Sex offenders to be corralled for Halloween
BY GREG SOWINSKI - Oct. 24, 2006
LIMA — Come Saturday for two hours during the city’s Halloween trick-or-treating time, sex offenders in Lima will be rounded up and corralled while children go house to house seeking candy.
Halloween trick-or-treating will be held between 3 and 5 p.m. Saturday in Lima . During that time, about 40 sex offenders will be required to report to the Allen County Adult Probation Department Intensive Probation Supervision Unit on North Main Street where they will stay for the two hours, said Jim Wingate, project director for Allen County Sex Offender Risk Reduction Court .
"They do not have a choice," Wingate said. "Anybody under my supervision, if they’re directed to show up and they don’t, they will go to jail."
Those who fail to report will face violating their probation and could go back to prison or to jail, Wingate said.
During the two hours, sex offenders will undergo drug testing and will have their ankle monitoring system checked to make sure they are properly working, Wingate said.
The court plans to have police officers on hand to go out and look for any sex offender who does not show, Wingate said.
"Kids are out, they are vulnerable and they come to strangers’ houses," Wingate said.
Lima defense attorney Bill Kluge called it "a ludicrous notion" to corral sex offenders for two hours on the premise it will make the streets safer for children.
"They are on ankle monitors in the first place. They know where they’re at. Why not corral all people convicted of a second DUI from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m.," Kluge said.
The probation department has forgot about the concept of rehabilitation, Kluge said.
"It’s more about the public perception of what they’re doing to make our streets safe," he said.
This is the first time the court, which is in its first year, has required sex offenders to report for a specific period of time. Halloween was chosen because children go door to door, and have no idea whose house they are going to, Wingate said.
"It’s just an extremely vulnerable time for minor children," Wingate said.
Holding the roundup on Halloween was the idea of Mike Stahl, the regional sex offender specialist through the state prison system, Wingate said.
JoEllen Lyons, a spokeswoman for the state prison system, said the program has been done in past years in Columbus with success.
"It’s a mandatory program that they have to do. Those who do not come will be arrested or have a warrant out," Lyons said.
The sex offender court, run through Allen County Common Pleas Court by offering intense supervision, began in January as part of an effort to reduce the rate of sex offenders committing new crimes.
As part of the program, sex offenders wear ankle transmitters that help monitor their whereabouts. The program also put monitors in schools that sound an alarm if a sex offender comes within 600 feet of a school.
On Friday, a monitor was taken to the Lima Mall during its Halloween trick-or-treating event. There were no violations, Wingate said.
Allen County has 139 sex offenders registered with the Sheriff’s Office but about 40 will have to report this Saturday. Those 40, for the most part, are classified as sexual predators, and are considered high risk to commit another sex crime, Wingate said.
"If they’re a high risk for reoffending, they’re coming in," Wingate said.