05/21/2012
By Shannon Beck
Rolla - There are more than 30 registered sex offenders in the Rolla area and more than two dozen more throughout Phelps County.
115th District Rep. Rodney Schad (R) is hoping that a bill he sponsored, which is supported by 149th District Rep. Keith Frederick (R), would help many of those sex offenders become more productive members of society.
“For eight years I have received emails and letters and had people walk through the door explaining to me what they had done and admitting their guilt and then sharing with me what they are going through with the current laws,” Schad said. “I pretty well ignored it for six years thinking it was very few people.”
- This is exactly why more people need to step up, contact legislature. If they do not hear from you, then they think everything is working. You must speak out on how these laws are harming ex-offenders and families lives. Until you do that, then the laws will not change.
Schad says he realized there are many people who have to register after committing offenses like exposing themselves in public or having a sexual relationship with someone underage while they themselves were still fairly young — for example a 19-year-old who dated a 16-year-old.
“I know it is not legal to have sex with an underage person, but these people have gone to prison, they have done their time ... they are absolutely not a danger to society,” he said.
Frederick said it is this group of people he wants to help with this bill.
“They could end up staying together and getting married and having a family,” Frederick said, “but one of them could end up on that registry creating all sorts of complications in their lives.”
Some complications include being banned from school functions, and not being allowed to pick their toddler up from day care.
Schad said he also realized that by registering it made it difficult for some to find housing, employment and other necessities.
“They are on the welfare system — many of them are anyways — and that is a problem right there,” Schad said.
With these realizations, Schad set out to draft a law to revise Missouri’s sex offender registry.
What he came up with was House Bill 1700, which was co-sponsored by Speaker of the House Steven Tilley.
The bill passed in the house in late March by a vote of 126 yes votes, including Frederick’s, to 20 no votes but was taken off the Senate calendar after being referred to committee in mid-April.
Schad fears the bill is dead.
“It would appear that until a senator gets interested in it, it’s never going to be fixed,” Schad said.
Frederick said he knew he was taking the risk of appearing “soft on crime” when he cast his yes vote, but felt it was the right thing to do. He said he hopes his constituents take the time to learn about the bill before allowing that vote to cast a negative shadow on his work at the Capitol.
The version of Schad’s bill that passed the House held several revisions that would affect the sex offender registry in Missouri.
Some of those revisions are aimed at beefing up the registry — including requiring that the photos of the offenders are kept current — while the majority of the bill is aimed at lightening the registry requirements for lesser crimes.
Schad’s bill would exempt people convicted of five specific crimes currently requiring registration from registering. Those crimes are sexual misconduct in the second or third degree, promoting obscenity, furnishing pornographic materials to a minor, public display of explicit sexual material and coercing acceptance of obscene material.
The bill would also revise what information is available on Missouri’s sex offender website maintained by the Missouri State Highway Patrol. Information that would be removed is a description of the person’s vehicle and addresses for the person’s work, school or temporary residence.
There are no temporary residences registered in Phelps County.
According to the MSHP sex offender website, two offenders have temporary residences on Lake of the Ozarks, which is in Schad’s district. One individual was convicted of statutory sodomy of an 11-year-old girl in 2004, and the other was convicted of sexual assault of a six-year-old girl in 1986.
Schad said he is most concerned about the removal of the person’s place of employment because he believes employers are afraid to hire sex offenders out of concern for employee safety.
“These folks become targets when we publish some of that information,” Schad said.
“No one in their right mind would hire these folks knowing that their buildings and their other employees would be in danger just because they had hired a known sex offender.”
The third major change proposed in the bill is the removal of the requirement to register for a lifetime.
The bill breaks sex offenses into two categories, some that the offender could ask a judge to remove them from the registry after 10 years, and six that the offender could ask a judge to remove them from the registry after 20 years.
“Even those heinous crimes would be eligible (for removal from the registry) after 20 years, but you have to realize the minimum punishment for those crimes is 10 years ... So, we are talking about 30 years of being crime free at a minimum,” Schad said.
Schad also noted that, contrary to popular belief, the recidivism rate for sex offenders is low, between three- and seven-percent. Recidivism is the rate at which criminals offend again.
He thinks the portion of the law that no longer makes registration a lifetime duty of a sex offender may be why the Senate is not interested.
“That may be one of the hang-ups, and we have just tried in the last few days removing that if that is one of the things that is keeping the senate fro taking it up,” he said.
Another possible deterrent is that Missouri laws are not the only ones that govern sex offender registries. A federal law commonly known as SORNA or the Adam Walsh Act requires certain information be included in every state’s sex offender registry.
According to the U.S. Justice Department, one of those mandatory requirements is the address of the person’s employer.
Regardless of the reason the Senate is shying away from the bill, Schad was encouraged by the response from his peers in the House, and hopes another legislator will champion this cause in his absence.
“This was my last attempt at this,” he said. “Someone else is going to have to take over from here.”
That someone may be Frederick.
“I’ve talked to some of my colleagues, and I’ve talked to one of my colleagues in particular on the other side of the aisle, and we both think it is something that we will continue to work on,” Frederick said.
In the meantime, he encourages his constituents to contact his Jefferson City office and share their thoughts on the issue.
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