate this point (italics added):
‘Vowing to prevent sexual predators from repeating their crimes, President
Clinton signed an order Saturday creating a nationwide computer network
allowing police to track sex offenders anywhere in the country’ (Kempster 1996,
A20).
‘Sex offender.. .Carl DeFlumer has spent 42 of his 62 years in prison for killing a
boy when he was 14 and sodomizing another 29 years later’ (Scott 1994, Al).
‘Sex offender returns to town...Gallardo was released from prison after serving
almost three years for statutory rape o f a 10-year-old girl' (Associated Press
1993, 23).
Media representations of sex offenders in the US are mirrored by recent
reporting in the British popular press, where the language employed has been
even more inflammatory. The Sunday tabloid News o f the World, in the course of
an anti-sex offender campaign which took as its cue events in the United States
during the late 1990s, referred to offenders as ‘ perverts', ‘molesters', ‘dirty',
' ’ fiends', 'predatory', ‘abusers', 'animals','monsters', ' maggots', 'cruel', 'evil',
and '[unable] to feel compassion or remorse ’ (News o f the World 2000). There
was a notable conflation of the terms ‘sex offender’ and ‘paedophile’ throughout
their reporting. Sex offenders were similarly vilified in the Belgian and Italian
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press during the same period, further demonstrating the international nature of
this type of construction of offending, and the widespread nature of public
concern over the sex offender issue.
2.2 NIMBY
The question of how communities are likely to react to the presence of a
sex offender in their midst is critical when considering how police and public act
to control sex offenders. Dear, Takahashi, Gaber, and Wilton (1997)
demonstrated that oppositional action by local community members resisting the
presence of undesirable individuals in their neighborhoods becomes increasingly
likely as the ‘acceptability’ of that individual decreases. Dear, Takahashi, and
Wilton (1995) had established a ‘hierarchy of acceptance’ for undesirable
individuals within communities that placed sex offenders in the ‘least acceptable’
position of nineteen contenders. Amongst those contenders found to be more
acceptable than sex offenders were gang members, drug addicts, and paroled
convicts (see Table 1).
As a consequence of their profound unacceptability, sex offenders are the prime
candidates for subjection to a community response that is characterized as
NIMBY. Not In My Back Yard movements are a recognized feature of
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contemporary urban politics. Dear (1992) defines NIMBY as ‘the motivation of
Table 1
Hierarchy of Individual Acceptance (Dear et al 1995)
RANK INDIVIDUAL
1 Highschool student
2 Unmarried renter
3 Unmarried mother
4 Person confined to wheelchair
5 Immigrant
6 Recovering alcoholic
7 Amputee
8 Person with Down’s syndrome
9 Welfare recipient
10 Homosexual person
11 Person with HIV/AIDS
12 Person with mental illness
13 Homeless person
14 Transient
15 Paroled convict
16 Panhandler
17 Drug addict
18 Gang member
19 Discharged sex offender
residents who want to protect their turf, [or, m]ore formally.. .as the protectionist
attitudes and oppositional tactics adopted by community groups facing an
unwelcome development in their neighborhood’ (288).
Dear (1976) identifies a ‘three-stage cycle’ which NIMBY conflicts
follow:
• Youth: News of the proposal breaks, lighting the fuse of
conflict...NIMBY sentiments are usually expressed in the
rawest, bluntest of terms...
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• Maturity: Battle lines are solidified as the two sides assemble
ranks of supporters.. .[T]he rhetoric of opposition becomes
more measured and objective...
• Old Age: The period of conflict resolution is often very long,
drawn out, and sometimes inconclusive. Victory tends to go to
those with the persistence and stamina to last the course.
Typically, at this stage, some kind of arbitration process is
adopted...(cited in Dear 1992, 290).
Dear’s identification of these ‘stages’ suggests that cases of NIMBY
action against a sex offender may also follow a staged process. However, the sex
offender NIMBY process might deviate from this general model due to the
profound lack of support an individual sex offender is likely to receive from any
quarter. The ‘battle lines’ that ‘solidify’ in Dear’s ‘Maturity’ stage may appear
far less solid in a situation where a solitary sex offender finds himself facing the
wrath of an enraged neighborhood. The chances of such a dispute ever reaching
‘Old Age’ are likely, therefore, to be even more remote. Nevertheless, his work
points to a dimension of the NIMBY process that merits investigation in relation
to the sex offender issue.
Dear et al (1997), in their investigation of NIMBY as it relates to the
siting of facilities for disabled people, characterize the ‘production of difference’
as a ‘social and a spatial process’, and argue that such processes ‘facilitate the
stigmatization of whole classes of people and the institutionalization of rules for
boundary maintenance between different groups’(455). They also recognize that
‘different social contexts produce varied reactions’, with such contextual
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difference occurring across time and space. Spatial variations in public
acceptance levels can occur at national and regional levels, as well as at the
micro-scale (469-70). Whilst the firmly established, highly stigmatized, status of
the sex offender suggests that such individuals are extremely likely to find
themselves on the wrong side of the sociospatial boundaries Dear et al point to,
their work also points to the need to recognize that public reactions to offenders
may vary between different places.
The NIMBY concept has been also examined in relation to questions of,
for instance, environmental justice (Lake 1996), and the granting of a liquor
license to a restaurant (Davis 1992). Davis sees NIMBY movements as a
‘reassertion of social privilege’, which enables wealthier city residents to
exercise maximum ‘social power’ (213). Dear (2000) interprets NIMBY as a
feature of postmodern urban society, which is playing a role in redefining space
(p.l). From these various perspectives, NIMBYism has repeatedly been revealed
as a spatial strategy readily deployed by members of local communities in order
to protect locally-defined interests. If we consider sex offender policing from the
perspective of NIMBY, then, it strongly suggests that the public preference for
offender’s control will tend towards their geographical exclusion from local
communities. However, questions of how NIMBY could be used as policing
strategy, or of how law enforcement agencies could figure in such a process, are
not explored by existing work.
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Insight into the question of what would motivate local communities to
engage in NIMBYism when a sex offender moves to their neighborhood is
provided by a body of literature that exists within the discipline of geography
examining the issue of sexuality and space. Most of this work examines issues
relating to homosexuality in a society that is dominated by heterosexuals.
However, given that sex offender control can at one level be viewed as an aspect
of the regulation of sexuality according to dominant norms, this literature has
theoretical relevance and provides added perspective.
Kitchin (1999) argues that space acts as a ‘social text, conveying
messages of belonging and exclusion, and social-spatial organisation is an
important agent in reproducing current power relations within society. Space is
not passive, but is dynamic, contested and socially produced’ (45). This
perspective can be taken to suggest that the threat posed by the sex offender
exists as a consequence of their presence threatening the way a dominant
community seeks to construct the meaning of its own space. The spatial
exclusion of a sex offender could, in this light, be seen as a spatial reassertion of
social relations. The spatial response serves to reconstitute the space that the
deviant has attempted to occupy, thus reproducing power relations between the
(more powerful) community and the (less powerful) sex offender. This viewpoint
echoes much o f the work done within this field, and further suggests that sexual
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deviants are likely to be subject to geographically-based control strategies by the
public.
Namaste (1996) shows how the violent regulation of space according to
the rules of dominant sexual norms can be viewed as ‘an attempt to police one’s
self-presentation’ (221). This provides a useful extension of the historical
perspective already discussed, in that it shows that the regulation of sexuality that
takes place in order to construct the boundaries of normality has a spatial
dimension. The desire of communities to spatially exclude the sexually deviant
can be seen, in this light, as being motivated by their need to reaffirm their self-
image as ‘normal’.
Hubbard (1998) develops the idea that ‘sexual, gender and bodily
identities are constructed through the repeated inscriptions of moral geographies
on the topography of the city’, by examining ‘the way in which moral narratives
and discourses were deployed by protestors in their attempt to construct an idea
of community predicate on the exclusion o f ‘immoral’ sex workers’ (55). This
need to spatially inscribe particular constructions of morality on urban space can
be taken to suggest that spatially-corrective public action against sex offenders is
likely if the presence of such individuals becomes known.
A related sub-field within geography is that which looks at space as being
gendered, and examines how fear is experienced in such gendered spaced. Yeow
and Yeow (1997) reflect a common theme in this work, showing how women’s
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‘perceptions of fear...impact on their use of public space’ (273). The recognized
presence of a sex offender perceived to be a threat to the safety of women and/or
children would undoubtedly inscribe particular geographies of fear onto a
neighborhood. Thought of in terms of sex offenders and NIMBY, this work again
suggests an exclusionary control strategy will prove effective for members of the
public aware of the local presence of an offender, in that it would remove the
need for affected community members to experience that fear.
These works concerning geographies of sexuality and of gendered fear
strongly suggest that many members of the public would see a spatially-based,
exclusionary strategy of sex offender control as serving their needs. As such,
they serve to provide strong support for Dear’s finding that sex offenders are
prime candidates for NIMBY action by neighborhood residents. However,
despite this strong suggestion, the question of how community involvement in
sex offender policing would influence consequent control strategies has not been
directly tackled by existing work.
2.3 Community Policing
The field of ‘community policing’ has provided the focus for academic
studies of policing for at least the last two decades. Questions of how police and
communities relate and cooperate (or otherwise) in the overall business of
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controlling crime and disorder underlies much of this work. As it is to most
aspects of policing, this is an issue of great relevance to the question of sex
offender control.
The term ‘community policing’ has no universal definition. For
representatives of the police, it tends to be a politically popular term whose
application can lend an air of legitimacy to whichever program it is applied. For
those who call for reforms or improvements in policing, it often suggests
something desirable to the public. Thus, its meaning is always contingent upon
the particular agenda ‘community policing’ is being used to address. The body of
literature concerned with community policing can be seen as charting the
evolution of a broad movement that began to take shape in the nineteen
seventies, and that has since then played a fundamental role in shaping both the
discourses and practices of policing across the English-speaking world. The
British police were largely responsible for pioneering community policing, and
the developments in policing philosophy and practice that took place in Britain
can be considered as having been instrumental in shaping the community
policing paradigm.
During the summer of 1981, rioting broke out in many of Britain’s inner-
city neighborhoods. The riots took the form of street battles fought between
sections of the public and the police. These events, and the responses they
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provoked, stimulated a large volume of research on British policing and provided
great impetus to the development of ‘community’ modes of policing.
The 1981 rioting was widely interpreted by analysts as a sign that the
‘professional’ style of policing that had dominated during the nineteen-sixties
and seventies had failed in Britain. Professional policing was pioneered in the
United States, most notably by the Los Angeles Police Department, and
translated to the British context in the guise o f ‘unit beat policing’ (UBP). UBP
emphasized reliance upon transportation and communications technologies, and
used indicators such as response times and arrest rates as measures of success.
An important element of UBP was something that Holdaway (1983) termed
‘informed discretion’ - an institutionally determined set of standards of practice
which would supplant more individualistic or localized forms of discretion in
policing. According to Stephens (1988), UBP was designed to produce an
accountable, efficient police service that operated according to due process.
UBP was counter-productive in terms of crime control and the
maintenance of public order. Its police-centered, crime-fighting character
diminished non-conflictual encounters between police and members of the
public, causing mutual alienation. This led to a reduction in the flow o f criminal
intelligence from the public to the police, hampering ability of the police to
detect crimes. Police-public alienation also had the effect of making the police
less responsive to actual public concerns, whilst at the same time leading them to
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engage in practices that were sometimes unwelcome and antagonistic. The
reactive nature of UBP meant that root-causes of problems were seldom
addressed. Throughout the era of UBP, crime rates rose and public confidence in
the police fell (See Baldwin & Kinsey 1982, Holdaway 1983, Stephens 1988,
Reiner 1985, Fielding 1991, Morgan & Smith 1989).
The British government responded to the 1981 riots by appointing Lord
Scarman to investigate the causes of the disorder that occurred in Brixton,
London. The resultant ‘Scarman Report’ became the ‘focal point for a multi
faceted and fundamental reorientation of police thinking’ (Reiner 1985, 199).
Scarman was highly critical of the way in which Brixton had been policed prior
to the rioting. He highlighted as a problem the lack o f community involvement in
determining the ways in which the area was policed, claiming that ‘there can be
no doubt that a police force that fails to consult locally will fail to be efficient’
(Scarman 1981,4.46). He concluded that British police forces should adopt
‘community policing’ practices (ibid., 5.46).
The operational form given to ‘community policing’ in early 1980s
Britain are worthy of consideration here, as it would inform many of the
subsequent developments in policing in Britain and the United States. The goal
of increasing public involvement in local policing was at the core of the new
community policing approach. This was to be achieved on a formal level by the
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establishment of liaison committees. The following guidelines for the function of
these committees were defined in a 1982 government circular:
1) to identify local concerns about crime in the area and the police
response to it;
2) to educate the public to understand the limitations of police
responses;
3) to stress the community’s role in preventing crime;
4) to increase the degree of consensual policing by the identification
of local concerns and the education and cooperation of the
community (cited in Bevan & Lidstone, 1985, 9.56).
Morgan (1989) explains why local consultation was considered important,
claiming that ‘police priorities and methods must be congruent with community
values.. .The police listen at the grass roots to what consumers think and adjust
their policies accordingly.. .[and] the community can then be persuaded to
shoulder a greater part of the crime control burden’ (222). Community policing,
then, would redefine the nature of the relationship between police and public,
allowing for much greater public responsibility for both policing policy and
crime control. Jones, Newbum and Smith (1994) note the enduring impact of this
relational shift, when they claim that
senior police officers have moved away from the position of
defending their autonomy to the last ditch to one of seeking to
consult with elements of society before taking decisions...Hence,
the idea that there is and must be such a thing as policing policy,
and that it is the legitimate subject of public debate, has increasingly
gained acceptance (7).
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The movement towards community policing has also had an important spatial
dimension, in that it reconfigured the political geography of police decision
making by devolving power to local communities. This feature o f community
policing is explored by Fyfe (1991), who argues that the ‘strategy for
implementing the policy of local community/police consultation illustrated a
keen sensitivity to the relationship between place and politics’ (259).
A prominent operational manifestation of the move towards community
policing came with the advent of Neighborhood Watch (NW). The first NW
schemes were established in the United States in the nineteen-seventies, and in
1982 the idea was adopted by British forces. The architects of police reform
recognized the potential of NW as a community policing initiative. Indeed,
Bennett (1994) argues that NW facilitated ‘the two central principles of
community policing: namely an opportunity for consultation and opportunity for
collaboration between the police and public’ (241). By the mid-nineteen-eighties,
NW schemes had proliferated nationwide. McConville & Shepherd (1992)
conducted an in-depth study of NW in England, which they saw as the
‘centrepiece of community crime prevention initiatives’ in the eighties, and as
something that marked a new chapter in policing strategy in as much as it
departed from the ‘impositional’ policing styles that proceeded its introduction.
They argue that NW ‘was to symbolize a new commitment to service, in which
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the police would dedicate themselves to meeting the needs of the community at a
local level’ (1). Whilst a variety of schemes fell under the NW umbrella, their
general characteristics were the formation of networks of local residents who
would watch for suspicious or criminal activity taking place around their
neighbors’ properties and would report what they saw to police. Schemes would
be led by a member of the local community. Community police officers would
assist NW groups by giving practical advice on organizational issues, and by
attending some group meetings. The enthusiasm police forces demonstrated for
NW pointed to their widely held intention to reform their relationship with the
public and thereby increase their effectiveness in combating crime. At the launch
of London’s Metropolitan Police scheme, for instance, ‘emphasis was placed
upon a partnership idea of policing which involved the Commissioner’s model of
a ‘two-way notional contract between police and public’. This involved a more
‘efficient and effective’ use of limited resources by encouraging the public to
accept greater responsibility for preventing opportunist crime’ (ibid., 4).
Whether or not the introduction of community policing approaches in 1980s
Britain significantly transformed that country’s policing in real terms, it is
certainly the case that its philosophy became ‘widely and publicly proclaimed as
a central principle of policing’ there (Bennett 1994, 232). The British police, and
their attendant analysts, can be considered as having been responsible for
pioneering community policing ideology. However, following a relatively low-
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level of interest in the United States in the mid-eighties, there was an explosion
of American interest in community policing which Eck and Rosenbaum (1994)
date to 1988 and attribute to the publication of a highly influential anthology
edited by Greene and Mastrofski entitled ‘Community Policing: Rhetoric or
Reality?'. The following summary of some of the views expressed in this
anthology characterize the nature of the context from which American
community policing was to rapidly ascend to what, by 1994, Eck and Rosebaum
would claim was a position o f ‘policing orthodoxy’ (3):
Contributors {Celling and Moore argued that American policing was
entering a community ‘era’, which would constitute a third major stage in the
evolution of formal policing, replacing what they term the ‘reform era’ (an era
characterized in similar terms as those used to describe ‘professional’ policing
earlier in this chapter) in response to its perceived failures. They identify what
they believe to be the beginning of a movement by some police forces to employ
strategies that facilitate greater interaction between officers and the public, and
that allow publicly-perceived priorities to become influential in directing police
practice.
Manning follows by highlighting the importance of ‘imagery’ in the
evocation o f ‘community policing’ as a solution to crises produced by locally-
insensitive ‘professional’ policing. This imagery, he claims, portrays the police
‘as an essential part of a well-integrated communal whole’ (27). He notes that the
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community policing seems to appeal to American nostalgia for ground-level
citizen initiative and related disapproval for institutional bureaucracies.
Mastrofski argues that community policing seems to have a ‘moral
mandate’ in American society, as it foregrounds the will of the community as the
basis for legitimate police action (48). However, he demonstrates that a belief in
the desirability of greater community involvement in policing must rest upon
problematic assumptions regarding, 1) the ability of communities to achieve
consensus over what constitutes ‘order’, and 2) their ability to produce this order
(p.49). Using the example of neighborhoods experiencing inter-ethnic conflict,
he argues that community involvement in determining police action could make
the police ‘party to bigotry’ (50).
Oettmeier and Brown argue that the nineteen-eighties American social
environment is undergoing rapid change, and that the complexities this change
produces demand flexibility from police agencies. This flexibility can be better
achieved if police are sensitive to concerns o f citizens at the scale o f their
neighborhoods. Thus, they see a ‘neighborhood oriented policing style’ as
appropriate and desirable. This envisions interaction between police and
community members enabling the articulation of local public to officers, with a
consequent promotion o f police-public trust and cooperation. They claim that
police agencies and the public should engage in ‘teamwork’ (127).
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Finally, Bayley, taking the position o f ‘devil’s advocate’, points to
potential pitfalls of community policing programs, which he understands as being
characterized by four general elements: ‘1) Community-based crime prevention,
2) proactive servicing as opposed to emergency response, 3) public participation
in the planning and supervision of police operations, and 4) shifting of command
responsibility to lower rank levels’ (226). The potential pitfalls he identifies
include a decline in public safety, due the inability of the public to produce
effective policing; a weakening o f ‘the rule of law in the sense of equal
protection’; reduced protection for, and even vigilantism against, unpopular
people; and an undermining of professional standards in police organizations
resulting from the substitution of ‘responsiveness to community opinion for
exogenous standards’ (226-36).
Whilst the ‘community policing’ label is broadly applied in this literature,
there are several concepts that consistently emerge in its discussion. The first of
these is the notion that the introduction of community policing represents
significant police reform (either in rhetorical form or in substance), conceived of
in order to address problems of poor police-public relations and organizational
ineffectiveness in crime control. Secondly, there is the idea that community
policing means substantial involvement in policing by members of the public,
achieved through their incorporation at the local scale. And thirdly, (with the
notable exceptions of Bayley and Matrofski) is the argument that community
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involvement in policing is a positive advance, producing a more accountable and
effective service.
The centerpiece of the Clinton-Gore administration’s anti-crime strategy
was the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program. COPS
envisioned community policing as ‘a crime fighting strategy that encourages law
enforcement to work in partnership with local residents to solve crime problems’
(DOJ 1999a), and provided a major impetus to its proliferation in the United
States. The program came into being with the passage of the 1994 Federal Crime
Bill, and promised to put 100,000 extra police officers on America’s streets by
the year 2000. All 100,000 of these officers would be ‘community police’. COPS
established a ‘Community Policing Office’ at the Department of Justice (DOJ).
Law enforcement agencies could apply for grants from this office to fund the
employment of community police officers and the establishment of local
community policing programs. The COPS office has also funded conferences on
community policing, providing ‘opportunities for law enforcement practitioners,
community...advocates, and other stakeholders to exchange information and
discuss ways to effectively utilize community policing strategies’ (ibid.).
Great claims have been made for the effectiveness of COPS. Commenting
upon a sixth consecutive annual fall in crime rates in 1998, the COPS Office
Director announced that ‘[cjommunity policing is building stronger
neighborhoods through police and community partnerships. A prime factor in our
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nation’s crime reduction is a renewed sense of community’ (DOJ 1998a). Calling
for an extension of the program in 1999, Vice-President Gore proclaimed that the
‘nation’s crime rate had dropped to the lowest rate in a quarter of a century’, and
added, ‘make no mistake about it community policing has played a significant
role in that decline’ (DOJ 1999b).
Research conducted by the National Institute of Justice (NU) found that
by 1997, over 8,000 law enforcement agencies had received COPS funding. It
was found that ‘COPS funds likely fueled the movement towards community-
oriented policing’, and that by May 1999, ‘ 100,500 officers and equivalents had
been funded’ (NIJ 2000). COPS, then, through the Federal funding and
intellectual direction it provided, can be seen as having served to ensure
‘community policing’s’ central place in the philosophy and operation of
contemporary American policing.
2.4 Geography and policing
The geography of crime, defined by Smith (1994) as ‘the sub-discipline
which elucidates the relevance of space to the study of criminal offenders, the
incidence of crime and the characteristics of victims’ (101), is a matter that has
received notable attention from academic geographers. Harries (1974), for
example, took a quantitative look at American crime, mapping officially
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recorded offenses, and concluded that ‘no geographical study can explain why
crime occurs or exactly how to control it’ (116). Peet (1976) provided a Marxist
analysis that explained crime as an expression of class conflict and a means of
wealth redistribution. The focus on offenses, offenders, and victims that has
characterized crime geography has left the issue of crime control largely
unexplored, and disciplinary geographers have paid scant attention to policing
issues. This has left the body of literature concerned with policing somewhat
deficient in its ability to provide a spatial analysis of the issues it explores,
despite the fact that spatial dimensions of the community policing movement are
consistently hinted towards by its non-geographer analysts. Particularly notable
is the constant reference to the local. What the privileging of this particular scale
in policing means, however, is a question that is left largely untheorized and
unanswered.
A very few exceptions to this general lack of geographical investigations
of policing do exist. Fyfe’s (1991) work demonstrating the political geography of
the community policing movement, referred to earlier in this discussion, is one.
Another is Herbert’s (1997) spatial analysis of policing as conducted by Los
Angeles Police Department patrol officers. He demonstrates that territoriality,
which he conceives of in terms of six ‘normative orders’, is critical in
determining how the officers he studied exercise social control. That policing has
important spatial dimensions is a finding that most geographers would intuitively
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find unremarkable, although the general lack of geographical investigations of
policing does serve to make the in-depth analysis this work provides noteworthy.
What Herbert’s work does not do in any substantial way is to investigate the way
non-police agents shape the spatial dimensions of policing. Consequently, his
findings cannot straightforwardly elucidate matters concerning police-public
relationships in the production of crime control. What this work does do,
however, is to make explicit the notion that the primary purpose of policing is to
preserve public order. This is highly significant, given the crime focus that can
be seen in much of the contemporary policing literature. Indeed, Herbert’s
position supports the rationale upon which the embrace of community policing in
1980s Britain was based: that crime control is a subordinate concern to public
order preservation, and that crime control strategies should be managed in such a
way as to promote the maintenance of public order.
Saunders (1999) provides the most recent contribution the slim sub-field
of policing geography. He argues that community policing operates by
organizing space in such a way as to increase the potency of the police as law
enforcers. This is achieved through the incorporation of civilians into the
policing ‘body’. This ‘body’ functions metaphorically, seeing civilians as the
‘eyes and ears’ of the police, and in concrete form as an extension of police
power through neighborhood spaces. Whilst recognizing that community-police
partnerships arranged under the community policing banner do accord some
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degree of local influence over police operations, he sees community policing
overwhelmingly as a strategy employed by the police to increase their influence
over the production of social control. An important feature of community
policing that enables this increased police power is the ‘neighborhood’ scale of
spatial organization it employs. This scale, he contends, ‘locks out larger
coalitions and deflects the political energy of groups opposed to key aspects of
the way police constitute themselves and perform their self-defined job’ (142).
Saunders’ notion that a decrease in geographical organizational scale leads to an
increase in political power for the police at the expense of the public seems to
rest upon the denial of the possibility that significant public power could be
wielded at that local scale. When considered in the light of the position of power
NIMBYites have been shown to have secured for themselves in contemporary
urban politics, this notion can seem problematic. Is it inconceivable that an
increased level of public involvement in policing at the local scale could produce
a form of policing that sees increased public control over the policing agenda,
with neighborhoods being the spatial unit at which that power is exercised?
2.5 Divisions of labor
‘Divisions of labor’ is a concept that has a long academic history. The
pioneering sociologist Emile Durkheim, in his 1893 work entitled De la division
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dii travail social, recognized that the overall performance of tasks necessary for
the material and social functioning of society is achieved through task
specialization by groups and individuals. He claimed that ‘great political
societies cannot sustain their equilibrium save by the specialization of tasks’
(Durkheim 1984, 23). He argued that the division of labor is not simply an
economic phenomenon, but that it is something that bonds people together in
‘social solidarity’ (ibid.). As such, it constitutes a social and moral ordering of
society (ibid., 22).
More recently, the division of labor idea was adopted and developed by
economic geographers in order to discuss the socio-spatial organization of the
production process. According to the present day geographer Joe Painter, the
division of labor is ‘an aspect of the relations of production of society which
involves the separation of tasks within the labour process and their allocation to
different groups of workers’ (2000, 183). Divisions of labor have principally
been employed by geographers to account for the formation of socio-spatial
inequalities, and their relation to geographies of production (see, for instance,
Massey 1995, Walker 1992).
Whilst the notion of divisions of labor has not previously been applied to
policing, it provides a framework that could usefully enable the discussion of role
allocations between different agencies within the overall policing system, and the
sociospatial relations such role allocations produce. This application, and its
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principal points of departure from the terms of the existing uses of the division of
labor concept, will be discussed in more detail in chapter 4.
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Chapter 3: Sex offender policing and Megan’s Law: key dimensions
3.1 Gauging the dimensions
The problem of sex offender policing, and the question of how it is
impacted by Megan’s Law, are matters that receive little attention in existing
academic work. Whilst the literature reviewed in the previous chapter provides
some basis for the reconceptualization of sex offender policing that will be
proposed in chapter 4, taken alone it is insufficient as a guide to the dimensions
of the issues. Thus, in order to facilitate the development of a meaningful
template against which the questions this thesis raises could be considered,
substantial preliminary research was conducted in the early stages of its
development. The findings of this research, some of which are presented in this
chapter, enabled an exploration of the some of the key issues related to sex
offender policing. They also provided a context within which to conceive of an
explanatory framework for sex offender policing under Megan’s Law, and one
within which the case-study research presented in chapter 5 could be interpreted.
A fundamentally important aspect of this preliminary research was an
investigation of Megan’s Law itself. The genesis of the legislation was charted
through an extensive review of media reports concerning Megan’s Law. National
and regional newspaper reports, along with items on news web-sites, were
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gathered covering the period from 1994 to 1996 - the years during which the
legislation was conceived of and implemented. The web-sites of State
Departments of Justice and of pressure groups who campaigned for legislation
were also searched for relevant information.
The next stage of the research conducted into Megan’s Law consisted of a
review of relevant publications produced by the United States Department of
Justice. These publications enabled the establishment of a picture of the forms of
Megan’s Law’s and their operation at the national scale. This information was
supplemented with reports from media sources. Particular attention was paid to
California’s version of Megan’s Law. A detailed account of the form and
operation of Megan’s Law in California was obtained through an examination of
information published by the California Department of Justice.
The relatively straightforward task of investigating Megan’s Law was
accompanied by the more complex business of determining the key dimensions
of the sex offender policing issue. In the earliest stages, this issue was explored
through conversations with police officers in Humberside Police, including
detectives specializing in child protection. These conversations were
supplemented with the study of police manuals concerning child protection
issues, and of British police and government publications detailing sex offender
policing policies and related legislation.
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With fortuitous timing (at least as far as my research was concerned), the
issue of sex offender policing came under intense scrutiny in several European
countries in the summer o f2000. High-profile crimes against children in Britain,
Belgium, and Italy prompted calls for policing reforms from enraged members of
the public, pressure groups, and some politicians. Britain witnessed dramatic
scenes on its streets, and heated discourse through the pages of its newspapers, as
the issue of how to best control sex offenders was debated. Throughout this
period I collected media reports on a daily basis from British news web-sites. I
supplemented this information with regular conversations with serving police
officers in that country, who were able to provide me with a street-level view of
events and of the issues these events raised for operational policing. I also
collected press releases from the Association of Chief Police Officers of
England, Wales, and Northern Ireland (ACPO) made during that time.
Whilst the British debates over sex offender policing offered a useful
counter-point against which to consider American sex offender policing, the
relationship between Megan’s Law and sex offender policing required an
examination of recent instances of relevant policing in the United States. An
extensive review of media reporting of such policing was conducted, primarily
through searching the archives of regional U.S. newspapers through their web
sites.
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The various lines of inquiry listed here were followed up with a meeting
with Commander Garrett Zimmon of the Los Angeles Police Department
(LAPD) in April 2001. Commander Zimmon is the most senior detective in the
LAPD, and formerly served as the department’s senior officer in the field of
community policing. The meeting with Commander Zimmon was an opportunity
to explore the issues raised by my preliminary research findings, and to seek his
guidance with respect to the identification of the principal dimensions of the sex
offender policing and Megan’s Law issues, as perceived from his position of
seniority and experience. This enabled the consolidation of my research finding
at that time, and provided a further level of insight into the issues.
The remainder of this chapter is a presentation of some of the findings of
this first stage of research. A review of Megan’s Law will be followed by several
minor case studies of sex offender policing. The dimensions of the issue this
research showed to be important will be highlighted, paving the way for the
reconceptualization of sex offender policing offered in chapter 4.
3.2 The rise of Megan’s Law
According to Dr. Jan Chaiken, the Director of the U.S. Department of
Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics,
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Americans have become increasingly angry in recent years in
response to a series of violent and highly publicized sexual assaults,
primarily against children, committed by individuals with extensive
prior sexual offense histories. This outrage has been intensifies by
the perception, justified or not, that systems traditionally used by
justice agencies to monitor law-breakers returned to the community
do not adequately protect the public from that unique category of
individual known as the sex offender (DOJ 1998b, v).
Megan Kanka was a seven-year-old resident of Hamilton Township, New
Jersey. On July twenty-ninth 1994 Megan disappeared. The following day her
semi-naked body was found in a park near to her home. She had been raped and
murdered. The subsequent police investigation quickly led officers to arrest a
local man, aged in his thirties, called Jesse Timmendequas. Timmendequas was a
neighbor of the Kanka family. Timmendequas had a history of criminal
convictions for sexual offenses committed against children. The Kanka family
had no knowledge of Timmendequas’ past convictions until he was formally
charged with the crime committed against their daughter.
The rape and murder of Megan Kanka received a great deal of media
attention. A group o f residents from Hamilton Township, led by Megan’s
mother, Maureen Kanka, began campaigning for laws that would require that
local residents be informed when a sex offender moved into a neighborhood.
Maureen Kanka argued that if she had known of Timmendequas’ record she
would have been able to take measures that would have prevented her daughter
from being murdered. Empowered by strong local community support, the close
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media attention, and politicians who were responsive to what rapidly became a
highly emotive and popular issue, the murdered girl’s mother soon saw her
legislative goals become a reality in the State of New Jersey.
New Jersey’s Megan’s Law came into effect on October 31st 1994. The
legislation required that a State register of sex offenders be created, and allowed
for public notification of some offenders’ identities. The stated purpose of the
law was, according to a State public information web-site, to ‘help
protect...communities by providing information about convicted sex offenders to
law enforcement agencies and, in the case of moderate and high risk offenders,
community organizations and the public. This notice will allow communities to
take informed and responsible steps to prevent harm’ (New Jersey Attorney
General 2000). Although the name of seven-year-old Megan was attached to the
legislation, and the violent pedophile offender aspect of the law was emphasized,
the community notification element of Megan’s Law would in fact apply to all
sex offenders who the State considered to be ‘repetitive and compulsive’, and to
all other sex offenders either released from custody or on parole or probation
following the date of its implementation. Offenders would be required to register
with State authorities on a regular basis. Community notification would occur
when law enforcement authorities judged the risk presented by the individual
offender to be ‘high’. In addition to this broad community notification,
organizations and institutions serving children, such as schools and summer
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camps, would be informed of the identities of offenders presenting a ‘moderate’
risk (ibid.). Risk assessments would be made principally on the basis of the
offender’s previous offending pattern and their responsiveness to the correction
regime through which they had passed.
New Jersey’s Megan’s Law was not the first law in the United States that
facilitated the registration of sex offenders and the revelation of their identities to
communities to authorities. In 1990, Washington State enacted its Community
Protection Act ‘after a seven-year-old Tacoma boy was lured into a wooded area
by a recently released sex offender who orally and anally raped the boy then cut
off his penis. The man had a twenty-four-year record of assaults on young
people’ (Steinbock 1995, 4). However, the publicity, campaigning, and
subsequent public outrage surrounding the case of Megan Kanka would lead to
the legal issues surrounding the case to be dealt with at the Federal level. A
provision was hastily added to the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law
Enforcement Act enabling States to implement community notification schemes
and requiring that they establish sex offender registers. By the end of 1994,
sixteen states had introduced relevant legislation (Finn 1997,1).
By 1996, at last thirty-two States had implemented community notification
statutes. The provisions enacted varied dramatically between States, with some
mandating proactive notification, others merely authorizing it, and others
permitting notification only in response to community requests (ibid.). In the
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meantime, the Kanka family continued to campaign for tougher legislation. In
May 1996, an amendment to the Megan’s Law component of the 1994 Violent
Crime and Law Enforcement Act was proposed. The amendment provided that
‘States must [require] law enforcement agencies to release relevant information
that is necessary to protect the public in all cases’ (House of Representatives
1996). In addition, it required the establishment of a national register of sex
offenders. States that failed to meet the deadlines set by the amendment would
lose Federal funding for law enforcement. The bill passed through the House of
Representatives, with four hundred and eighteen votes in favor and none against
(CNN 1996a).
By 1997, versions of Megan’s Law had been implemented in States across
the nation. Finn (1997) identified four ‘statutory models’ into which this
legislation generally falls:
1) An agency identified by the legislation (e.g., law
enforcement, parole and probation, prosecutor) determines the level
of risk an offender poses and then implements a notification plan
that reflects the level of risk.. .Frequently, the plan provides for
three “tiers” depending upon offender risk: the first tier may involve
notification only to selected local organizations (e.g., schools), the
second tier adds community residents, and the third includes the
media.
2) State statute stipulates which types o f offenders are to be
subject to notification and what notification methods to use; a
designated agency carries out the notification but plays no role in
determining which offenders will be subject to notification or how
notification will be implemented...
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3) Offenders themselves are required to do the notification,
although they may be supervised...
4) Community groups and individuals must take the initiative
to request information about whether a sex offender is living in their
community... (5).
Finn’s summary of Megan’s Law legislation enables a general three-stage
process to be determined in community notification practices: firstly, an
assessment is made of an individual’s risk potential; secondly, an agency is
charged with storing information about the individual; and thirdly, a means of
communicating the information from the holder to communities is established. It
is made clear that variations in the form of this more general process produce
widely differing outcomes between States.
Federal legislation mandating the establishment of State versions of Megan’s
Law set ambitious time deadlines for their implementation, with substantial
financial penalties for non-compliance. In a 1998 commentary, the U.S.
Department of Justice recognized that these tight deadlines had made the
‘development of effective sex offender registration and notification programs that
can withstand legal challenges while meeting the needs of the
community.. .difficult’ (DOJ 1998b, viii). Travis (2000) notes that ‘research on
sex offenses and sex offenders is notably weak...Little is known about the
trajectory of behavior over the lifetime of an offender [or] what triggers the
behavior’. He argues that this lack of understanding hampered the ability of
legislators to implement policies they could be sure would provide enhanced
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public safety. He also identifies the ‘predictable sex-offender version of
NIMBY’, and points to the lack of existing research that would allow for
effective policy formulation in the face of this phenomenon (7).
Research conducted by the Department of Justice (DOJ) in 1997 attempted to
establish the dimensions of practical law enforcement issues raised by the
national proliferation of State Megan’s Laws. The resultant report recognized
that community notification
reflects the perception that registration alone is inadequate to protect
the public against released sex offenders and that notification
provides the public with a better means of protecting itself.
Notification proponents believe that...neighbors will be able to take
action to protect themselves from sex offenders by keeping
themselves, and their children, out of harm’s way (2).
It noted, however, that whilst
the statutes were enacted with the ostensible goals of protecting
public safety, particularly to enable parents to protect their children,
and improving law enforcement’s ability to investigate sex
offenses’, the only study conducted at that time which studied the
impacts of such statutes on levels of recidivism by sex offenders
had found that they made no measurable difference (Finn 1997, 15).
The report also noted that notification, ‘because of the stigma it creates, has had
or may have a displacement effect’ on offenders, as well as providing a
disincentive for them to register with authorities in the first place (ibid.).
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Another significant finding of the DOJ report was that notification
‘improved’ (meaning ‘increased’) community involvement in the criminal justice
system, but that it had the potential to harm communities by ‘inciting] excessive
community fear or anger’ or by creating ‘a false sense of security in communities
by leading residents to conclude that now they know about the sex offenders in
their midst, they no longer have to worry about the problem’ (18). With respect
to the fact that some States allow law enforcement agencies to choose whether or
not to notify communities, the report argues that such discretion allows agencies
to ‘individualize the notification process’, but that this ‘can result in inequitable
or inconsistent notification procedures because of the use of different criteria and
their application in a subjective manner by different local agencies’ (6).
The rising tide of Megan’s Law legislation did not go totally unopposed.
Several legal challenges by those affected by its requirements argued that
elements of Megan’s Law ran contrary to the provisions of the United States
constitution. Steinbock (1995) summarizes these challenges, noting that ‘it has
been argued that the law imposes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of
the eighth amendment. It has also been contended that the law violates the
fourteenth amendment due process clause’ (3), and that ‘it was punitive,
increasing the punishment to which offenders had originally been sentenced, and
was therefore unconstitutional’ (4). These objections were brushed aside with
apparent ease by campaigners, the media and lawmakers, who framed the debates
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as a question of the rights o f convicted sex offenders to privacy versus the rights
o f children to live safer lives: a framework that all but guaranteed Megan’s Law’s
acceptability to most Americans. This discursive posture was neatly illustrated by
President Clinton in his June 22n d 1996 weekly radio address, in which he stated
that ‘[w]e respect people’s rights. But there is no right greater than a parent’s
right to raise a child in safety and love’ (CNN 1996b). A photograph of Megan
Kanka’s smiling young face would accompany many of the press articles on the
issue. The picture even appears on the New Jersey State web site that explains
the law’s provisions. The idea of protecting children can be seen as a powerful
legitimating force behind Megan’s Law, despite the fact that the legislation
covers sexual offenses beyond those that could be considered pedophilic.
In the popular discourse, as evidenced through the media reporting of
campaigners and politicians involved in developing Megan’s Law, the legislation
was unquestionably ‘a good thing’. Questions of whether the legislation would
actually reduce the level of sexual offences committed, or of alternative
approaches to reducing levels of sex crime victimization, were largely absent
from debates.
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3.3 California’s Megan’s Law
California has been operating a register of sex offenders since 1947. This
register, used by law enforcement agencies to track the whereabouts of
individuals with convictions for sexual offenses, was the nation’s first. The
information contained in that register was for use only by the authorities, and
there was no facility for its public dissemination. In September 1994, at the time
when the movement triggered by the murder of Megan Kanka was in a position
of national prominence, the State introduced a law which required its Department
of Justice (CDOJ) to establish a telephone inquiry service that would provide
certain information to the public concerning convicted child molesters. It was
only with the passage of California’s own rendition of Megan’s Law in
September 1996, however, that the State first began to implement a
comprehensive program for the public identification of sex offenders (CDOJ
2000b, 3).
According to the CDOJ, the architects of California’s Megan’s Law
legislation
had to take into account the large number of registrants living in the
State, the needs of local law enforcement agencies, and how to best
provide citizens with the information that would allow them to
protect themselves and their families from sexual predators.. ..The
result was legislation that not only met the federal mandates, but
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also the needs of California’s citizens and law enforcement agencies
(CDOJ 2000a, 8).
In 1999 California was home to more than 86,000 individuals who were
required to register as sex offenders. The State’s Megan’s Law divides these
offenders into three categories:
1)‘Serious’ - Serious sex offenders are individuals who have a
conviction for at least one of the following offenses:
• Assault with intent to commit rape, oral copulation, or sodomy
• Rape
• Sodomy with a minor or by force
• Lewd or lascivious conduct with a child or dependent adult
• Oral copulation with a minor or by force
• Continuous sexual abuse of a child
• Child molestation
• Penetration with a foreign object by force
• Kidnapping with intent to commit specified sex offenses
• Felon sexual battery
• Felony enticement of a child for the purposes of prostitution
2)‘High Risk’ - High risk offenders are individuals who have been
convicted of more than one violent crime, including at least one
violent sex crime. A High Risk classification can only occur within
five years of crimes being committed (excluding time spent
incarcerated).
3)‘Other’ - ‘Other’ sex offenders have a conviction for a
pornography offense, exhibitionism, misdemeanor sexual battery,
incest, or spousal rape (CDOJ 2000a, 9).
In 1999, there were 72,984 ‘serious’, 1,558 ‘high risk’, and 13,131 ‘other’
sex offenders registered in California (CDOJ 2000b, 5)
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Individuals designated as sex offenders have five days in which to
register with their local law enforcement agency following their release from
custody, or after a change of name or address. Additionally, ‘other’ and ‘serious’
offenders must re-register each year, within five days of their birthday, whilst
high-risk offenders must do so every 90 days. ‘Serious’ and ‘high risk’
registrants can only be released from their ongoing obligation to register if given
a full pardon by the State Governor (ibid., 3).
There are four principal means by which information held in the State’s
sex offender register can be made public. The first of these is via the ‘Sex
Offender Identification Line’ (SOIL). The SOIL is a CDOJ-managed inquiry
service that operates over a premium-rate ‘900’ telephone system. Each call to
the service costs ten dollars, and up to two names can be checked per call (ibid.,
5).
The SOIL can be used by members of the public to check named
individuals against the State’s Violent Crime Information Network (VCIN)
database relating to sex offenders classified as ‘serious’ or ‘high risk’. ‘Other’
sex offenders are not subject to community notification under California’s
Megan’s Law, and cannot be publicly identified by this or any other official
means (ibid., 20).
Callers to the SOIL first hear a pre-recorded message that informs them
that in order to make an inquiry they must be aged over eighteen years, provide
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their name, identify the State or county from which they are calling, state the
reason for the inquiry and the number of persons at risk from the potential
offender. The message goes on to inform them that it is an offense to use
information obtained from the VCIN to harass, discriminate against, or commit a
crime against, any sex offender. The caller is then connected to an operator who
will conduct the search. The caller must tell the operator the name of the
individual they wish to check, along with another identifying detail such as their
date of birth, address, social security number, or comprehensive physical
description. If a match with a record contained in the VCIN is made, the operator
will tell the inquirer the registrant’s physical description, community of
residence, and the sex offense(s) for which they are required to register. No
addresses of registrants can be given to the public over the SOIL (ibid., 5-7).
In 1999, 3236 calls were made to the SOIL. O f those callers, 391 told the
operator that they were calling from Los Angeles County. The CDOJ reports that
the identification rate for searches conducted against the VCIN that for that year
was 1.3% (ibid., 9). In a report to the California legislature on the operation of
the SOIL, the department provided the following anecdotal examples of
identifications made by users of the service:
A man, concerned for his family’s safety, called to check on an
individual he was going to let move into his home. The subject had
been convicted of rape by threat.
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A caller telephoned to check on his ex-wife’s new boyfriend
because he was concerned for his daughter. The ex-wife’s boyfriend
had been convicted of rape by force.
A grandmother called after she had received complaints from
several individuals that a subject was overly friendly with the
children in an RV park. Residents complained that the subject only
came out to the pool area when children were present. The subject
had been convicted of lewd and lascivious acts with a child under
14 (ibid., 13-15).
The second means by which members of the public can access
information held in California’s sex offender register is by using the ‘California
Sex Offender Information Mail-In Request Form’. This form is mailed by the
inquirer to the CDOJ, who will deliver the results with a telephone call within
two days of its receipt. The form can be used to check multiple individuals, and
is designed for use by businesses and organizations that wish to check on
employees or volunteers. The inquirer using this service must check a minimum
of six individuals, and there is a charge of $4 per individual. 8,806 inquiries were
made through this service in 1999 (ibid., 9).
Thirdly, the public can access information identifying sex offenders by
viewing the ‘Megan’s Law CD-ROM’. This CD-ROM is distributed to Police
and Sheriffs Departments by the State DOJ, with updated versions issued on a
monthly basis. The CD-ROM contains information on all ‘serious’ and ‘high-
risk’ offenders. The information contained on the CD-ROM identifies all high-
risk offenders by name, alias, photograph (if available - photographs are
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unavailable for 35% of individuals listed), physical description, ethnicity, date of
birth, scars, marks, tattoos, sex offense convictions, and county and zip-code of
residence (CDOJ 2000a, 11-12).
Users can search the CD-ROM by an individual’s name, by county, or by
zip code. When searching for an individual, descriptive details or a date o f birth
can be entered to narrow the search.
In order to use the CD-ROM, an inquirer must be aged at least eighteen
years. They must also sign a form stating that they are not a registered sex
offender, that they understand the purpose of the service is to allow members of
the public to protect themselves and their children from sex offenders, and that it
is an offense to use information from the CD-ROM to harass, discriminate
against, or commit a crime against, any individual listed. They must also provide
identification in the form of a California driver’s license or State identification
card. They may also be required to explain why they want to conduct the inquiry.
Records are kept of inquirers, and these records may be used for law enforcement
purposes (ibid., 11).
California’s Megan’s Law requires that all Sheriffs Departments, and all
Police Departments serving populations of more than 200,000 make the CD-
ROM available for public viewing. Smaller Police Departments may choose to
make the service available. During 1999 there were 246 sites, under the
supervision of 162 agencies, at which the public could view the Megan’s Law
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CD-ROM. Almost 30,000 members of the public viewed the CD-ROM during
that year. A survey of CD-ROM viewers conducted by the CDOJ revealed that
‘nearly 20% of the viewers recognized sex offenders on the CD-ROM as
individuals that they knew.. .Most of the time, viewers had been unaware that the
identified individuals were registered sex offenders’ (ibid., 2). About half the
Police Departments in California do not make the CD-ROM available, and thus it
is not readily accessible for many of California’s residents (ibid.).
The following anecdotes provided by the CDOJ are examples of
identifications that have been made by CD-ROM viewers, and reactions to those
identifications:
While viewing the CD-ROM, a mother identified her boyfriend as a
registered child molester. To protect her children, she removed the
boyfriend from her home.
Prior to employment, a company that hires people to play Santa
Claus at a local mall viewed the CD-ROM. They discovered that
one of their applicants was a child molester. Since the employee
could have posed a risk to children, the company did not hire the
man.
While viewing the CD-ROM at a county fair, several local residents
identified a soccer coach as being a serious sex offender...At the
request of the soccer league officials, the convicted sex offender
resigned as coach.
A woman viewing the CD-ROM identified her baby-sitter’s
husband as being a child molester. The woman removed her
children from the home (ibid., 13-15).
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The fourth means by which the public can be given access to information
from the sex offender register under California’s Megan’s Law, and the means
that was employed in the Monrovian case study this thesis features, is through
proactive community notification by law enforcement officers. The statute allows
such community notification when ‘a peace officer reasonably suspects.. .that a
child or other person may be at risk from a sex offender’. Law enforcement
agencies may release information about the sex offender that they deem ‘relevant
and necessary to protect the public’ to ‘persons, agencies and organizations the
offender is likely to encounter’. ‘At risk’ is defined as meaning ‘a person is or
may be exposed to a risk of becoming a victim of a sex offense committed by the
offender’. ‘Likely to encounter’ is defined as meaning
a) That the agencies, organizations, or other community members
are in a location or close proximity to a location where the offender
lives or is employed, or that the offender visits or is likely to visit on
a regular basis, [or] b) The types of interaction that ordinarily occur
at that location and other circumstances indicate that contact with
the offender is reasonably probable (ibid., 31-34).
A law enforcement disclosure under this provision may include the
registrant’s name, aliases, gender, race, physical description, photograph, date of
birth, convictions relating to registrant status, address (must be verified prior to
publication), vehicle description, vehicle license plate number, preferred type of
victim, parole or probation conditions, date of release from custody, and dates of
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crimes committed. Any disclosure made must be accompanied by a statement
explaining that ‘the purpose of the release of the information is to allow members
of the public to protect themselves and their children from sex offenders’ (ibid.
33).
Information identifying ‘serious’ sex offenders may only be passed to
those deemed to be ‘at risk’ from, and ‘likely to encounter’, the offender. In
practical terms, this limits law enforcement agents to directly informing people
or organizations that are in proximity to the offender. This generally involves
passing the information to specific people (e.g. those living on the registrant’s
street) by talking to them or providing them with a printed flyer. In the case of
‘high risk’ offenders, however, notice of a registrant’s identity can be given ‘by
whatever means the agency deems necessary to ensure the public safety’ (ibid.,
34). Thus, high-risk offenders could be subject to relatively indiscriminate
identification through, for instance, the posting of flyers in public places, or the
communication of their details to news media organizations.
A study of California law enforcement agencies conducted by the CDOJ
revealed that 60% of agencies surveyed had policies that permitted proactive
community notification under specified circumstances (ibid., 2). A notable
Californian law enforcement agency that has a policy precluding proactive
notification by its officers is the Los Angeles Police Department (Meyer 1998).
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During 1999, 168 Californian law enforcement agencies provided
notifications to members of the public. These notifications related to the
identities of 1,613 registrants, and included the distribution of 74,000 flyers
(CDOJ 2000a, 2).
According to the CDOJ, California’s Megan’s Law ‘allows local law
enforcement agencies to provide information regarding sex offenders to the
public in several ways. As a result, the policies developed by local agencies
reflect the diversity of each community, and vary from jurisdiction to
jurisdiction’ (ibid., 10).
The purpose of California’s Megan’s Law is defined by the CDOJ as
being ‘to provide the public with information that will allow them to protect
themselves and their families from convicted sex offenders’ (ibid., 4).
California’s Attorney General supported this perspective when he told the State
legislature that ‘we provide citizens with the information they need to protect
themselves, their families and others from convicted sex offenders’. It is the
position of the CDOJ that ‘[l]aw enforcement agencies must work with their
communities to educate the public about the availability of registered sex
offender information. The public must also take a proactive role in protecting
themselves from being the victim of a registered sex offender’ (ibid., 16).
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3.4 Meean’s Law: operational dimensions
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This review of Megan’s Law permits the identification of the following
operational dimensions:
• Megan’s Law seeks to address a specific criminal threat - that posed by the
recidivist convicted sex offender, following his or her release from custody.
• Megan’s Law represents a reform of traditional sex offender policing
intended to produce more effective control o f would-be repeat sex criminals.
• The campaigning and reform that gave rise to Megan’s Law was focused
around an individual victim of a serious crime.
• Megan’s Law operates through a system of offender registration.
• Megan’s Law’s effective functioning relies heavily upon the accuracy and
completeness of information held in sex offender registries.
• California’s Megan’s Law allows individual police forces some discretion
in the deployment of its provisions.
• Megan’s Law facilitates a greater role for the public in sex offender
policing, and is supposed to operate by providing members of the public with
information that will enable them to protect themselves from sex offenders.
• Routine public access to sex offender registry information in California
requires some proactivity on the part of members of the public.
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• Public access to sex offender registry information in California is
geographically non-uniform.
• California’s Megan’s Law grades registrants according to ‘risk’.
3.5 Preliminary case studies
The news media frequently reports incidents involving sex offenders,
police and communities. What follows is a series of preliminary case studies of
incidents reported in the news. Each case study has been chosen as it brings into
sharp relief some of the key dimensions of the sex offender control problematic
and provides empirical support for the conceptualization offered in chapter 4.
The cases presented here represent some of the results of the extensive review of
media reports from the United States and the United Kingdom conducted as part
of the preliminary research for this thesis.
3.5.1 ‘Name and Shame’
‘Paedophiles - don’t house them, hang them’, read the message on a
placard held by a young boy at an anti-pedophile demonstration on the
Paulsgrove estate in Portsmouth, England. The Vicar whose church serves
Paulsgrove explained to a press reporter, ‘This estate has been like Bosnia in the
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last week. The only difference is we don’t have ethnic cleansing here. It is social
cleansing. These campaigners supposedly have a list of twenty names of people
they say have committed crimes against children...Now four innocent families
are in hiding because of it’. A woman who lived on Paulsgrove offered a
protester’s perspective to the reporter, telling him, ‘We just want these
paedophiles off our estate where they can’t touch our kids. I personally think that
they should all be put in one place where they can all hang themselves. Why
should paedophiles have a life when they have ruined a child’s?’. When asked
who was responsible for triggering Portsmouth’s demonstrations, the local police
superintendent had no hesitation in blaming the Sunday tabloid News o f the
World (NOTW) newspaper and their ‘Name and Shame’ campaign: ‘The police
service made it very clear what the consequences of [the NOTW’s] action might
be. And here in Portsmouth I derive absolutely no satisfaction in saying ‘I told
you so’’(Perry 2000).
The demonstrations in Portsmouth were part of a broad wave of often
violent anti-pedophile protests that swept across Britain in the summer of 2000.
That summer’s protests represented the latest, and most dramatic, instance o f a
hostile and exclusionary public reaction against sex offenders triggered by
British newspapers conducting their own unofficial version of community
notification of sex offenders’ identities.
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Following the abduction and murder of a seven-year-old girl named Sarah
Payne in July 2000, the NOTW launched a campaign for ‘Sarah’s Law’ - a
British equivalent of Megan’s Law. British police were already operating a sex
offender register, and it was the public desire for community notification of sex
offenders’ identities that the campaign emphasized. Using Sarah Payne’s
grieving parents as figureheads, the campaign ‘for Sarah’ collected tens of
thousands of signatures in a petition that would be handed to the government.
The campaign was based upon the notion that community notification of sex
offenders’ identities would enable parents to protect their children from attackers
such as Sarah Payne’s. Demonstrating its commitment to the safety of the
country’s children, the NOTW preempted any decision on the part of the
government that might result from their campaign and began conducting
community notification through its own pages. The editor pledged not to stop
publishing identities until either the government had instituted ‘Sarah’s Law’, or
all of the 110,000 known sex offenders in Britain had been named in her
newspaper.
The public reaction to the NOTW’s community notification service, and
local lists produced by the grassroots groups it inspired, was dramatic. Around
the country local residents sought to drive suspected sex offenders from their
communities. Many people were injured or had their property damaged, and
many more fled in anticipation of attacks. Several individuals committed suicide.
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And whilst many sex offenders were among the victims of the Salemesque mood
that gripped communities around the nation, public anger was not exclusively
reserved for them. Relatives living with suspected offenders were targeted, along
with numerous people who were victims of mistaken identity. Even police
officers found themselves under attack as they tried to stand between suspected
sex offenders and the protesters who sought them.
The NOTW campaign provoked an immense popular response from
Britain’s public. A poll conducted during the campaign showed that ‘84%
thought paedophiles should be named and 88% would want to know if one was
living in their area’ (BBC News 2000). The nature of the anti-sex offender
protests facilitated by the NOTW community notification left little doubt that the
expulsion of sex offenders from communities was the public’s preferred method
for the control of the threat they were perceived to present.
The British police and probation services took a very dim view of the
NOTW’s community notification program, arguing that it was seriously
hampering their ability to effectively control sex offenders. A press release from
the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) stated that,
[T]he Register of Sexual Offenders has proved to be a great asset to
police forces, probation services and other agencies in monitoring
individuals who have committed serious sexual offences.
Anonymity is an important element of the Register.. .[The NOTW]
have seen fit to publish [alleged offenders’ identities] without any
evidence that by doing so children’s safety will be enhanced. Their
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actions will...have the opposite effect and put children’s lives at
risk by driving offenders underground. Past evidence suggests that
the publication of such information causes serious breaches of child
protection (ACPO 2000).
This makes clear that the model of control employed by the police and other
official agencies to control sex offenders, which is based upon a system of
registration, requires that offenders be monitored. Thus, it is imperative that they
can be readily located. This model relies upon the preservation of offenders’
anonymity, thereby minimizing the opportunity for exclusionary pressures
communities might otherwise bring to bear upon them.
Statements made by the probation service have supported the view o f the
police that effective control relies upon the registration of sex offenders and their
subsequent supervision by authorities. In a briefing to the British Parliament, the
Association of Chief Officers of Probation argued that,
[I]f notification on a wide scale were to go ahead...the vociferous
public reaction to the discovery that a sex offender is living in the
locality is likely to cause the offender to go underground and
disappear...When an offender is harried from a community he will
probably drop contact with the probation service and his
whereabouts will be unknown to the police. With no monitoring or
supervision...the likelihood of reoffending escalates; only this time
in a different area. These crimes might otherwise have been
prevented by the intervention of probation or police officers (ACOP
2001).
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The predictions of the police and probation services were seemingly
proved accurate by events around Britain. In combination with the growing
public unease concerning the sheer level of violence and destruction being meted
out by the more radical anti-sex offender campaigners, this led the NOTW to
‘suspend’ their unofficial community notification and limit their activities to
political lobbying for ‘Sarah’s Law’. The episode appeared to have confirmed the
dangers of community notification, and to have dramatically reduced the
likelihood of it ever becoming a feature of official British sex-offender policing
policy.
Britain’s ‘Sarah’s Law’ campaign provides an interesting and revealing
perspective from which to consider the issue of sex offender control, and
highlights the following points:
• The known presence of sex offenders can trigger an exclusionary
response from members of the public, and this response can be emphatic and
dramatic in nature.
• Effective registration and monitoring of sex offenders by the authorities
may be incompatible with community notification of their identities.
• Disagreement can exist between law enforcement agencies and members
of the public over preferred models of sex offender control. In this case
disagreement related to the incompatibility of the spatial mechanisms o f control
each side’s model sought to produce (monitoring versus exclusion).
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• Sex offender control strategies can be subject to negotiations, conducted
in a variety of arenas.
3.5.2 Montana. Massachusetts, and the cannibal
Massachusetts native and serial sex offender, Nathaniel Bar-Jonah, had
already spent twelve years incarcerated by his State for crimes against children
when he was arrested for attempting to kidnap a seven-year-old girl. This
incident occurred only one month after he had been released from a
Massachusetts treatment center for sex offenders. Instead of sending Bar-Jonah
to prison, or back to the treatment center, the local prosecuting authorities told
him he could serve just two years probation. There was a condition attached,
however: he had to leave Massachusetts and go and live with his mother in
Montana. This resolution represented an example of what has been termed ‘the
geographical cure’, meaning, ‘Pack up your child molester and send him far
away’ (Mehren 2001).
In 1996, several years after Bar-Jonah arrived in Montana, a local boy
disappeared on his way to school. He would not be seen again. In December
2000 Bar-Jonah was arrested for the kidnap and murder of that boy. Following
his arrest, horrific details of the crime emerged. Bar-Jonah had eaten some of the
body himself, and had fed pieces of the boy’s flesh to unsuspecting friends and
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family in meals he prepared. Worse still, bones were found on his property that
seemed to have belonged to at least one other child. Overall, evidence linking
him to as many as fifty-four cases of child abduction and sexual assault was
found in a search of his Montana home.
The County attorney prosecuting the Montana crimes told the press he
was ‘pretty irate’ about the ‘remarkable’ move by Massachusetts authorities to
move Bar-Jonah to his state. Even a Massachusetts police officer now involved
in the investigation described the action as ‘embarrassing’ and ‘an awful, awful
thing’. Commenting on the strategy of moving convicted sex offenders from state
to state, the executive director of Oregon’s Association for the Treatment of
Sexual Abusers said this ‘has nothing to do with the treatment of the offender
and nothing to do with public safety. It’s a good way for one jurisdiction to wash
their hands of the problem and say it won’t happen to my kid and I don’t know
anyone in Montana’ (ibid.).
This case highlights the following:
• The control of an offender by his expulsion from a jurisdiction ensures
his arrival in another.
• Inteijurisdictional conflict can arise from strategies involving
transjurisdictional movements of offenders.
• Spatial exclusion provides an expedient strategy for dealing with the risk
an individual poses to a locally-defined population.
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• Spatial exclusion is an ineffective crime control strategy at larger
geographical scales.
3.5.3 Community notification: typical responses
Numerous examples of the ways communities across the United States
have acted in response to community notification of sex offenders’ identities
have been reported in the news media in recent years. The following examples
from California have been chosen as they typify these reported responses.
The 1998 release of a convicted rapist, Jack Martin Manes, from prison
and the announcement by local authorities that he was taking up residence in a
downtown neighborhood in San Jose, California, led community activists to
protest that they were being used as a ‘dumping ground’ for sexual predators.
They met with local police and council officials in an attempt to have the
offender’s move to their locality blocked, arguing that local people feared the
consequences of having such individuals in their midst (Mowatt 1998).
The 1997 release of convicted sex offender, Sidney Landau, to the
community of Placentia, California, was made publicized by local police. The
local community, which included Landau’s former victim (who reported suicidal
feelings), became fearful that he would re-offend. Residents staged public
demonstrations which prompted Landau’s apartment managers to serve him with
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an eviction notice (Reza & Anderson 1997). Landau was successfully ejected
from the locality (Meyer 1998).
Taken together, these examples of Californian sex offender control
highlight the following:
• ‘Community notification’, when conducted by the police, can spur a
public response against a sex offender
• Public knowledge of a sex offender’s presence can prompt an
exclusionary response from those living in proximity to that individual.
• Fear can be generated by police action notifying community members of
a sex offender’s presence.
• Fear can motivate public action against sex offenders.
Whilst several interesting dimensions to the sex offender policing
problematic emerge from this preliminary investigation, the spatial element is the
one upon which this thesis will focus. The tendency towards an exclusionary
reaction as the public’s preferred model of sex offender control is strongly
suggested by the empirical evidence that has been presented here, along with
some of the policing issues such a model can give rise to when practiced. As
such, support is provided for the notion developed in chapter 2 that the known
proximity of sex offenders can promote a NIMBY response from communities.
The translation of this tendency into a policing strategy that can occur under
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Megan’s Law is an outcome that the conceptualization offered in chapter 4 seeks
to explain.
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Chapter 4: Divisions of labor in policing
78
4.1.1 The need for conceptualization
The literature reviewed in chapter two strongly suggested that public
involvement in sex offender control would encourage the deployment of
strategies based upon the spatial exclusion of individual offenders. The empirical
evidence presented in chapter 3 was consistent with the existence of that
exclusionary tendency, and demonstrated that Megan’s Law can facilitate
increased public involvement in sex offender control. However, existing work
fails to provide an effective framework for understanding the ways in which law
enforcement agencies and the public interact in order to produce exclusionary
control strategies for known sex offenders. The following conceptual framework
aims to fill this gap by suggesting an explanation of the process in operation. The
model shown in figure 2 is based upon this proposed framework.
My conceptualization considers the problem in terms of actors, process,
and outcome. The outcome it seeks to explain is the expulsion of sex offenders
from communities as a sex offender policing strategy. I propose that this outcome
is the result of a process of negotiation between the police and the public over a
‘division of labor’ in sex offender policing. This negotiation has allowed local
communities to become the primary determinants of policing strategy with
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regards to sex offenders and has thereby enabled them to assert their NIMBY
instincts.
Figure 1
Sex Offender Exclusion - Model
. Sex Offender
Megan's Lawf
Victim
! Division of labori
Police Community News Media
NIMBYism Community Policing
negotiation
Sex offender i
exclusion
4.1.2 Actors
The principal actors featured in my conceptualization are communities
and police agencies. The following outlines the constructions of these actors as I
employ them:
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The term ‘community’ can have many meanings, but in this context is
taken to mean members of the public who live within a loosely defined local
geographical area. Members of a community share aspects of their identity and
perceive certain common concerns. Communities are multi-dimensional entities,
but for the purposes of this inquiry it is their public safety concerns which are of
relevance, and which can be used to delimit a particular ‘community agenda’.
Communities define themselves on the basis of identities that are, by necessity,
exclusive. Degrees of conformity with, or deviance from, community ‘norms’
determine eligibility for community membership. Given their construction as
severely deviant, sex offenders rank very low on any community’s hierarchy of
acceptance and are thus broadly unwelcome as members of any community.
Community identity has a territorial dimension, and is something that
needs to be defended for the preservation of feelings of well-being and security
amongst its members. The presence of individuals who fall way beyond the
bounds of eligibility for community membership within community space
challenges the identity of that community. A community can defend itself
through a process of physical exclusion of deviants from its space (a NIMBY
response). Sex offenders are prime candidates for such exclusion.
An important element of the NIMBY equation that emerged in chapter 2
was that variation in community type will impact the nature of the response that
any given community will (or will not) mount to an unwelcome development in
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81
their space. Whilst the multi-dimensional character of communities must render
them almost infinitely variable, key dimensions such as access to resources,
degrees of political representation, population stability, and population density,
will impact the type of the community ‘actor’. Even given the backdrop of
widespread disapproval of sex offenders, variation in such dimensions in any
particular case will affect the way in which that community functions, and will,
therefore, impact the precise nature of the sex offender control outcome.
The ‘police’ are government agencies responsible for crime control and
public-order maintenance. The contemporary paradigm in policing is that of
‘community policing’. This paradigm defines the institutional context within
which police organizations currently operate. The community policing movement
sees the effective functioning of the police as dependent upon partnerships with
the public. Partnerships involve the devolution of power, both in terms of policy
determination and operational action, from institutional police authorities to the
public. This devolution is intended to reduce demands on police resources,
produce more effective crime control, and promote positive police-public
relations. Community policing is geographically structured at the local scale, and
aims to serve ‘community’ agendas. As such, community policing blurs the
distinction between police and public by allowing considerable public influence
over official police functioning.
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Just as variations in community type will impact the precise function of
that actor within the general model presented here, so will variations in police
department type. Whilst a dominant policing ideology can be identified,
individual departments can vary significantly from one another. Important
dimensions along which such variation is produced include jurisdictional size,
specific organizational philosophy and goals, leadership style, and the nature of
relationships with other agencies. The interplay of these dimensions in any
particular case of sex offender control will impact the function of the police
‘actor’ within the model, thereby affecting the nature of the sex offender control
outcome.
Sex offenders, whilst clearly important to the issues this thesis explores,
are not considered among the principal actors for the purposes of my framework.
The reason for this is simply their relative lack of power in determining the
outcomes of situations within which they find themselves. Whilst the criminal
activity that initially earns an individual the ‘sex offender’ designation is a matter
involving their own agency, the nature of their subsequent circumstances is
largely determined by other, far more powerful groups. Thus, this framework
sees the construction o f sex offenders employed by the principal actors as being
of importance. Sex offenders are considered a class apart from other types of
criminals in America’s hierarchy of deviance, and are widely reviled. Whilst the
term masks a broad range of activities that may have earned an individual the
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‘sex offender’ title, the numerous individuals to whom it applies are often
understood to constitute a single, relatively homogenous group. Group members
are characterized as dangerous, predatory, and incurably recidivist. They are felt
to be profoundly threatening to public safety and as such require strict control.
Despite the popular construction of sex offenders, however, variation in
sex offenders’ individual conviction records determines their classification under
Megan’s Law. Such classification typically determines the extent and nature of
community notification that can occur with respect to any individual. In the case
of California’s Megan’s Law, such classifications are critical, precluding
widespread, detailed community notification for all but a small percentage of
total sex offender registrants. Thus, whilst offenders may be widely constructed
as members of a homogenous group, variations in individuals’ conviction records
and consequent legal classifications are key to determining the actual control
outcome that will be produced in a particular case.
4.1.3 Process
The expulsion of sex offenders from communities can be accounted for
by a process which I suggest takes place between official police agencies and the
public. This is a process of negotiation over a ‘division of labor’ (DOL) in crime-
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84
control policing between the two groups. This process is the central focus of my
conceptual framework.
The control of most types of crime involves both public and police action.
The delimitation of each group’s respective roles determines the dimensions of a
DOL in policing. For instance, a common strategy for combating domestic
burglaries would involve members of the public conducting informal surveillance
over the properties in their immediate neighborhood and contacting the police if
they saw suspicious activity by actual or would-be burglars. Additionally,
members of the public would take responsibility for securing their homes against
intruders, whilst the police would provide patrols and investigative services.
Such a DOL could be the result of tacit or formal agreement, reached through
some form of negotiation.
Divisions of labor are always susceptible to renegotiation and
redefinition. To continue with the example of domestic burglary, the widespread
introduction by the British police of Neighborhood Watch schemes during the
1980s can be seen as an official attempt to reconfigure the anti-burglary DOL by
increasing the public’s responsibility for conducting surveillance and gathering
intelligence.
Considerations of policing DOLs typically underlie moves to reform
policing, whether in the relatively mundane example of devising a more effective
anti-burglary strategy, or in the far more fundamental reform sought through the
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85
incorporation of communities into the police policy-making apparatus following
the Scarman Report.
The dimensions of a policing DOL are critical in determining the degree
of influence participating (or non-participating) groups can exert over policing
policy and operations. Different groups are likely to have different agendas,
based upon each group’s particular sets of interests. Thus, shifts in a policing
division of labor will result in shifts in the policing agenda. Agendas have spatial
dimensions, and these shifts will therefore produce changes in the spatiality of
policing. This was made evident in dramatic fashion in the case of the anti
pedophile movement led by The News o f the World in Britain, where the
newspaper effectively wrested control of sex offender policing from the
authorities and handed it to the public. This allowed numerous communities
around the country to exercise their own policing agendas, and seriously
hampered the ability of police forces to operate theirs. Conflict between the
authorities and the NOTW-fuelled NIMBYites arose from disagreement over
preferred versions of the DOL, and the consequently incompatible geographies of
each group’s agenda. The strategies suggested by each agenda (exclusion versus
monitoring) could not effectively co-exist.
In the case of sex offenders, the issue of whether the public are notified of
the identities of their local registered sex offenders is pivotal in determining the
dimensions of the relevant policing DOL. Public ability to pinpoint those held to
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86
be excessively deviant is key to facilitating community control strategies. Quite
simply, action is impossible if identities cannot be ascertained, whilst sex
offenders’ demonic social status makes action a real likelihood if identification
does occur.
Negotiation of policing DOLs can occur on a variety of scales, and such
negotiations can take a variety of forms. For instance, at the local scale, police
officers can enter into face-to-face agreements with small groups or individuals
in order to develop a strategy to address a specific problem (a common feature of
everyday ‘community policing’). Meanwhile, at larger scales legislative moves
can be employed to structure formal police-public arrangements (such as the
formation of Police Consultative Committees mandated by the 1984 Police and
Criminal Evidence Act in England and Wales). Megan’s Law, as a series of
legislation which mandates community notification of sex offenders’ identities,
can be considered as just such a DOL-defining set of statutes.
As noted in chapter 2, DOLs have provided economic geographers with a
significant field of inquiry. It is this field that provided the initial inspiration for
my notion that the policing of crime can be considered in terms of a DOL. For
economic geographers, issues of profit, production, and power-relations form
principal dimensions of the DOL concept. Whilst my proposed concept of DOLs
in policing has some similarities to its economic counterpart, it also departs in
some important respects.
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The organization of DOLs for the achievement of maximum profit in
capitalist production has some superficial applicability to policing strategies
involving police-public partnerships in crime control. At one level, police
agencies can be considered as organizing crime-control DOLs in order to achieve
their institutional objective of lower recorded crime rates. In this context, the
lowered crime rate is analogous to the increased profit margin. However, whilst
the management of crime rates represents an important aspect of policing, it is
but one part of the overall business in which the police engage. Crucially, crime
control is subordinate to the primary police goal of maintaining public order.
From a police perspective, the potential consequences of a poorly managed
crime-reduction DOL go beyond the threat of reduced profit (i.e. higher crime
rates). A poorly managed crime DOL can lead to a weakened ability to ensure
public order and raises the prospect of conflict (violent or otherwise) with the
sections of the public. Therefore, effective management of crime-reduction
DOLs is necessary as part of an overall conflict-management strategy by the
police.
The notion that the management of police-public roles in crime control
can be managed with a view to public order promotion is supported by, for
example, the incorporation of community members into the police-policy making
apparatus through police consultative committees following the Scarman report
in Britain (noted in chapter 2). This incorporation occurred in order to minimize
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88
the potential for the reoccurrence of the 1981 riots, which had consisted of large-
scale street violence and attacks on police officers. Nevertheless, the consequent
consultation with the public centered on the need to identify local crime
concerns, and to secure public cooperation in the control of crime.
A further example, relating directly to the control of sex offenders, is
provided by the attacks on police and vigilante violence that surrounded the
campaign for community notification of sex offenders’ identities in the UK in the
summer of 2000 (discussed in chapter 3). That episode revealed how the ability
of the police to ensure public order is maintained can weaken when
dissatisfaction exists over the allocation of specific tasks between police and
public in a matter of crime control.
In economic geography, labor is performed in order to produce a good or
service. However, when the issue of the production of crime-control through a
police-public DOL is considered, economic geography’s concept o f ‘production’
does not apply in a straightforward manner. In policing, this ‘production’ is a
means to an end, with that end being public order preservation. From the
perspective of economic geographers, however, the production of the good or
service is the end.
In economic geography, the dimensions of DOLs are recognized as
impacting power-relations between socially and spatially differentiated groups of
people. The exercise of power in capitalist production is routinely characterized
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as being predominantly top-down in direction, as those groups with more money
wield more power than those with less. The issue of power-relations differs
between policing and economics. Whilst there is a tendency in literature
produced by non-police authors to see the police as all-powerful (and thus, in this
context, sitting in a position analogous to that of the wealthy capitalists), power-
relations do not operate in a ‘one-way’ manner in policing. The police must
routinely consider community sentiments when deciding how to act. Failure to
do so could invite complaints, conflict, and even violence. Police officers are
constantly aware of the threats posed to them by potential public reactions to
their activities, and the limits to activity such threats impose. In some situations,
these threats can be severe, and consequently very restrictive of police options.
Thus, whilst the police may possess significant power in that they have legally-
supported authority, including the option to use force against non-compliant
citizens, alongside often significant organizational resources, they routinely find
themselves facing a very limited range of operational options. Their options are
limited because o f the significant power the public exercises over the police.
4.1.4 Stages of negotiation
It was noted in chapter 2 that Dear (1976) considered NIMBY
movements as progressing according to a staged process. I propose that a process
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of negotiation of a sex offender policing DOL that produces an exclusionary
outcome will also follow a series of stages. These stages can be characterized as
follows:
• I) Routine: This stage occurs over the long-term, before police and public
attention becomes focused upon the presence of an individual sex offender. It
is during this stage that the general nature of police-community relations in
crime-control are established, and, thus, that the dominant dimensions of a
DOL in local policing are established. The DOL established during this stage
provides a basic framework that structures negotiation in subsequent stages.
• 2) Reaction: This stage commences when either the police or the community
(or both) first become aware of the local presence of a sex offender. The
reaction the sex offender’s presence provokes will necessitate focused
negotiation as the dimensions of a control strategy are determined, and the
specific tasks relating to that control are allocated. This stage continues as
long as the sex offender is perceived as a threat to the local community.
Exclusionary pressure will be brought to bear upon the sex offender during
this period.
• 3) Reflection: This stage commences once the sex offender has been ejected
from the community. Both police and community members will re-evaluate
local arrangements for sex offender control in light of the episode they have
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just experienced. A new DOL may be negotiated to replace the ‘routine’
arrangement that preceded the sex offender’s arrival.
4.1.5 Additional dimensions
Chapter 3 demonstrated that the issues of sex offender policing and
Megan’s Law are multi-dimensional, involving the actions of actors and
processes beyond those already mentioned in this framework. The sex offender
policing system this thesis investigates is the product of a complex and dynamic
process of interaction between a variety of actors, beyond just the police and
communities that are placed at the center of my framework. Significant amongst
these additional actors are victims of crime and the news media. I propose that
these actors each play important roles both in setting the terms of DOL
negotiations, and that the media are influential in the actual conduct of the
negotiating process. The roles of each of these additional actors are:
Individual victims o f crime can be used to raise awareness of an issue, and
provide a focus for society’s angst and subsequent responses. The naming of
Megan’s Law after Megan Kanka, and the campaigning for reform that was
conducted in her name, are fully consistent with the importance of victims as
shapers of law enforcement policies. Consequently, certain victims could play a
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92
role in driving moves for reform in policing, and in informing the nature of such
reform.
The empirical evidence provided in chapter 3 suggests that the role of the
news media in determining the nature of controls to which sex offenders will be
subjected is an influential one. The news media can bring crimes and victims to
public prominence and deploy influential constructions of offenders and societal
threats. They can exert political pressures that influence negotiations over sex
offender policing at all scales. They can also act as a conduit for information
between different agencies (such as the police and the public) - a role that is
critically important for a realm of policing whose nature is so dependent upon the
extent of public knowledge concerning offenders.
Whilst recognition is given here to the probable importance of these
additional actors, the chosen focus of this thesis is the core concept of DOL
negotiation between police and local communities. This is the piece of the
framework that will be investigated through a case study, whilst the additional
elements will remain as informed speculation.
Whilst the thesis has a spatial focus, there are elements of the spatial
equation that also lie beyond its scope. Notably, the function of sex offender
proximity is a potential factor in the sex offender control process that is not
investigated. However, the fundamentally spatial nature of the control process
being explained would suggest that the initial proximity to other community
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94
of investigation through one case as they might be through several. Police
departments vary in terms of their mandates, organizational philosophies, and
related practices. Communities are also complex entities, and variations in
community types undoubtedly influence sex offender policing outcomes in any
given case. And sex offenders themselves vary in terms of their offending
records, and the classifications under Megan’s Law those records produce.
Whilst the precise functions of such variables must remain a subject for
speculation in an analysis based upon a single case, the actors featured in the
model have important characteristics that could reasonably be expected to prove
constant across multiple cases. The identification of probable constants allows
for limited generalization from the findings of a single case.
Individual police departments may vary from one another in many
respects, but are nevertheless similar in many others. American police
departments operate in a climate of legal regulation that has consistencies at
federal and state scales. Megan’s Law, a key component of the Monrovian case,
is uniform in its legal substance across California. California’s version of
Megan’s Law shares important similarities with other state’s legislation. The
common requirement for police departments to reduce crime and minimize
public disorder likewise allows the inference of certain generalizations from one
case. Moreover, departments are linked by the existence of a contemporary
paradigm in police organizational philosophy.
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Communities, despite their variations in type, may also be expected to
share generalizable characteristics. The material presented in chapters 1 through
3 strongly suggests that sex offenders are deeply disliked by all communities, and
that their known presence is likely to provoke a NIMBY response. These
community characteristics are central to my conceptualization and model, and
can plausibly be understood as being broadly applicable.
Sex offenders’ individual legal classifications are critical in determining
whether communities are ever to officially learn of their presence. My model can
only apply to those individuals whose classification allows for official
notification.
Whilst the selection of a single case-study may impose certain limitations
upon the investigation of the function of variables, such a choice in research
design does have important advantages. The concept of a division of labor in
policing is a novel one. Given the scope of this research project, the investigation
of the DOL concept through a pilot, single case permits its most thorough
dissection and most detailed discussion. To apply the concept to multiple cases
would preclude the examination of any actual DOL in such detail.
The following research tasks were conducted in order to determine the
details of the Monrovian case, with a view to establishing accounts that would
demonstrate the perspectives of both the police and the local community :
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Press reports relating to the case were gathered. This was achieved by
reviewing the contents of all local and regional newspapers published during and
immediately after the period in which the case unfolded. The contents of
newspaper websites reporting events from Reno were similarly reviewed. These
reviews produced a comprehensive picture of the print media’s treatment of the
case, and provided evidence relating to a variety of agents’ perspectives.
Substantial research was conducted into the Monrovia Police Department
(MPD), both in terms of its general functioning, and the specific actions it took in
relation to the Linares case. This research was conducted on a number of fronts.
Firstly, I gathered all the information about the department published on the
Internet. Almost all of this information is produced by the MPD itself, or by the
City of Monrovia. This preliminary research enabled the establishment of a
picture of the MPD’s organizational structure, as well as of some of their stated
organizational goals and practices.
The Chief of the MPD, Joseph Santoro, was then contacted. Preliminary
telephone conversations were followed by an in-depth, four-hour face-to-face
interview. I used this opportunity to quiz the Chief on the specifics of the Linares
case, and a detailed account of events was established. The interview also went
into depth on matters of police-public relations in Monrovia, the MPD’s policing
philosophy, and the Chiefs vision of police and public roles in crime control.
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The MPD then provided me with access to, and copies of, a substantial
body of documentary evidence relating to the Linares case, as well as to their
routine operation. With some assistance from Detective John Abbott, who had
headed the MPD’s operational response to Linares, I gathered copies of
numerous internal memoranda that had passed between MPD officers concerned
with Linares’ policing. I gathered copies of Immigration and Naturalization
Service (INS) documentation relating to Linares’ detention and criminal history,
as well as the written correspondences between that agency and the MPD that
had accompanied the transfer of those documents. I obtained copies of the flyer
used to notify the community of Linares’ presence, as well as of written press
releases made in relation to his case. I also accessed the notes Chief Santoro had
used at meetings with the press and public that took place during the period of
the case. Policy documents relating to sex offender policing under Megan’s Law,
and to other aspects of Monrovia’s policing, were made available to me.
Additionally, I obtained copies of a written communication between the MPD’s
Chief and a senior INS officer that related to Linares. The MPD also provided me
with a copy of a letter written by Monrovia’s Mayor to a California Senator on a
matter concerning the case.
The MPD documents some of its activities on video, and I was given
copies of video recordings pertinent to the Linares case, showing press
conferences and public meetings. Further video recordings were provided that
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documented MPD policing initiatives, police-community interaction, and police
participation in city council meetings. I was also obtained access to video
recordings of television news reports of the Linares case.
The MPD told me that they were unable to give me details of members of
the local community who had participated in the public reaction Linares’
presence had stirred. I used media reports to identify the names of four prominent
protestors, and then contacted them requesting interviews concerning their
actions. These requests were not met with a positive response.
General information concerning the city of Monrovia and its population
was obtained from the Monrovia chamber of commerce, and through the web site
of the city council.
The results of this research are presented in the form of a narrative in
chapter 5.
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Chapter 5: Monrovia - no place for the sex offender
5.1 Monrovia
The city of Monrovia lies within the greater Los Angeles metropolitan
area (See Figure 3). It has a population o f40,550 people (Monrovia Today
2001). Established in 1886, it is the fourth oldest city in Los Angeles County. At
the time of the 1990 census, median family income in the city was $35,684, and
12.4% of families there lived below the poverty level. At that same time, the
racial composition of the population was as follows: White (non-Hispanic)
41.0%, Black 10.5%, Hispanic 28.5%, Asian 4.5%, and Native American 0.5%
(Monrovia Chamber of Commerce 1995). Since that time, there has been a
significant increase in the ‘Hispanic’ percentage, and a reduction in the city’s
‘White’ population (Santoro 2001). Twenty-six percent of Monrovia’s population
is aged below eighteen years. The city has its own police and fire departments. It
is home to 160 neighborhood watch groups, and more than 1,750 businesses
(Monrovia Chamber of Commerce 1995).
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Figure 2
Map of Monrovia and environs
MOUNTA,N s ^
MONROVIA
• ^ ^
I LOS IIWGELES t \
} . * « ! « » I M « , ________ _ '
5.2 Monrovia Police Department
The Monrovia Police Department (MPD) is the agency responsible for
providing police services to Monrovia. It employs sixty-four sworn officers and
twenty-two civilian staff, supported by fifty-two civilian volunteers. The mission
statement of the MPD reads as follows (emphasis added):
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The men and women of the Monrovia Police Department believe that
our fundamental duty is to serve all citizens within our boundaries
with fairness, compassion, and respect.
To this end, we are committed to improving the quality o f life in our
community. We promote courtesy and responsiveness in dealing with
the many diverse citizens we serve. We seek a partnership with our
population for community advocacy, pursuing answers to root
problems as well as incidents, with the goal o f making our city safer
for all to live, work, and recreate. We demand excellence in the quality
of our law enforcement, stressing professionalism, integrity and
timeliness, so that those we serve may feel secure.
From the members of our department we expect honesty, candor and
a sense of pride in doing the best they can. We encourage the flow
of information and exchange of ideas. We are relentless in the
identification, apprehension and prosecution of criminals. We value
innovation and proactive approaches in meeting our crime prevention
and enforcement responsibilities, and recognize the importance of
each individual's role in the organization. Through education, training
and future planning, we maintain highly capable guardians of the
community, and expect them to be known for their character,
commitment and competence.
Above all, we remember our sworn oath to ensure the Constitutional
rights o f all people. We serve them with honor, treat them with
dignity, and welcome their assistance in assuring the safety and
security o f our community (MPD 2001).
The MPD operates according to a strategy called ‘Community Activist
Policing’ (CAP). CAP has been in operation in Monrovia since 1990, and is
credited by the MPD’s Chief of Police, Joseph Santoro, with bringing down the
rate of reported serious crimes in the city by fifty-seven percent since its
introduction. According to Chief Santoro, CAP is ‘a philosophy that runs through
everything’ the MPD does (Santoro 2001).
CAP has four principal components:
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• ‘A cooperative problem solving relationship between private and public
agencies and the community.
• The development of necessary family and support systems.
• A recognition of the importance of cleaning up graffiti, rundown facilities
and other signs of neighborhood blight.
• Eliminating crime and the fear of crime’ (City of Monrovia no date, 1).
CAP brings a multi-agency approach to policing in Monrovia. At the hub of
CAP’s operation is the CAP Task Force. This consists of representatives of the
MPD and fourteen other agencies that operate in Monrovia, including the City
Council, Neighborhood Watch groups, the Health Department, and the School
District. The MPD sees itself as a ‘partner’ within the task force, and considers
the Task Force as a nucleus around which Monrovia’s problems can be subject to
identification, analysis, and comprehensive corrective actions (ibid., 3).
The philosophy of CAP rests upon the notion that effective policing strategies
must involve close cooperation between the police and the community, and
should tackle the root causes of problems rather than merely addressing their
symptoms. In order to enable the operationalization of community-based
problem solving strategies, community empowerment is held to be essential. The
MPD believe that citizen involvement in policing enables the insight the
community’s perspective provides to be harnessed in the development and
implementation of strategies. Furthermore, through this empowerment, citizens
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are encouraged to play a greater role in policing their own neighborhoods.
Stronger, safer communities, with minimal influence from the ‘criminal
element’, are the intended product of such empowerment (ibid., 2).
Community influence over policing under CAP is structured into the policing
process through both formal and informal police-community interactions. For
instance, ‘citizen representatives’ residing with ‘problem areas’ are formally
identified and consulted by the Task Force; whilst informal interaction is
sustained on a routine basis through the deployment of neighborhood patrol
officers who are expected to continually maintain a dialogue with the residents of
their beat areas. These patrol officers are given the task of encouraging the
development of solutions to locally identified problems by taking the role of
‘community activists’. Community activist police officers achieve their goals by
acting as ‘motivators and facilitators’ for their communities’ problem-solving
strategies (Santoro 2001).
An example of a CAP strategy deployed in Monrovia is the ‘Safe City/Safe
Schools Program’ (SCSSP). This is considered by the MPD to epitomize the
operation of their CAP philosophy, and they attribute a significant drop in
daytime crime rates to its implementation (ibid.). This initiative brought national
attention to the MPD and their CAP program when, in 1996, President Bill
Clinton visited Monrovia to recognize the city’s community policing efforts. He
gave a speech praising the program, and hailed the partnership between the MPD
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and the School District as an example of community policing that forces around
the country should look to as a model of good practice (MPD 1996).
The SCSSP consists of several elements. These include:
• The development by the Task Force of the nation’s first anti-truancy,
daytime curfew ordinance.
• MPD facilitated parenting classes, which cover issues such as children’s
self-esteem, peer pressure, family discipline, and drug abuse prevention.
• Student art displays at the MPD station.
• A ‘parents on campus’ program which sees parents present on campus
during school hours to participate in school functions and deter violence or
disorder.
• The establishment of direct emergency communication links between
schools and the MPD
• The provision of free ‘security inspections’ by the MPD to schools in
Monrovia (City of Monrovia no date, 9-12).
A further example that can serve to typify the operation of CAP is provided
by the actions taken by the CAP Task Force in response to problems of open-air
crack-cocaine dealing and poor housing conditions that existed in Montana
Street, Monrovia. These problems were, according to Chief Santoro, ‘not what
we want for the citizens of Monrovia. Monrovia will not tolerate these conditions
and activities’ (Santoro 2001).
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The CAP response began with covert evidence gathering by MPD officers
against local gang members involved in the crack trade, along with the
documentation of the poor physical state of dwellings in the neighborhood.
Video tapes showing both the drug dealing and the poor state of the street’s
homes were shown by MPD officers to the other members of the Task Force to
motivate them to participate in solving the neighborhood’s problems, in addition
to their use in subsequent prosecutions (ibid.).
The next stage of the strategy saw the MPD, along with the City Council, and
Code Enforcement officials, throw a block party on Montana Street. The party
had two themes. The first theme was ‘It's time to leave', with the second being
‘Things are going to change, and we need your help'. Balloons bearing the
message ‘Together we can do anything’ were handed out to residents (ibid.).
Representatives from the various CAP Task Force participants were on hand to
discuss problems and solutions with the street’s residents. Chief Santoro gave a
speech in which he told the assembled crowd that the conditions of crime and
poor housing they were enduring were intolerable and would, with their
cooperation, soon become a thing of the past. The Mayor followed with a speech
in which he declared, ‘If you’re a gang member or a drug dealer, now is the time
to leave’ (MPD no date).
The following day the MPD executed a number of search warrants at
premises on Montana Street. The searches targeted premises used in the local
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crack-cocaine trade, and were conducted in paramilitary style by officers armed
with MP5 automatic rifles. These searches served to affirm the MPD’s
intolerance of drug dealers, and took place in an atmosphere of relatively good,
post-party, police-public relations. As soon as the warrants had been executed,
MPD officers visited neighbors to explain what the MPD were doing, and how
their actions fitted into the overall project to improve quality of life on Montana
Street (Santoro 2001).
The next stage of the project involved the pressuring of landlords, by MPD
officers and code enforcement officials, to improve the physical state of
properties on Montana Street. Owners were additionally encouraged to
implement a system of ‘house rules’ for tenants, which would, if broken, subject
errant tenants to a three-day eviction notice. Such rules generally forbade the use
of apartments for drug dealing or the association of gang members. The intention
of this action towards the landlords was intended to ensure better housing
conditions for Montana Street’s citizens, and to ‘move on’ the problem causing
tenants (and some of the absentee landlords who would often rent ‘to anyone’),
thereby improving the quality of life of law-abiding Monrovian citizens (ibid.).
The Montana Street project was judged by the MPD to have been a great
success, with a significant reduction in local crime rates, and marked
improvement in the quality of rental properties occupied by residents observed
since its inception (ibid.).
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Due to the size of the MPD jurisdiction, it is not obliged under
California’s Megan’s Law to provide public access to the CD-ROM containing
the identities of registered sex offenders. Never the less, the MPD does provide
this service. This provision results from the belief of the MPD that the people of
Monrovia have a ‘right to know’ the identities of local registrants, and that ‘an
informed community is a safer community’ (ibid.).
5.3 The sex offender
Aramis Dominguez Linares, a Cuban national, was bom on September Ist
1951. He arrived in the United States on May 5th , 1966. Less than four years
later, he drove a car carrying seventeen kilos of marijuana over the Mexico-U.S.
border. This earned him his first arrest by U.S. law enforcement officials, a
suspended prison sentence, and three years probation.
Linares’ first brush with authorities for a sex offense occurred in 1975,
when he was arrested in Arcadia, California, for indecent exposure. In this
incident he approached a ten-year-old girl as she skateboarded to school. He
exposed his penis to her before driving away from the scene in a vehicle. He was
convicted of the offence and sentenced to 180 days in jail and three years
probation.
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In 1979 Linares committed a violent sex offense against a ten-year-old
girl. He abducted the child from the front yard of her home. In doing so, he told
her ‘Shut up and I won’t kill you’, before tying her up, placing a hood over her
head, and forcing her into his car. He drove the child to a nearby location where
he removed her clothes and sexually assaulted her. Linares was subsequently
convicted of second degree kidnapping and lewdness with a child under fourteen
years of age. He was sentenced to ten years in prison.
In 1991, Linares became the suspect in a police investigation of two
sexual assaults and one act of lewdness with a child under fourteen. He was
never charged with these crimes due to anticipated problems with the thirteen-
year-old victim’s ability to perform as a witness.
A year later, Linares again became the suspect in a police investigation of
a sexual offense committed against a young girl. In this case a twelve-year-old
had placed an advertisement in a newspaper seeking employment as a baby sitter.
Linares answered the advertisement, collected the girl from her home and took
her to his own residence. Linares had no children for the girl to look after.
Instead, he removed his clothing and made the girl touch his genitals while he
masturbated. For this act, Linares was convicted of lewdness with a minor and
sentenced to eight years in prison (INS 1999).
In addition to the offenses outlined here, Linares has also been arrested
for drug offenses, weapons offenses, and probation violations. His two most
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recent sex offenses were committed in Nevada. Following his release by the
Nevada authorities for the most recent offense he was immediately taken into
custody by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), as he had been
ordered deported by a Judge in 1997 (ibid.). Linares would normally have been
subject to deportation upon his release from prison, but his Cuban citizenship and
the lack of the necessary agreement for deportation procedures to occur between
the U.S. and Cuba made this a legal impossibility. Thus, Linares remained in INS
custody, and legal limbo, until the summer of 2000, when a Judge ruled his
continued detention to be unlawful and ordered his release (Santoro 2001).
In 1999 an INS detention officer interviewed Linares. This interview
revealed that Linares had a place to live in the United States, at the home of his
sister in Monrovia. It was further determined that Linares had a girlfriend in
Reno, Nevada, and that he had employment prospects working in general
maintenance at rental properties owned by his sister. During the interview,
Linares repeatedly stated that he had ‘a problem’, and claimed that he was sorry
for the crimes he had committed. He said he believed that therapy could help him
to overcome his problem, and that he recognized his need to stay out of situations
that brought him into contact with children.
The interviewing officer discussed Linares’ record of crime with him, and
found him to be dishonest and evasive when called upon to describe his history
of offending activities. The officer concluded that Linares appeared to be a
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pedophile, and that he was a ‘definite threat to the community, particularly young
female girls’. The officer recommended Linares’ continued detention, in the
interests of public safety (INS 1999).
When Linares was released from INS custody on August 10th 2000, he
was not on parole, and was free to live anywhere he chose. Certain requirements
to report to the INS were placed upon him due to his ‘alien’ immigration status,
and he was required to register with police as a sex offender under Megan’s Law
in whichever jurisdiction he took up residence (Santoro 2001).
5.4 The sex offender comes to town (for a while)
On August 10th 2000, Linares was released from INS custody in Nevada.
His sister, a resident of West Olive Street, Monrovia, collected him from the
detention facility and they traveled back to California together. Linares took up
residence at his sister’s home (INS 2000).
The MPD were contacted by the INS on August 14th , 2000. The INS
informed the MPD that Linares had left INS detention and was now living in
Monrovia (ibid.). The INS passed on this information as they believed Linares
presented a risk to public safety. The MPD checked local and State computer
records and found they had no information relating to Linares, so an INS
Deportation Officer faxed INS records detailing Linares’ criminal history and
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Ill
detention records to them (Santoro 2001). Linares registered with the MPD as a
sex offender that same day (Parlour 2000, Al).
On August 21st 2000, two MPD detectives were dispatched to Linares’
new home to interview him. They reported that he was in full compliance with
California’s Megan’s Law. He had been classified as a ‘serious’ offender by the
California Department of Justice (CDOJ). The detectives found Linares to be
open about his history of sex offending. He told them his offenses had been
committed while he was using drugs. He said he had no intentions of using drugs
in the future, and that as soon as he had taken his driving test and obtained a
license, he intended to attend counseling for his prior drug use and criminal
behavior. He also claimed to have received fifteen years of counseling whilst
incarcerated in Nevada.
The detectives then told Linares that he could expect to be subject to
community notification in the near future. They advised him on how to react if
confronted by community members. Linares said he would cooperate with the
MPD and follow their requests (MPD 2000a).
Based upon their interview, and Linares’ record, the detectives
recommended that community notification under Megan’s Law should occur.
Their report showed that the following factors were considered in the formation
this recommendation:
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I) Linares having been arrested for several sexually related
offenses, which included kidnapping and threats of harm to his
victims, and 2) the statistically proven fact that only a very small
number of criminals truly rehabilitate, 3) he has shown by his
prior offenses that he is capable of committing violent offenses
near where he lives, 4) he lives adjacent to a city park
frequented by children and an elementary school.. .[T]here is a
high probability that Linares can not control his sexual deviant
urges and there is a reasonable likelihood that he may come into
contact with children in the community.
Notification within the immediate vicinity of Linares’ home was recommended
(ibid).
On August 23rd , the MPD conducted notification to homes within a two-
block radius of Linares’ home at 520 West Olive Street. This was achieved by
delivering leaflets door-to-door. These leaflets named Linares, detailed his record
of sex offenses, revealed his address, and displayed his photograph (Santoro
2001). The notification caused a degree of fear amongst local residents, and most
families kept their children indoors upon receiving the information (KTLA
2000).
Linares’ ‘serious’ classification limited the extent of the notification that
could occur. Under California’s Megan’s Law, information regarding serious sex
offenders can only be released if a peace officer reasonably suspects that a
person may be at risk. The information can only be provided to persons, agencies
or organizations the offender is likely to encounter. This precludes the passing of
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information to the media, for instance, unless media organizations or personnel
are themselves at risk from the offender (MPD 2000b).
The MPD were not satisfied with this limited form of notification. They
felt that Linares posed a threat to the safety of Monrovians beyond the immediate
vicinity of his home, and that all Monrovian citizens had the right to know that
such an offender was living in their midst. It was also recognized that any failure
to act to the fullest extent possible to inform the public of Linares’ presence
opened the possibility of the MPD being subject to future civil litigation from the
citizenry. Chief Santoro anticipated that widespread notification would provoke a
dramatic community response, but he felt that it was his duty to allow the
community to fully exercise their rights as citizens. These rights could only be
properly asserted if the community was empowered through widespread
notification. Chief Santoro believed that if information could be disseminated via
media organizations, effective notification would occur (Santoro 2001).
In order to facilitate a higher level of notification, Linares’ classification
as ‘serious’ by the State DOJ would have to be changed. Notification through the
media can only occur in respect to ‘high risk’ sex offenders. The MPD believed
that Linares met the criteria for ‘high risk’ classification. They contacted the
CDOJ and argued that he should be reclassified. The CDOJ agreed to their
request, and at 2pm on August 25th Linares became a ‘high risk’ sex offender.
From that moment, in the words of Chief Santoro, ‘everything went nuts’ (ibid.).
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Signs were erected by the MPD at each end of Linares’ block identifying
him as a sex offender. An updated version of the flyers originally given to
immediate neighbors were distributed (see Figure 5) to media representatives and
residents. A ‘neighborhood meeting’ was called by the MPD for 7pm that
evening at Monrovia High School (ibid.).
Almost as soon as the full notification occurred, TV crews took up
position outside Linares’ home. The news broke on TV stations very shortly
thereafter, and was accorded the status of lead story by all the local networks.
Local residents began to gather on West Olive Street (ibid.).
By 7pm, the knowledge that a high risk sex offender had arrived in town
was widespread. Over three hundred people attended the meeting with the MPD.
Emotions ran high at that meeting. Many parents of children living in Monrovia
were in tears, horrified by the news they had just learned. There was consensus
amongst the residents that Linares’ presence constituted a significant threat to the
safety o f their children, and that they wanted him to leave their city as soon as
possible. Residents were especially concerned by the fact that Linares’ Monrovia
home was near a park, childcare center, and a school. They were very supportive
of the MPD’s decision to conduct community notification. Chief Santoro
addressed the assembled crowd. He used the meeting to explain how Megan’s
Law worked in relation to this case. He then expressed the belief of the MPD that
Monrovians would be safer in the knowledge of Linares’ presence, and that this,
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115
along with their right to know, had been the basis of the decision to conduct
community notification (ibid.).
Santoro proceeded to explain to those gathered at the meeting that the
MPD were maintaining contact with Linares. He explained that Linares had
served his time in prison, was not on parole, and was under no restrictions with
regard to his place of residence, and that he had the same right to expect
protection by the law as any other resident in the city. He went on to make clear
that the citizens of Monrovia also had rights in this case. Provided that they
stayed within the limits of the law by not using violence, damaging property, or
disrupting road traffic, they had a right to let Linares know how they felt about
him and his presence in their city (Santoro 2001).
The assembled residents made it very clear that they intended to protest
against Linares with a view to persuading him to leave Monrovia (ibid.). One
local parent made a speech in which she sobbed as she told the audience that
Linares ‘terrified’ her, and that he ‘had to go’. This speech was greeted by the
assembled public with applause and cries of “Get him out of here!” and “Kill
him’” (Parlour 2000, p.Al). Chief Santoro promised a twenty-four hour MPD
presence on Linares’ block to ensure that ‘everybody’s rights were protected’,
and encouraged the citizenry to ‘work with’ the MPD to ensure an ‘orderly and
dignified’ protest. A small number of local people were appointed as protest
organizers, and another resident donated $200 to be spent on materials needed
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Figure 3
Fiver
/ H e ttteoia 1 1
P o l i c e D e p a r t m e n t
J o s e p h A . S a n t o r o C h i e f or p o l i c e
HIGH RISK SEX OFFENDER
STATUS CHANGED B Y THE CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE AS O F
August 25,2000 at 2:00PM
The individual who appears on this notification has been convicted of sex offenses, forwhich community
notification is permitted. The subject is NOT wanted by the Monrovia Police Department at this time.
This notice is not intended to induce fear, rather it is our belief that an informed community is a safer
community. If you have any information regarding current criminal activity on this or any other offender.
Name: Linares. Aramis Dominguez
Address: 530 W. Olive Ave., Unit B
Monrovia, CA. 91016
Age: 49
Height: 5'6"
Weight: 172 LBS.
Hair Brown
Eyes: Green
Vehicle: 2000 Ford Explorer, Blue
License Number 4KYB284
INFORMATION: Mr. Linares is a registered sex offender and is classified by the California
Department of Justice as a “Serious Sex Offender.' In 1979, Mr. Linares kidnaped a child
under 14 years of age from her front yard and took her to a construction site where he
molested her. On another occasion, In 1992, Mr. Linares answered an advertisement placed
by a child under 14 years of age in search of a babysitting job, upon contact, Mr. Linares took
the child to his home and molested her. He completed his prison sentence and was
subsequently released in August2000.
California Penal Code Section 290. also known a s ‘M egans Law,' permits law enforcement agencies K > warn the communty
when a known serious or nigh risk se x offender resides in the area. The purpose of this notice is to alow m embers o f !he
public to protect them selves and/or their chSdren from sex offenders.
ft is illegal to u se information obtained througn mis Suletin to com m t a crime against a registered sex offender o r to engage in
illegal discrimmation o r harassm ent a g a n st a registered sex offender. A person b authcnzed to u se h is information only to
protect a child a t nsk. California Penal C ode 290.4 m akes illegal use of this information a cnm e
.FseArerup Mcm-cwc. Ccifc-Ta Phcne;i26j2£6-SGCG sd< :62&j256-eC2£
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for the production of signs to be wielded by protesters. Plans for highly
organized protests against Linares’ were quickly hatched, and those involved
pledged that their activities would continue until Linares left Monrovia. A MPD
Captain and two officers were assigned to provide support and advice to the
protesters (Santoro 2001).
The day following the meeting, public protests outside Linares’ home
began in earnest. Crowds of up to two hundred people (and never less than
twenty-five) took their positions outside Linares’ home (ibid.). Chants of ‘Hell
no, you must go’, and ‘Child molester, go away’ were directed towards Linares’
house (CBS2 2000), supported by voices amplified through loud-hailers with
demands such as ‘Get out, pervert’ (Fox11 2000), and, ‘Get out. We don’t want
you people here, you scumbag’(KCAL9 2000). Protesters waved signs bearing
messages such as, ‘No sex offenders in Monrovia ’ (CBS2 2000), ‘Sex offender.
You Ve got to go’, ‘Sex offender must leave Monrovia’ (KCAL9 2000), ‘No child
molesters in Monrovia’ (KTLA 2000), ‘No high risk sex offenders in Monrovia'
(CBS2 2000), and, ‘Get out. No child molester allowed' (UPN13 2000).
The protesters consisted of local people, and included adults and children.
The following are examples of comments made to TV reporters by some of those
protesters:
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‘We understand that he has paid his debt to society. We’re concerned about his
proximity to children, and the fact that high-risk offenders very rarely get well.
They don’t get better’ (ibid.).
‘Pressuring him, protesting, holding rallies, a lot of community support. I think
the pressure might get him out of here, hopefully’ (Channel 4 2000).
‘The fact that he can live right here. I mean, any place would be a bad place to
live, but we have a park, a school, a daycare. It’s just unthinkable’ (ABC7 2000).
‘I think he chose the wrong spot to live. If you have that kind of a problem, why
would you choose to live where there’s an abundance of children’ (KCAL9
2000).
‘Our fear is that he’ll do it again. He’s got some kind of weird fetish, and it
scares us’.
‘The problem is that a man like this is going to constantly and continually do
these things, as his records show’ (CBS2 2000).
‘I’m just scared of him. I don’t want him to get a child. I want him to leave’
(Fox11 2000).
‘You don’t think these things are going to happen in your backyard’ (CBS2
2000).
The protests, and their high-profile coverage by the news media,
continued around the clock. A MPD patrol was assigned to the Linares’ block for
their duration. In the early hours of August 28th , little more than two days after
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the full community notification had taken place, Linares’ family hosts decided
that they had had enough. They told Linares he could no longer stay with them
and drove him to Pasadena, a city a few miles from Monrovia. There they
dropped him off, understanding that he would book into a hotel for the night.
The following morning, MPD detectives visited hotels in Pasadena in an
attempt to trace Linares and establish where he was intending to live. They could
not find him, however. Later that day he called MPD detectives, with whom he
had established a rapport during his time in Monrovia. He told the detectives that
he was in North Hollywood, that he had no money and nowhere to stay.
Believing that it was ‘in nobody’s interests to have him anonymously wandering
the streets’, the MPD went to North Hollywood to meet with Linares. They were
unable to trace him.
On August 29th , Linares again called the MPD. This time he was in
downtown Los Angeles. He was advised to call the Los Angeles Police
Department (LAPD). LAPD officers were dispatched to meet Linares, and they
detained him until MPD detectives arrived and took over. The MPD detectives
made several attempts to find Linares accommodation in homeless shelters. Most
said they would not accept him, due to his sex offender status. One place offered
five days’ accommodation, but as this was nothing better than a very short-term
solution, the officers began exploring other options.
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The MPD contacted the parole agency to ask for their assistance. They
said that they were unable to help, as Linares was not on parole. Linares then told
the detectives that he knew some people in Reno, Nevada, and that if he could
find a means of traveling there he would go and stay with them. This information
was conveyed to Chief Santoro, who felt that a move by Linares to Nevada
would be an effective way to ‘bring closure to the case’. As Linares had no
money of his own, a donation would be required to facilitate the trip. The MPD
could not provide money for such purposes, so Chief Santoro contacted the
Monrovia city manager and asked for his help. The city manager, in turn,
contacted a local businessman who agreed to provide money to pay for a one
way ticket to Reno, along with some cash for Linares to live on until he found a
job (some $700 in total).
The money and a ticket was passed to the MPD, and one of their
Lieutenants was sent to Burbank airport to meet there with the detectives who
were with Linares. The detectives were given the money and ticket to pass to
Linares, and were told, ‘make sure he’s on the plane’.
Meanwhile, the MPD contacted the INS to arrange permission for Linares
to leave California (he could not move State-to-State without first informing the
INS). Chief Santoro then called the authorities in Nevada and told them, ‘Your
criminal’s coming back’. Linares travelled to Reno, and took up residence there
(Santoro 2001).
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Back in Monrovia, moves were afoot to reduce the chances that the city
would have to again deal with a similar situation in the future. The MPD
contacted a senior immigration officer to request that the limited conditions
placed upon Linares by the INS ‘Order of Supervision’ be altered in the
following ways:
1. That Linares be prohibited from living within one-quarter mile of
any school, that includes all grades, including public, private, and
day care centers.
2. Shall not reside and/or associate with another sex registrant.
3. Shall not seek employment where children frequent.
4. Shall not live within one-quarter mile of a park or location where
children frequent.
Also, it is requested that...Linares be required to appear for
psychiatric examination and the report of the exam be furnished to
the Monrovia Police Department. The reason for the psychiatric
evaluation is to determine the threat to the community and develop
appropriate safety precautions (MPD 2000c).
These restrictions would, had they been granted, have made it impossible for
Linares to live at his sister’s Monrovia home, and virtually impossible for him to
live anywhere in Monrovia. This level of restriction accorded with Chief
Santoro’s belief that ‘there’s no place in Monrovia where [Linares] wouldn’t
have been a problem’ (Santoro 2001).
On another front, Monrovia’s Mayor, Robert T. Bartlett, lobbied for
legislation that would ‘prohibit any convicted child molester from residing closer
than one-half mile from schools, day care centers, and other such uses’. With
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assistance from Assemblyman Bob Margett and Senator Dick Mountjoy, an
amendment that would have imposed such restrictions (AB 1458) was hastily
added to a State bill dealing with sexual predators. The Mayor then wrote to
Senator John Vasconcellos, Chair of the Senate Public Safety Committee, to
encourage him to support the amendment. In his letter, the Mayor told the
Senator that he was making the request on behalf of ‘the many Californian
communities that have had to confront the difficult and controversial issue of a
convicted child molester moving into town’. He claimed that the amendment
would diminish the chances of a child being harmed, and noted that, ‘[a]s folks
throughout California have discovered from Monrovia’s and other cities
experiences, this sort of unfortunate situation may arise anywhere at any time’
(City of Monrovia 2000).
The Senate Public Safety Committee rejected the amendment on August
30th , the day after the Mayor’s letter was written (Santoro 2001).
New measures were introduced in Monrovia itself to provide an
environment that would better promote child safety, with the designation of all
city facilities as ‘safe places’. These places, which included everything from the
Fire Station to the City Hall, would be identified to the city’s children as
locations they could go to for assistance and refuge if they felt threatened or
found themselves under criminal attack.
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Linares’ removal from Monrovia was considered a great success by both
the MPD and local residents. Chief Santoro formally announced Linares’
relocation to Nevada to Monrovia’s community at a well-attended public meeting
on the evening of August 30th , and congratulated them for their efforts which had
produced this result. The announcement was met with cheers, applause, and
shouts o f ‘We did it!’. In an atmosphere of remarkable warmth between the MPD
and assembled community members, speaker after speaker praised the MPD’s
decision to inform the community of Linares’ presence and to support subsequent
public protests. The efforts of the protest organizers were likewise praised, and
many of those present recognized a strengthen sense of community membership
that the episode seemed to have forged. A celebratory barbecue was arranged.
Chief Santoro informed the meeting of the failure of the legislative
amendment the city’s Mayor had lobbied for on their behalf. He read out the
names of the members of the Senate Committee who had opposed the
amendment and urged those gathered to write letters of protest to them.
Several community members expressed concern at the fact that sixty-four
registered sex offenders were still living in Monrovia, and asked why the MPD
had not conducted notifications of their identities. Chief Santoro explained that
none of the sixty-four were ‘high-risk’, and that whilst the level of danger
presented by each of those registrants was subject to regular reappraisal by the
MPD, it was not their belief that any individuals remaining in the city presented
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the significant threat that would justify such action. Moreover, the MPD were
bound by California law, which restricts the ability of police to conduct proactive
community notification in the absence of perceived risk. He added that ‘sex
offenders’ were not necessarily ‘child molesters’, as some of the meeting’s
participants appeared to be conflating the terms. He also pointed out that the CD-
ROM listing sex offender’s identities was available at the police station.
Several community members expressed the opinion that the Linares
incident should be used as a springboard from which to engage in a longer-term
project of removing all registered sex offenders from Monrovia, and criticized
the restrictions California’s Megan’s Law places upon community notification.
They identified the absence of offenders’ addresses on the CD-ROM listings as a
particular weakness in the current system that would hinder their ability to carry
such a project forward.
In a speech that was warmly received by many of the assembled public,
one Monrovia resident pointed out that the MPD holds the addresses of all the
city’s registered sex offenders, and argued that Monrovians had a right to access
to this information. She called upon the city attorney to develop a local ordinance
that would enable residents of Monrovia to be given their full details, and called
upon Chief Santoro to produce an ordinance-enabled list of local registrants for
public circulation. The city attorney and Chief Santoro flatly rejected this
proposal on the basis that Monrovia does not have the ability to over-ride State
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law, and that even if it did, the community turmoil such a list would produce
would constitute a disproportionate response to the level of the problem. In
reference to the possibility of multiple Linares-style protests, Santoro said, ‘We
can’t go through all this again and again’ (MPD 2000d).
As far as Monrovia was concerned, the Linares episode concluded with
some inter-jurisdictional sparring. ‘Nevada Parole officials accused police in
Monrovia of shirking their responsibility’ through the actions they had taken in
response to Linares’ presence (Winton 2000, B6). That State’s parole board
chairman reportedly responded to Monrovia’s expulsion of Linares by asking
‘Why dump a sex offender on a sister State that has citizens and kids that also
need to be protected’ (ibid.). This criticism was echoed by a Nevada parole board
analyst who claimed it was ‘upsetting that a community can pool their money
and law enforcement can send a sex offender to another State because they don’t
want the responsibility of having to protect their community’ (ibid.). Monrovia’s
Chief Santoro responded to his Nevadan critics by accusing their State authorities
of failing to effectively impose controls upon Linares upon his release (Chereb
2000). A few days earlier, when he had been asked by a journalist at a news
conference what he had to say to the people of Nevada, Chief Santoro had
replied, ‘I say to the people of Nevada, Mr. Linares is your problem. He
committed his crimes in your State’ (MPD 2000e).
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At the heart of the disagreement between Monrovia and the Nevada
parole authorities were the facts that neither side welcomed Linares’ presence
within their jurisdiction, and that each would have preferred the responsibility for
his control to have been borne by a community somewhere else.
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Chapter 6: Monrovia’s division of labor
127
6.1 Introduction
Table 2 summarises events relating to a process of DOL negotiation that
occurred between Monrovia’s police department and community, and that led to
the expulsion of Aramis Linares from the city. To properly understand why such
an outcome was produced, it is necessary to consider the empirical evidence
presented in chapter 5 from the perspectives of both the police department and
the community. The interaction of these perspectives through a 3-stage DOL
negotiation was to effectively guarantee the brevity of Linares’ period of
Monrovian residency.
6.2 The perspective of the Monrovia Police Department
The mission statement of the MPD constitutes a formal statement of the
department’s vision of its responsibilities to the public, and as such can be read
as a relationship-defining contract between the department and the community.
Through this statement the MPD reveals that its ‘fundamental duty is to serve all
citizens within [Monrovia’s] boundaries’. This sets geographical limits upon the
population to be served, and privileges the needs of Monrovians above other
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Table 2
Monrovia and Linares: stage summary
Stage 1: Routine
Pre- August 14: ‘Community Activist Policing’ practiced in Monrovia.
______________Substantial community involvement in policing._____
Stage 2: Reaction
August 14: MPD learn from INS that Linares is in Monrovia.
- Linares registers as a sex offender with the MPD. Initially
classified as ‘Serious’ by CDOJ.
August 21: MPD detectives meet Linares. Community notification
recommended.
August 23: Limited community notification conducted.
August 25: Linares reclassified as ‘High Risk’.
- Full notification begins.
- MPD-community meeting held. Decision made to expel
Linares.
- MPD commence 24-hour patrols on Linares’ block.
August 26: Organized protests commence outside Linares’ home.
- Extensive television coverage of case broadcast.
August 27: Protests continue.
August 28: Linares leaves Monrovia in early hours of the morning.
Stage 3: Reflection
August 28: MPD lobby INS in attempt to prevent Linares returning to
Monrovia.
August 29: Mayor lobbies California Senate for legislation to restrict
residence o f ‘child Molesters’.
- Monrovian citizen donates money to pay for relocation to
Nevada.
August 30: MPD press conference — Chief tells Nevada authorities
‘Your criminal’s coming back’.
MPD-community meeting held - calls for tougher local
Controls for sex offenders.
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in terms of directional management and operationalization of policing strategy.
Indeed, community input is not only facilitated, but is actually required. It is the
community, through their representation on the CAP Task Force and day-to-day
interaction with MPD officers, who have a substantial burden of responsibility
for the identification of problems and the development of solutions. Thus, the
responsibilities of the MPD are diminished to the motivation of local people to
engage in problem solving and the facilitation of consequent strategies, along
with the performance of tasks specifically requiring police powers. The MPD
seeks to empower the community in order to better equip them to deal with the
responsibilities CAP places upon them. In doing so, they devolve some of their
own institutional power to local people. This amounts to a reduced level of direct
control over Monrovia’s policing for the MPD, which is repaid by relatively
effective crime control strategies that have seen MPD goals of reduced crime
rates realized to a significant extent since CAP’s introduction.
Analysis of the two examples of policing initiatives conducted under CAP
show how these principles translate to practice. In the case of the ‘Safe City/Safe
Schools Program’, the city ordinance creating a daytime curfew for children in
Monrovia made the city’s streets seem a much less viable option as a place for
truants to spend their time. The parenting classes, using MPD officers as
facilitators, were intended to increase the level of control parents exert over the
city’s youth, thereby reducing the role of the MPD in this regard. Student art
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displays at the MPD station would give children an activity that diverted them
from less constructive pursuits, whilst bringing them into positive contact with
the police. ‘Parents on campus’ explicitly involved community members in
surveillance and crime-deterrence through patrol activities, relieving pressure on
MPD officers to visit school premises in this capacity. MPD ‘security
inspections’ allowed the MPD to encourage schools to invest in security
measures that would minimize future demands on the department. Finally, the
establishment of direct communications links between the MPD and Monrovian
schools would facilitate a rapid police response on the infrequent occasions when
situations arose demanding intervention from police officers. This package of
measures, whilst conceived of with a good deal of input from the MPD, all but
removed any responsibility from the department to participate in the day-to-day
task of ensuring public safety on school campuses. The initiative simultaneously
reduced the likelihood that schoolchildren would engage in criminal activity on
Monrovia’s streets, still further relieving the MPD of their policing burden. As a
result of the SCSSP, community members assumed almost full responsibility for
important aspects of Monrovia’s policing.
The ‘Montana Street’ example of a CAP initiative presented also elucidates
how the MPD’s policing philosophy serves to reduce demands upon the
department by redefining police and community roles in crime control and
prevention. However, in addition, it clearly demonstrates how a locally-defined
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policing agenda can operate by privileging the needs o f Monrovia's citizens
above those living elsewhere.
In the speech he delivered to Montana Street residents at the block party
thrown by the CAP Task Force, Chief Santoro articulated what he considered to
be appropriate for Monrovia, both in terms of the living environment the city
provides and the behavior of its residents. In doing so he simultaneously defined
what was not befitting of a Monrovian citizen. The Mayor’s speech followed by
telling those individuals felt to be unworthy of Monrovian residency that it was
‘time to leave’. Indeed, this was one of the party’s two ‘themes’. It is the view of
Chief Santoro that the exclusion o f undesirable residents such as drug dealers
and gang members from Monrovia is effective as a policing strategy as it reduces
the opportunities for them commit crime in Monrovia. He does not hold the
belief that the threat of eviction significantly deters criminal activity (Santoro
2001). Thus the element of the Montana Street initiative that encouraged local
landlords to introduce rules facilitating the removal of undesirable residents from
the community’s space explicitly dealt with the street’s problems in terms of a
locally-defined agenda. This agenda did not pay regard to the public-safety needs
of whichever communities the excluded miscreants may have moved to.
It is the belief of the MPD that Megan's Law empowers the community.
This empowerment results from the increased involvement in sex offender
policing that knowledge o f registrants’ identities facilitates (ibid.). Community
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empowerment is a goal of CAP. Consequently, the decision made by the MPD to
provide public access to the Megan’s Law CD-ROM, despite there being no legal
obligation for them to do so, can be seen as fully consistent with their broader
organizational philosophy.
The ‘Community Activist Policing’ approach of the MPD, with its
locally-defined agenda, problem solving emphasis, and police-community
partnership basis, is the epitome of ‘community policing’ as it is contemporarily
conceived. These features of CAP are evident in both its stated form, and in the
examples of CAP initiatives provided. Alongside the lofty level of recognition
the program has received, these features serve to testify to CAP’s paradigmatic
quality.
When considered in terms of a ‘division of labor’, the business of
providing routine policing for Monrovia can be seen as one in which members of
the Monrovian citizenry have a substantial role. From the perspective of the
MPD, the community holds responsibility for determining the direction of MPD
policy, and for a substantial level of the operational action required to implement
such policy. The service provided by officers of the MPD is limited to the
facilitation of actions that will contribute to the realization of community
objectives (by contributing specialist knowledge, or wielding police powers, for
instance). Put simply, the police-community relationship sought under CAP in
Monrovia puts local community members in the policing driving seat. The
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dimensions of Monrovia’s policing DOL are configured, through CAP, in such a
way as to promote what the MPD considers to be effective local policing. This
configuration can, as in the case of the Montana Street initiative, involve the
incorporation of particular agents in the policing process in order to promote the
exclusion of criminally-inclined individuals from the city.
As a law enforcement agency operating under California’s Megan’s Law,
the MPD must exercise discretion over the way in which they deploy that law’s
provisions within their own jurisdiction. This discretion relates to the provision
of information to members of the community pinpointing the home addresses of
any sex offenders they judge to present a risk to public safety. The ability of
members of the public to locate a registrant is a prerequisite for direct community
action against that individual. This ability is, therefore, critically important in
determining the range of possible DOLs that could be applied to a registrant’s
control. In the context of this analysis, then, the provision allowing for
identification of a registrant’s home address should be considered as the most
potent aspect of Megan’s Law at the MPD’s disposal.
When the MPD learned that Linares had taken up residence within their
jurisdiction, they recognized that Monrovia had a problem on its hands. That the
solution to this problem should involve the local community seemed obvious to
the detectives who initially made contact with him. Indeed, their understanding
of Monrovia’s policing arrangement enabled them to forewarn Linares that he
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would be subject to community notification, even before they had written up
their report and handed it to their supervisors for consideration.
Linares was the first sex offender to reside in Monrovia since the passage
of California’s Megan’s Law whom the MPD felt posed a real threat to the safety
of Monrovians. The nature of the MPD’s arrangement with the local community
told them that Monrovia's citizens needed to deal with the 'root cause’ of the
problem that faced them. Corrective community action could only be facilitated
if the community could be made aware of the problem that had arrived on their
doorstep. If the MPD failed to inform the community of the problem, they would
be failing in their duty to them, as they understood it. Consequently, such failure
would also leave them open to criticism and even litigation from Monrovia’s
citizens.
In the initial stages of the MPD’s community notification regarding
Linares, whilst he was still classified as ‘serious’, California’s Megan’s Law
allowed the MPD to involve a limited number of Monrovian citizens in the
policing response. Because of the limited extent of this notification, combined
with legal restrictions on any subsequent dissemination of information regarding
the offender, the level of response these few Monrovians could mount was
severely constrained. This level of community involvement in the policing
problem Linares’ presence raised was considered insufficient by the MPD. The
prevailing structure of Monrovian police-public relations called for the
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facilitation of substantial community involvement, yet, under the circumstances,
the State’s Megan’s Law precluded this option. The MPD recognized that
Linares’ record could be alternatively interpreted as qualifying him for ‘high-
risk’ classification. The police action such a classification permits would, they
believed, allow the fullest possible incorporation of Monrovia’s community into
the problem-solving response that Linares’ presence seemed to demand. The
unusual request made by the MPD to the California Department of Justice, which
led to Linares’ reclassification, made this action a legal possibility. This piece of
the Monrovia-Linares saga demonstrates how California’s Megan’s Law enabled
the MPD make way for a division of labor in the Monrovian anti-Linares
policing strategy that they considered would be appropriate according to the local
policing arrangement that required substantial community management and
activity.
It is important to understand that the MPD had a very limited range of
options when considering how best to deal with Linares’ arrival. Failure to act
according to their prevailing local arrangement could have been interpreted as a
‘breach of contract’ by community members. Such a breach might have
undermined the broader structure upon which the routine preservation of law and
order in Monrovia was based, hampering the longer-term ability of the MPD to
operate effectively. Moreover, if the community were to leam of Linares’
presence by other means, the possibility of unilateral community action against
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Linares, untempered by MPD involvement, would present a threat to the
preservation of law and order in the city. Given that some of Linares’ identifying
details would soon be appearing on the California CD-ROM, such a scenario was
entirely possible.
Once the legal situation had been configured in such as way as to
facilitate Monrovia’s preferred model of policing response, the stage was set for
MPD facilitation of a community strategy to correct the Linares problem. A press
release was made immediately, which fully identified Linares and detailed his
sex offending. This information was broadcast by television stations without
delay. The explosion of publicity quickly alerted Monrovians to the nature of the
problem that faced them. Additionally, signs posted in the streets meant that it
would be almost impossible for any member of the public to be in proximity to
Linares’ home without being aware (and, thus, to some extent engaged) in the
situation. The fact that over 300 people attended a public meeting held just five
hours after the initial press release demonstrated that a substantial section of the
community were willing to answer the MPD’s ‘call to arms’. The MPD’s
assessment of the Monrovian citizenry’s likely enthusiasm to involve themselves
in the case seemed to have been proved accurate.
That public meeting held on that first day of widespread community
notification was used by the MPD and members of Monrovia’s community to
develop a strategy to deal with the threat Linares was understood to present to
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Monrovians. The assembled community members made it very clear to the MPD
that they wanted nothing less than Linares’ removal from Monrovia. Because of
the structure of police-community relations in Monrovia, this community goal
assumed the status of Monrovian Linares-policing policy. The subsequent
discussion established how community members could work towards this goal,
how the law shaped the range of options that faced them, and how the MPD
could provide support. The plan of action that was agreed upon that evening
incorporated the wishes of the community members present and the need of the
MPD to prevent crime and disorder. Community members agreed to engage in a
plan of action that would not break the law, and the MPD agreed to support that
plan of action. Each group committed itself to the fulfillment of specific roles, in
the understanding that structured cooperation between the MPD and community
members would provide the smoothest and most effective path to the success
they were determined to achieve. The arrangement reached at this meeting
constituted the result of police-community negotiation of a DOL that seemed to
satisfy both groups.
During the subsequent protests by community members, the MPD
provided the support they had promised to community members at the public
meeting, and in turn found the protesters to be fully compliant with the requests
they had made of them with regards to the lawfulness of their conduct. When
Linares left Monrovia, the MPD recognized that some form of satisfactory
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conclusion to the case was still required. A homeless Linares could not be
effectively tracked by the authorities, and would still pose a threat to
Monrovians, as well as whichever other communities he might choose to visit.
The department believed that by re-housing Linares outside of Monrovia, they
could draw a line under the episode. When the opportunity to have him leave the
State presented itself to them, the MPD made all the necessary moves to facilitate
his departure. These moves included the further incorporation of a member of
Monrovia’s public (the donor of the $700) into the solution. Through this
facilitation, the MPD were able to reinforce the outcome of Monrovia’s
community action. Their subsequent efforts to have the INS alter Linares’
conditions in order to effectively bar his future residence in Monrovia were an
attempt to guarantee the permanence of the solution that action had achieved.
The relocation of Linares to Nevada was a great success from the
perspective of the MPD. They had taken action that facilitated a community
response to a sex offender problem. Their actions, which amounted to an
appropriate configuration of the DOL, had empowered members of Monrovia’s
community to identify a solution to the ‘root-cause’ of a problem the city had
faced, and to act in such as a way as to achieve that solution. The case had been
resolved without any incidence of crime or public disorder. California’s Megan’s
Law had given them the legal space within which to apply their community
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policing philosophy to the threat posed by an individual sex offender, and the
result obtained was, according to that philosophy, a great success.
The public meeting held after Linares’ relocation was an opportunity for
further dialogue between the MPD and the community members who had been
involved in the protests. The applause and warm congratulations given to the
officers involved in the case by the assembled public testified to the fact that
MPD action, taken under Megan’s Law, had allowed the community to serve
their own agenda and realize the outcome they desired. The MPD’s praise for the
protesters was recognition of the effectiveness of the policing role these
community members had fulfilled.
The MPD-community accord over the Linares case, which is consistent
with the establishment of a division of labor that each side found satisfactory, did
not automatically carry over to the issue of how to deal with other registered sex
offenders still residing in Monrovia. The disagreement and subsequent discussion
between Chief Santoro and certain community members that arose at the meeting
constituted a process of negotiation over the division of labor concerning the
policing of those numerous registrants. The outcome of that negotiation was a
reaffirmation of the position of the MPD on the matter - that the routine business
of policing individuals whom the department believed presented a relatively low
level of danger to Monrovians should be left to them in the interests of
community tranquillity. Moreover, both the MPD and Monrovia’s community
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were bound by State law, and could not choose to step beyond its provisions.
This two-pronged argument was sufficient to persuade most of those gathered
that the MPD position represented the best available option for Monrovia.
6.3 The position of Monrovia’s community
The Linares saga began in Monrovia without the knowledge of any of the
city’s non-police residents. Not even Linares’ family hosts knew that he had
convictions for sex offenses. Thus, no non-police community members were in
any way involved in dealing with the specific threat posed to their safety by
Linares.
On August 23rd , residents living in close proximity to Linares learned that
he was a registered sex offender. Many were distressed, and families with
children feared they would become victims if, as many felt likely, Linares should
decide to re-offend. In order to protect their children from potential victimization,
parents told them they could no longer play in the street or in the park opposite
Linares’ home. Some of the notified residents contacted news organizations,
hoping that they could report Linares’ arrival in town and thereby alert others to
the risk that they believed he posed to community safety. Those news
organizations responded, but could not disseminate any information that would
identify Linares by name or location without running foul of California’s
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Megan’s Law. So most Monrovians remained in the dark about the situation
unfolding on West Olive Avenue, and the business of policing Linares remained
principally the domain of the MPD.
When Linares’ reclassification as ‘high-risk’ allowed the news of his
presence in Monrovia to break, the number of Monrovians aware of the problem
that faced them increased dramatically. A substantial number of those people felt
moved to the point where they wanted to take action to correct the problem.
These people did not think that the issue should be left solely in the hands of the
MPD, but believed that their interests could be most effectively served if
community members took action to protect themselves from the danger Linares
was perceived to present. Moreover, they recognized the conduct of corrective
action as a community responsibility. However, the community members who
attended the August 25lh meeting, whilst seeing the responsibility to act as
primarily their own, also understood that the MPD had an important role to play.
The MPD knew about the offender, and could provide them with answers to their
questions about him and the nature of the threat he posed. The MPD could tell
them what their legal options for action were. The MPD could provide officers to
advise and support community members through the action they intended to take.
What’s more, the MPD, by providing a public venue for community members to
meet, was providing a forum within which they could organize themselves and
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devise a plan of action. Community control of the Linares threat would progress
most effectively if conducted through interaction with the MPD.
The members of the community who articulated the need for an
exclusionary strategy against Linares, and who involved themselves in that
solution by acting as protesters or protest organizers, had a clear vision of their
Monrovian agenda. They also had a clear vision of the appropriate police and
community roles that would enable them to properly serve this agenda. They
found the MPD a compliant partner in the facilitation of their preferred strategy.
The policing DOL that produced Monrovia’s strategy to deal with Linares
allowed members of the local community to determine the method of his control.
The DOL required substantial action on their part, and this action was conducted
without reservation. Moreover, the action was effective in realizing protesters’
goals. For those members of Monrovia’s community who chose to involve
themselves in the case, the policing DOL applied to Linares’ control provided the
desired outcome.
The community members who took charge of the Linares case expected
the MPD to support their goals and methods. They saw themselves as law-
abiding citizens exercising their rights with the aim of protecting Monrovia’s
children. They did not expect to encounter opposition from the MPD, provided
that they obeyed the law. They did not encounter opposition from the MPD, and
the law facilitated a level of community involvement in the Linares case that was
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sufficient for community goals to be realized. The decision made by the MPD to
invite their involvement through the conduct of widespread community
notification was judged as a good one by community members. They saw in this
decision that the MPD were acting in accordance with the sentiments of
Monrovians regarding local policing. It seemed as if the prevailing structure of
police-community relations in Monrovia had been allowed to operate unfettered
in this case. Megan’s Law had allowed Monrovians to determine how Linares
would be dealt with in their city.
The moves made on behalf on Monrovia’s citizens to have State
legislation introduced that would render their community all but uninhabitable by
‘child molesters’ represented an attempt by concerned citizens to renegotiate the
sex offender control mechanisms that had allowed Linares to take up residence in
Monrovia. Had lawmakers approved their amendment, Monrovians would have
been successful in strengthening their community-centered agenda of sex
offender control through geographical exclusion. This kind of direct negotiation
over control of the policing agenda had not been necessary between the
community and the MPD in the Linares case. The structure of existing police-
community relations had enabled the police to accurately gauge what the
community would have wanted, were they to be asked. It also allowed the MPD
to anticipate the community pressure (through, for instance, civil litigation) that
could be brought to bear on the police department if their decision was
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incorrectly made. Thus, the local ‘negotiation’ over the division of labor that was
to apply in the pre-notification phase o f the Linares case only took place in a
somewhat abstract sense, as community input regarding the MPD decision to
conduct community notification only occurred through MPD officers’
assessment of the community position on the matter. Indeed, under California’s
Megan’s Law, the decision to conduct proactive community notification in any
individual case resides only with law enforcement officials, and is therefore
beyond the bounds of any direct negotiating input from community members.
The meeting held between the MPD and the community following
Linares’ relocation to Nevada witnessed a sentiment of great community
empowerment on the part of many of the citizens who had make this result their
goal. To this point, the MPD and Megan’s Law had functioned in such a way as
to give them the control they wanted over the Monrovian sex offender policing
agenda. For some, this high-point was the ideal position from which to
renegotiate Monrovia’s sex offender policing policy as it applied to the numerous
registrants whose addresses had not been made public. The reforms they
suggested amounted to a call for the reconfiguration of the Monrovian policing
DOL that would see community members take primary responsibility for the
control of all local registrants. All Monrovian registrants could thereby be
subject to the NIMBY agenda of concerned community members. The
proponents of this reform quickly found that whilst Megan’s Law had facilitated
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their exclusion of Linares, the limits placed upon community involvement in the
policing of registrants judged by the MPD to be non-threatening were non-
negotiable. State law dictated these limits. Monrovia’s community could not
engage in legal self-determination. California’s Megan’s Law restricts the
possible range of DOL configurations available for local negotiation by
precluding certain types of community involvement in sex offender policing.
Furthermore, the MPD would not accept the notion of an arrangement that
would, in their view, promote turmoil in the city. Chief Santoro’s explanation of
the MPD position on police and community roles in policing non-dangerous sex
offenders persuaded many of those who had minutes earlier been applauding
calls for reform that the existing arrangement was effective.
6.4 Negotiating the division of labor
The perspectives discussed above permit the identification of a process of
division of labor negotiations between Monrovia’s police department and
community around the Linares case. These negotiations can be considered as
having taken place according to a staged process of routine, reaction, and
reflection. The following tables summarise the needs each actor brought to the
negotiations at each o f these stages, and are followed by a discussion of the
stage’s DOL negotiation and the outcomes it produced.
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agreement over the need to put the needs of Monrovian territory first can be
expected. This dimension validates exclusionary action against threatening
residents, (such as the gang members who were invited to leave as part of the
Montana Street initiative).
The locally-focused agenda desired by both police and community
members in Monrovia is fortified by the need of the MPD to be sensitive to
locally-perceived concerns, and the community need to exert influence over their
policing. This arrangement allows the translation of Monrovia’s community
concerns to policing policy. The locally biased, spatial dimensions of such
concerns will inevitably be a factor shaping policing policy arrived by this route.
An important means by which the MPD minimizes the incidence of crime
and disorder in Monrovia is the facilitation of community conduct that will
address Monrovian policing needs. This simultaneously reduces demands upon
the MPD, thus promoting organizational efficiency. In return, the community
members expect support from the MPD when they take action. Consequently, the
ability of the community to express their preferences and serve their own agenda
through policing is further enhanced.
The MPD believes that local peoples’ rights as citizens should be
protected and supported by their department. The community expects to be
allowed to exercise those rights. An important aspect of this dimension of the
negotiation of local policing is the notion held by the MPD that a community can
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best exercise its rights when it has access to legally available information
pertinent to its concerns. The MPD does not feel it should obstruct access to such
information, and the community does not expect such obstruction to occur.
Furthermore, if the community conduct action that is allowed within the limits of
the law, they expect the MPD to recognize their rights to act in such a way and to
support such action.
The routine policing arrangement in Monrovia, then, operates according
to a general DOL that sees substantial roles for local community members in
determining the type of policing Monrovia will receive, and in the conduct of
tasks required to achieve that policing. This DOL is the outcome of negotiations
that appear to be characterized by agreement over a mutually-beneficial,
geographically-local agenda. This agreement enables the MPD to operate
effectively, minimizing the incidence of crime and disorder in the city, and
enables community members to receive the policing they prefer. This agreed
DOL would assume great importance in determining what was to happen with
respect to Linares in stage 2 of the negotiations.
The primary concern of the MPD when Linares arrived in Monrovia was
that he seemed to threaten the safety of people living within their jurisdiction.
The department therefore needed to minimize this threat. The dimensions of the
routine (stage 1) DOL agreement obliged the MPD to take account of the wishes
of Monrovia’s public, and to facilitate community action in order to minimize the
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new threat they faced. The only way that community involvement could occur
was for the community to be notified about Linares’ presence. Whilst the
decision to pursue a community notification-based strategy to deal with Linares
could only be made by the MPD in the absence of direct community input, the
general rules agreed for Monrovia’s policing DOL dictated the community’s
position on the matter to the MPD decision-makers: they must be empowered to
act.
The MPD’s move to have Linares reclassified as ‘high-risk’ under California’s
Megan’s Law would provide a legal framework that allowed Monrovia’s
community-led policing DOL to operate in the Linares case, whilst enabling the
MPD to fulfill its own need to operate within the confines of State law. When an
exclusionary strategy was proposed by community members, the proposition
assumed the status of policing policy. The precise terms of a DOL were agreed:
community members would protest using legal tactics, and would receive MPD
support and advice. This DOL, based upon local agreement over role allocations
in Monrovian policing, and facilitated by California’s Megan’s Law, practically
guaranteed that Linares would be spatially excluded from Monrovia. The
agreement appeared to meet the needs of both the MPD and the local community,
and neither side encountered disagreement from the other as the anti-Linares
operation was planned and executed.
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Table 4
Stage 2: Reaction - Linares in Monrovia
Monrovian Community: needs
' Departm ent:5ne^s^i^,&
; To ensw ^ B in^ e^ oe^ i^ ^ To be protected from threat posed
' - r e - o f t e n i'w S ^ lt ^ p by Linares
.jurisdiction^;, ^
To facihtate^commimiR^s^ To be empowered to solve Linares
response problem
problem: 'f-v
To support community^,
To receive support from MPD for
;:''r e s p o n ^ : ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ exclusionary action against Linares
To avoid cm l U iig it^ l';^
from com m unity^:, ~ a -V - i
To fully exercise rights
\ToaetAwthi^^
- T om aihtainlaw an^ To receive legal advice concerning
options for action
Table 5
Stage 3: Reflection - Post-Linares’ expulsion
Monrovian community: needs
To e h s u r e L in ^ $ 3 ^ 1 ^ ^
To act w itl^ S ta t^ iiw ^ fe
To maintaiii^^
,.: 3 ; ? m ^ o n r o y w ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
- To maihfai&pu6>hc^^^ffc|
ahdcboper^i^im iocS lp^
To ensure Linares would not return
to Monrovia
To obtain information that would
permit expulsion of remaining sex
offenders from Monrovia
To remain law-abiding
To feel safe
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Having achieved their joint goal of expelling Linares from Monrovia, the
MPD again found themselves in agreement with the Monrovian community on a
point of Monrovian sex offender policing policy: Linares should not be allowed
to return to their city. Both actors (unsuccessfully) conducted tasks intended to
promote this goal when the MPD lobbied the INS to impose restrictive residency
conditions on Linares, and the citizenry lobbied for a change to State law. The
efforts of the MPD to accommodate Linares outside of Monrovia, and their
enthusiasm to assist when he raised the possibility of a move out of State, are
also consistent with a desire to meet the demands o f the community (as well as
the needs of their own department) by minimizing the chance of his return. That
the ‘closure’ that Linares’ relocation brought to the case could, due to its spatial
basis, only close the episode for Monrovia by opening a new one for people
living somewhere else, was not important. The Monrovian policing DOL was
such that it did not operate to serve the needs of people living in Reno.
Whilst the negotiating process had to this point in the case been
characterized by accord between the MPD and community members, the wishes
of some activists to use the Linares case as a starting point from which to expel
all registered sex offender from Monrovia brought disagreement. The sex
offender policing DOL that had operated in Monrovia prior to Linares’ arrival,
and that had facilitated his removal, was now being criticized as too restrictive of
the community’s role in local sex offender control. The consequence of this
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restriction was that community members were unable to expel registrants who
the police believed posed an insignificant threat. The MPD negotiating position
on the matter was threefold: 1) they could not provide information in a manner
inconsistent with California’s Megan’s Law, 2) they could not tolerate the
turmoil a string of protests would bring to Monrovia, and, 3) the current system
of MPD monitoring of those other registrants was sufficient to ensure public
safety. Whilst the second and third elements of this argument could conceivably
have been locally negotiable, the first emphatically was not. California’s
Megan’s Law had provided a legal structure that had enabled Monrovia to expel
Linares, but that same structure would not allow them to readily subject other,
less dangerous, registrants to the same form of control. The Monrovian DOL
could not and would not be reconfigured. Policing non-dangerous registrants
would remain principally the domain of the MPD. Consequently, Monrovia’s
remaining registrants could stay.
6.5 The News Media
The prominence of the news media’s role in the overall process of
Monrovia’s expulsion of Linares became apparent as the case was researched.
Whilst the function of the media is not a principal concern of this analysis, its
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significance emerged to such an extent that it would be negligent not to pay some
speculative attention to its operation.
The ‘reaction’ stage of the case saw by far the most media activity, as,
following the MPD’s decision to hold a press conference, the story ‘broke’ onto
the lead position on the numerous local television news programs on August
26th. There was remarkable consistency in the content and tone of reporting
across the spectrum of competing channels. All of the reporting began by noting
the ‘fear’, ‘anger’, or ‘outrage’ felt by the residents of Monrovia at the fact that a
‘high risk’ sex offender had moved into their city. That this man presented an
unacceptable risk to the children of the city was a notion treated as being self-
evident. There was little or no attempt made to contextualize the term ‘high risk’
being used to describe Linares, leaving the impression that this was an objective
assessment of actual threat, as opposed to a term of legal categorization.
The reports all continued by showing footage of protesters waving their
signs and chanting. That these people occupied the moral high-ground appeared
clear, and reporting of night-time protests underlined this fact with close-ups of
the candles many protesters were holding. Representatives of the protesters
would then be allowed to voice their concerns. Indeed, these concerns provided
the framework within which the overall news item was presented. The protesters’
concerns highlighted by the reporting centered on the dangerousness of Linares,
and the imperative nature o f their quest to get him out of town. These positions
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were not challenged in the reports, implicitly granting legitimacy to the terms
protesters used in defining the nature of both the problem and the required
response.
Most reports noted that Linares had a ‘right’ to live in Monrovia.
However, this ‘right’ was presented more as a legal loophole, with commentary
that amounted to a ‘there’s nothing the police can do about it’ position. This was
in stark contrast to the presentation of the residents’ rights to know about
Linares’ presence, and to be able to act to have him expelled, as being
unassailable.
Finally, all reports identified Linares by name, by photograph, and by
record of sexual offenses. Whilst none verbalized his precise address, all showed
footage of his home and of surrounding landmarks that would leave nobody
familiar with the neighborhood in any doubt as to where the action was taking
place.
These media reports seem to have played important roles in the overall
DOL employed in the Monrovian response to Linares. They performed the
critical act of communicating, on behalf of the MPD, the news of Linares’
presence to numerous local people, thus facilitating a large-scale public response.
The tone of the reporting, in terms of the significance attributed to the story, and
the definition of the terms within which events were interpreted, probably played
a role in shaping the nature of the overall response Monrovia’s community
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156
members engaged in. This tone may have reinforced Monrovians’ perceptions of
danger, and focused their goal of expelling Linares. As such, the television news
media could be seen as having inflamed, or amplified, the events they sought to
report on. In turn, this inflammation, through the extra pressure it probably
brought to bear upon Linares, may have accelerated the process of his expulsion.
Indeed, the impact the news reporting may have had on Linares himself, if he
watched the television that day, could have been considerable, and might well
have served to supplement the exclusionary pressures he undoubtedly perceived
from the protesters outside his home.
Alongside its prominent role in the ‘reaction’ stage, it is also possible that
the news media played roles in both the ‘routine’ and ‘reflection’ stages of the
Monrovian case. Whilst the empirical evidence gathered in the course of the
case-study does not reveal much about the media’s function in routine
Monrovian policing, it would be reasonable to assume that the people and police
of Monrovia have not been immune from exposure to the construction of sex
offenders employed by the contemporary news media. It is also possible that the
local news media have played a role in shaping police-community relations in the
city by, for instance, providing a channel of communication between the two.
The research findings in this case did point towards a possible role for the
media in the ‘reflection’ stage of Linares’ policing. The MPD publicized their
assessment of the episode, along with new child-protection measures they
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intended to implement, by holding a news conference. Once again, the news
media may have provided a means of communication between the police and the
community that was relevant to DOL negotiations. The aftermath of Linares’
expulsion drew a notable degree of attention from the press. Some of the
published commentary judged Monrovia’s actions favorably. Other reports,
however, were highly critical of their strategy. Strong criticism of the MPD by
the Nevada authorities was communicated through several newspapers. Chief
Santoro was well aware of this criticism, having collected numerous press-
cuttings relating to the incident. He had not, however, ever heard directly from
any of his Nevadan critics. Thus, the conduct of the inter-jurisdictional dispute
that followed Linares’ brush with Monrovia, which conceivably fed into the
city’s post-expulsion ‘reflection’, was entirely dependent upon the media.
6.6 Concludine summary
The expeditious expulsion of Aramis Linares from Monrovia was the
product of a policing DOL negotiated between the MPD and members of the
local community. A ‘routine’ policing DOL in the city functioned through police
facilitation of community strategies. Policing policy in the city operated with a
strong local bias, and with significant direction from members of the community.
When a registered sex offender with a record of serious offenses against
children moved to the city, it was clear to the MPD that the community should
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take a substantial role in his control. The fact that such involvement could be
facilitated under California’s Megan’s Law, combined with the nature of police-
community roles in local crime control, meant that no other option would be
appropriate for the effective maintenance of law and order in the city.
Having effectively been given ownership of the issue in this ‘reaction’
stage of DOL negotiation, community members quickly resolved to expel
Linares from their city. The role of the MPD under the DOL negotiated was one
of facilitation and support for this strategy. In return, the community members
acting against Linares did not break the law or disrupt public order. The
community action was direct and determined in nature, and swiftly proved
‘successful’. The eventual relocation of Linares to Nevada was considered a
victory by community members. A particular DOL, negotiated at the city level
and legally facilitated by California’s Megan’s Law, had all but guaranteed that
Linares would be unable to live in Monrovia.
Having expelled Linares, Monrovia moved into a ‘reflection’ stage of
DOL negotiation. This saw attempts made by both the MPD and the community
to reduce the chances of Linares, or any similar sex offender, being able to move
to their city in the future. Some community members tried to renegotiate the
local DOL as it related to the control of less ‘dangerous’ registrants living in
Monrovia. The scope for local renegotiation was, however, restricted by the
structure of California law.
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Chapter 7: Conclusions
159
7.1 Summary
The primary goals of this thesis were as follows:
• To demonstrate that the public involvement in sex offender policing
facilitated by Megan’s Law promotes a model of offender control based upon
spatial exclusion.
• To propose, test, and evaluate a conceptual framework that accounts for
sex offender exclusion as the outcome of a process of negotiation over a division
o f labor in policing.
• To suggest considerations for sex offender policing policy.
The following paragraphs summarize the previous six chapters of this thesis,
paving the way for an auto-critique of the conceptual framework and research
project they entailed.
The social construction of ‘sex offenders’ was explored, demonstrating
that they represent an exceptionally feared and reviled class of criminal,
perceived by many to be in need of strict regulation. In general terms, sex
offenders are individuals who engage in sexual activities with a person who does
not consent to such activity. However, the epitome of the sex offender, as
popularly understood, is the predatory male pedophile.
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Sex offenders were shown to have been identified as prime candidates for
NIMBY action by communities. NIMBY has repeatedly been shown to be a
strategy by which contemporary urban communities seek to control their
neighborhood spaces. Existing work on NIMBY has not explicitly dealt with sex
offender policing strategies, but strongly indicates that spatial exclusion could
provide a mode of sex offender control that neighborhood groups would find
satisfactory. The NIMBY literature’s implications for sex offender control are, I
argued, supported by work produced by geographers concerned with sexuality
and space, and gendered fear and space. Taken together, these bodies of work
suggest that public concern about sex offenders can result from their
geographical proximity, and can be alleviated through their geographical
exclusion.
Community policing was then considered in terms of both its
philosophical and operational dimensions, and was shown to represent a
realignment of police-community relations made in response to a perceived
failure of police-centered ‘professional’ policing. The police-public relationship
sought under community policing is one that sees a substantial public role in
producing crime control and police policy direction. Although its primary unit of
spatial organization is clearly shown to be the ‘neighborhood’, there is but a
small body of work concerned with the spatiality of community policing.
Community policing is widely considered as orthodoxy in contemporary
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American policing. However, its implications for sex offender policing are not
explored by existing literature, and most authors do not explicitly theorize the
processes by which police and communities interact to produce social control.
The notion of a ‘divisions of labor’ has a long academic history, and has
been employed within economic geography to discuss the allocation of various
tasks within the production process to socio-spatially differentiated populations. I
suggested that this concept could also be usefully employed in a discussion of
role allocation between police and public in policing, and o f the socio-spatial
relations such policing divisions of labor could produce.
Whilst the academic literature reviewed offered some basis for the
conceptualization this thesis offers, alone it was an insufficient guide to the
dimensions of the sex offender policing and Megan’s Law issues. These
dimensions were explored in chapter 3. This exploration of included a review of
media and police sources concerned with sex offenders and their control, as well
as of Megan’s Law at the national and Californian scales. Sex offender policing
was revealed as a complex business involving police and communities, as well as
other agencies such as the news media. A tendency was identified for
communities to control known sex offenders by spatially excluding them. Such
exclusion is a typical public response to sex offenders when the police conduct
community notification. However, exclusion is not effective for crime control
beyond the local scale, and may actually hinder the control of offenders by
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discouraging their continued registration. Nevertheless, the need for community
notification is a common feature of recent demands for sex offender policing
reform.
Megan’s Law is a series of Federally-mandated State legislation that
requires the identities and whereabouts of convicted sex offenders to be
registered by State authorities after their release from custody. Some of the
information on from the registries is then made public. The precise provisions of
Megan’s Law vary from State to State. An important intention of the law is to
enable members of the public to protect themselves from sex offenders by
making available to them information identifying potentially dangerous
individuals living in their neighborhoods.
California’s Megan’s Law allows for a degree of police discretion with
respect to the dissemination of registry information. Whilst information
identifying registrants by name and photograph can be accessed at police
stations, over the telephone, or by mail, the question of whether to proactively
conduct community notification of offenders’ identities and/or addresses is a
matter for local police decision-makers. Megan’s Law is unevenly applied
between Californian law enforcement jurisdictions.
In chapter 4 a conceptualization of sex offender policing was proposed
that could explain the practice of sex offender exclusion as a policing strategy.
The conceptualization saw such exclusion as the product of a process of
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negotiation between police and public over a division of labor in policing that
had allowed local community members to become influential in the
determination of sex offender policing strategy and thereby assert their NIMBY
instincts. ‘Community policing’ and Megan’s Law set the institutional contexts
structuring this police-community interaction. This conceptualization was shown
to be significant to fields of work relating to Megan’s Law, NIMBY, and
community policing.
Chapter 5 provided a narrative detailing a case of sex offender policing
that had occurred under Megan’s Law in the city of Monrovia, against which the
proposed conceptualization could be tested. The setting for this case was a city
whose population was routinely integrated into the local policing process, both in
terms of policy determination and operational conduct, under an arrangement that
epitomized contemporary ‘community policing’. The arrival of a serious/high-
risk sex offender named Linares in the city in August of 2000, following his
release from custody in Nevada, triggered a policing response that involved both
the city police department and members of the local community. The provisions
of California’s Megan’s Law were employed to facilitate a ‘problem solving’,
community-based approach to the threat that Linares was believed to pose. The
police conducted community notification, identifying him and pinpointing his
home address. Police and community members then collaborated to formulate a
response. Community members mounted protests against the Linares’ presence
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in the city, having determined that an exclusionary strategy should be deployed
against him. This strategy was successful, and the combined actions of local
community members and police resulted in his relocation to Nevada. This result
was considered as a victory for Monrovia’s policing arrangement, and as one that
effectively served the public-safety needs of its population.
In chapter 6 the Monrovia Police Department (MPD), through its mission
statement, stated philosophy, and operational initiatives, was shown to operate
according to a general DOL that placed local community members in a position
of substantial responsibility for the direction and operation of the city’s policing.
Police department input was ideally limited to roles of advisement, motivation,
and facilitation. This arrangement privileged a locally-defined policing agenda,
which was supported by the MPD’s need to prioritize issues directly affecting its
small jurisdiction.
When a sex offender whom the local police felt posed a significant threat
to public safety came to town, the general policing DOL that prevailed in
Monrovia suggested a requirement for substantial local community involvement
that individual’s control. The provisions of Megan’s Law were then used to
facilitate a locally appropriate DOL configuration. Once the DOL had been so
configured, a forceful, local-community determined, exclusionary response was
mounted. The broad dimensions of this response were entirely dependent upon
the DOL used to produce it, and had been conceived of according to a locally
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agreed police-public relationship. The finer points of the DOL were negotiated
between police and community members at a public meeting. The exclusion of
the sex offender was the product of the policing DOL Monrovia employed
against him.
The outcome of police-community negotiations that followed Linares’
expulsion, which saw certain community members calling for a reconfiguration
of Monrovia’s policing DOL as it related to other registered sex offenders living
in the city, was rigidly limited by the legal framework provided by California
State law. The DOL negotiation in this case had proceeded according to a three-
stage process o f ‘routine’, ‘reaction’, and ‘reflection’.
Overall, the analysis showed that DOL configuration had been critical in
determining the dimensions of the policing response to the sex offender who
moved to Monrovia. The spatial component of this response constituted one of its
key dimensions. Negotiations, conducted within a framework provided by local
community policing practices and the State’s Megan’s Law, had produced
Monrovia’s policing DOL in this case.
7.2 Divisions of labor - an evaluation
The case study o f the policing in Monrovia of sex offender registrant
Linares under Megan’s Law enabled a demonstration of the strengths of the
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166
conceptual framework and related model proposed in chapter 4, as well as
highlighting potential avenues for further investigation and theorization. The
conceptualization of sex offender policing offered in this thesis is one that
represents a significant departure from previous academic work. Given the scope
of research component of the thesis, such a novel framework could only be
subjected to provisional verification. The following paragraphs will review the
component parts of the model, discussing their strengths and the needs for further
work that they highlighted.
The Monrovian community’s reaction to Linares’ presence in their city
seemed to validate the broad concept of community employed in my framework.
All those whose opinion could be ascertained appeared to consider the threat the
offender posed in terms of a locally-defined agenda. That is to say that
individuals within the community shared public safety concerns primarily with,
and in relation to, other Monrovian community members. They were united in
the belief that Monrovia was no place for a dangerous sex offender, and that the
answer to their problem was that the offender should leave their community
territory.
The Monrovia Police Department likewise fitted comfortably with the
general characterization of the police deployed in my conceptualization. Their
operations and organizational philosophy were shown to epitomize contemporary
‘community policing’, in that they functioned to serve local-defined needs in a
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167
partnership with members of the community, and considered increased public
involvement in policing as the path to more effective crime control.
The notion of a process of negotiation between police and community
members over a division o f labor in sex offender policing was central to my
conceptualization. The evidence in the case was fully consistent with the concept
that the dimensions o f a policing DOL determine the spatial model o f sex
offender control that arrangement will produce: a substantial role for Monrovia’s
community practically guaranteed that Linares would be expelled from the city.
The same division of labor agreement likewise ensured that other, less dangerous
sex offender registrants would not be expelled.
Instances of explicit negotiation between police and public over divisions
of labor in policing were demonstrated. These instances appeared to provide
clear support for the ‘negotiation’ element of my framework. However, the
findings also showed that the broader structuring of those particular negotiations,
had taken place beyond the direct view of my research. If these structures were
themselves the outcome o f negotiation (something heavily implied by the
evidence provided), exactly how these negotiations had been conducted remained
somewhat unclear and, thus, susceptible to further research. Nevertheless, locally
conducted negotiation was clearly important in determining the case’s outcome,
and the three-staged characteristics of the negotiation process that led to
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168
Monrovia’s exclusionary solution provided a useful framework for understanding
the chronological progression of the city’s DOL development.
7.3 Avenues for future research
The first of the important ‘structures’ referred to above as susceptible to
further research is Megan’s Law itself. Megan’s Law is critical in determining
policing DOLs, as the potential range of negotiated options is limited by its
provisions. As this project currently stands, I can only claim to have
demonstrated that Megan’s Law acts to frame local negotiations, defining the
legal limits of the potential range of DOLs. Whilst the development of Megan’s
Law was charted, an in-depth study of the legislation’s evolution would enable
the enrichment of my framework. Such an investigation might well reveal that
DOLs (and consequent policing outcomes) are negotiated at interrelated Federal,
State, and local scales.
The second ‘structure’ to local negotiation over the Linares DOL was
provided by Monrovia’s ‘community policing’ arrangement. Whilst the nature of
this arrangement was covered in some detail, much of it seemed to be based upon
tacit acceptance rather than straightforwardly negotiated agreement. The
questions of if or how the public had contributed to the establishment of the
police-community relationship in the first place were left largely unanswered. If
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169
these questions were to be investigated through an historical investigation of the
development of community policing in Monrovia, a further level of negotiation
could potentially be factored into my model.
In addition to any further investigation of the model’s core elements, the
conceptual framework and findings developed also point to possible avenues for
future research that were not probed as part of this project.
The model recognized by the inclusion of one of its ‘secondary’ actors
the likely significance of the role of the news media in sex offender policing. The
Monrovia case study revealed that the primary route by which information
notifying the local public of their new sex offender neighbor was disseminated
was through the television news media. The presentation of this information on
the television was a pivotal moment in the case, prompting a response from
hundreds of local people in the space of just a few hours. Thus, the news media
may have executed a key ‘task’ in the DOL. They may also have inflamed the
community response they sought to report. On another front, it was through
newspapers that the inter-jurisdictional dispute between Monrovia and Nevada
was conducted following the offender’s relocation to Nevada (when interviewed
Chief Santoro said he never heard from a Nevadan official directly). Monrovia’s
action was also subject to critical analysis in the newspapers (see, for instance,
Pasadena Star News 2000a, Dear & Sibley 2000). This media-led
communication and analysis raises the possibility that news coverage of sex
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offender control strategies could feed-back into future policing formulations, and
hence represent an additional piece of the process. The role of the news media in
sex offender policing is ripe for future investigation.
Along with the media, the crime victim was another ‘secondary’ actor in
my model. In the case the production of a policing response structured by
Megan’s Law, as the Monrovian example was, a victim of crime would appear to
have had some kind of input to the process, even if this amounted to nothing
more than the involuntary donation of her name. However, it seems unlikely that
the role that certain victims play in the process producing sex offender policing
strategies would be so limited. As with the media, a future investigation of the
role of this unfortunate group in sex offender policing could reveal much.
The third ‘secondary’ actor featured in the model, the sex offender,
received little attention in my analysis, despite his being the center of attention
for the police and the community in Monrovia. The position of the sex offender
in the policing process within which he finds himself is undoubtedly more
complicated than my model allowed for. My analysis rested upon the notion that
sex offenders are constructed as a homogenous group, and that they will
therefore trigger a uniform reaction, regardless of how they earned their ‘sex
offender’ title. Whilst this position is lent considerable validity by materials
presented in this thesis, it also was clear that differences between sex offenders
were critical in determining the dimensions of the policing DOL that would be
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applied to their control in Monrovia. Certain community members may have
wanted all registered sex offenders to leave Monrovia, but Megan’s Law and the
MPD dictated that they could not have their way. The offender risk
classifications used in Megan’s Law determine the extent to which information
about registrants can be released. They are therefore pivotal in determining the
configuration of the policing division of labor that will apply to any given
registrant. Another key variable with respect to the sex offender is the level of his
willingness to register with authorities. Sex offenders who are required to register
but fail to do so, thereby becoming anonymous, cannot readily be controlled
through Megan’s Law’s provisions. The question of how the experience of
expulsion from one place impacts willingness to register at the next would allow
further insight into the processes at work, as would the impact on registration
behavior of harassment or vigilantism from ‘informed’ community members.
The issue of how sex offender variables factor into the process of their control
would provide a rich avenue for future research.
A policing arrangement that accorded higher priority to local needs than
those of places elsewhere was a fundamentally important aspect of the
explanation I provided for Monrovia’s expulsion of their high-risk sex offender.
Happily for the community members of Monrovia who sought such an outcome,
the geography of their police department’s jurisdiction corresponded with the
limits of their small town. Thus, the spatiality of the solution to the sex offender
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problem was never challenged in local negotiations — expulsion served the
agendas of both police and community. How might the negotiations and
outcomes have been different if the police department covered a larger
jurisdictional area? Would a larger police department dedicate time and resources
to help a local community in one part of its jurisdiction expel a sex offender to
another community it also had responsibility for policing? Or to a community
within a jurisdiction with which the department wished to maintain good
relations?
The strong ‘community policing’ ethos of the MPD also contributed
towards the development of the city’s exclusionary strategy. ‘Community
policing’ may be paradigmatic, but it is not uniformly practiced by all police
departments. The organizational structure and philosophy of police departments
is probably an important variable in the sex offender policing process, and
would, along with the factor of jurisdictional geography presented above, prove
to be a productive area for further research.
Just as police departments vary, so do communities. As discussed in
chapter 2, Dear et al (1997) demonstrated that community type is an important
variable in determining whether an ‘undesirable’ facility or individual will
trigger a NIMBY response. I would speculate that the exclusion of the sex
offender Linares from Monrovia was promoted by the large number of families
with children who live there, as well as by the local availability of resources for
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the purchase of exclusionary aids ranging from protest materials to plane tickets.
I would, however, also note that as a police officer I have repeatedly witnessed
the expulsion (albeit by ‘rougher’ means) of suspected sex offenders from
neighborhoods that are extremely poor and that lack routine social organization.
Taken at face value, the essential similarity in intent between the responses from
very different types of communities is striking. Nevertheless, a future
investigation that examined variations in public reactions to sex offenders from
communities differentiated by factors such as age, income, or race, would enable
the addition of a further level of sophistication to the explanation of sex offender
policing this thesis currently provides.
A final suggestion for future research relates to the finer aspects of the
geography of the process I have sought to explain. My argument rests upon the
notion that the publicly known presence of a sex offender tends to spark a
reaction aimed at removing that individual from community space. Whilst this is
demonstrably valid, it lacks complexity in terms of scale. A future researcher of
sex offender policing might usefully ask the questions ‘how close is too close’,
and, ‘how far away is far enough’. The evidence from the Monrovia case study
seems to suggest that there was nowhere in that city for the sex offender that
wasn’t too close to Monrovians. Nevada seemed to be far enough away.
However, how might the situation have been different if the sex offender had
moved to an adjacent city following his expulsion from Monrovia? The actions
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of the MPD in maintaining contact with the offender whilst he remained in Los
Angeles County, but considering the case ‘closed’ upon his departure to Nevada,
might point towards some possible answers in that case.
7.4 Policy considerations
On September 2n d 2000 the following letter, sent in by a resident of
Arcadia, was published in the Pasadena Star News:
Chase him away!
Hooray Monrovia! Make it as uncomfortable as you can
on Aramis Linares (high risk sex offender). Follow him.
He will molest at any opportunity. Get him out of there.
Ship him to Siberia, where there aren’t any children!
( Letter to the Editor, Pasadena Star News 2000, 12)
What this letter highlights, apart from the author’s weak grasp of Siberian
demographics, is a difficulty that must be confronted when considering the
problem of how to control sex offenders living amongst other members of
society. Control strategies that operate through the expulsion of individuals from
one location to the next will ultimately prove futile if there is, as seems to be the
case, no place fo r sex offenders.
The process of completing this thesis has given me the opportunity to
carefully consider questions relating to sex offender policing and public
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involvement therein. It has required that I examine the legal framework provided
by Megan’s Law. Sex offender policing policies in the United States and in
Europe have, in recent years, been characterized by their dynamic and politically-
charged nature. They are often the subject of debates that can seem to be founded
upon base instinct rather than careful consideration. Whilst this thesis has not
taken the form of a policy analysis, the lengthy consideration I have given to its
subject matter puts me in a position from which I am well-placed to make a
useful contribution to policy debates. Whilst the focus of this thesis has been
upon the analysis of processes in policing, and not the evaluation of policing
strategies, the following recommendations have their basis in my research and
the conceptual framework my work has developed:
Public involvement in sex offender policing should be encouraged.
It is well established that certain types of policing tend towards
ineffectiveness when the police operate in isolation from the public. It follows
that the police cannot be expected to provide effective sex offender policing
without public help. There are many things the public can do in order to reduce
the opportunities for sex offenders to commit crime, and to assist in the
apprehension of suspects when crimes have been committed. For instance,
members of the public should be encouraged to take measures such as watching
for suspicious activity by individuals in areas where children frequent, and
reporting such activity to the police. Children should be educated that certain
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behavior towards them is wrong, and that they should tell a responsible adult
(such as a school teacher) if they experience such behavior. Police forces should
work to encourage victims of sexual assault to report the crimes that have been
committed against them, and encourage such cooperation with the policing
system by minimizing the additional trauma that a police investigation can bring.
Public involvement in sex offender policing should be managed in such a way as
to minimize the potential for NIMBY responses.
Whilst the list of positive ways in which the public can be involved in sex
offender policing provided above could be almost infinitely extended, there is a
particular type of public involvement that does nothing to serve public safety
needs. The NIMBY reaction of communities, translated into policing practice,
can do nothing to serve public safety at anything other than the very local scale.
Any sex offender control strategy that seeks to provide protection to the public at
large will derive no benefit from a provision that facilitates such a reaction.
Moreover, the expulsion of sex offenders from one community to another
provides individuals who have a requirement to register with a disincentive to do
so. Thus, the effectiveness of any registration scheme could be compromised by
such a policy. Additionally, the movement of registrants within or between police
jurisdictions could hinder the police’s ability to monitor potentially dangerous
individuals, thereby further reducing the effectiveness of their control. This thesis
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has demonstrated that public access to information enabling the identification
and location of offenders can trigger a NIMBY-based policing response. A sex
offender policing policy that seeks to be effective should not grant public access
to such information.
Sex offenders should be registered and subject to limited notification.
Recent years have seen powerful calls from the public for more effective
policing of sex offenders, both in the United States and in Europe. If law
enforcers are to be responsive to these expressions of public feeling, they need to
establish effective sex offender policing strategies. Within Megan’s Law
legislation are elements that could, if used in isolation from the less helpful
provisions, provide for a stringent level of control to be applied to convicted sex
offenders. These elements are the registration of sex offenders, and the
notification of organizations who become threatened by the activity of a
dangerous registrant.
The registration of sex offenders facilitates the close monitoring of registrants
by the police. Monitoring could provide a useful law-enforcement tool,
particularly with respect to individuals prone to recidivism, such as the FBI’s
‘preferential’ sex offenders who may victimize hundreds in their lifetimes if left
inadequately policed. Such registration also allows for expedient criminal
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investigation, as it permits the police to call upon a ready-made list of potential
suspects when a sex offense is reported.
Strictly limited notification could also provide a useful crime-prevention
technique for application to the activities of dangerous registrants. Some sex
offenders maximize their exposure to potential victims through employment or
voluntary work. For example, a pedophile seeking opportunities to assault
children might do so by taking a job as a school teacher. If the police discover
that a registrant appears to be engaging in such a preparatory criminal exercise,
then the organization within or through which he appears to be seeking victims
should be notified that the individual is unsuitable, on public safety grounds, for
the position he is seeking. Regulations should forbid the further dissemination of
information so given, in order to minimize potential for the mounting of a
NIMBY community response.
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Asset Metadata

Creator Sibley, Django Sebastian (author)

Core Title Divisions of labor in policing: Police, communities and sex offender control

School Graduate School

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Geography

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Geography,OAI-PMH Harvest,sociology, criminology and penology

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Advisor Dear, Michael (committee chair)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c16-296048

Unique identifier UC11337049

Identifier 1411805.pdf (filename),usctheses-c16-296048 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier 1411805.pdf

Dmrecord 296048

Document Type Thesis

Rights Sibley, Django Sebastian

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA