Bizzell, Baker: STOP exposing officers to virus

The staff of NCRSOL has researched every North Carolina Sheriffs’ official website for Covid-19 information as it pertains to registered sex offenders in the state.

Of the 100 counties in North Carolina, only three counties have posted amended sex offender registration procedures on its official website. Naturally, there will be discourse from those in the law enforcement community that registrants should call their sheriffs department or visit a social media site for the latest information. However, if sheriffs can implement augmented pistol permit and jail policies, then it can amend sex offender in-person requirements. These are not permanent acts – these are temporary acts of mercy and public safety that benefit the bigger picture at hand.

By current law, registrants in North Carolina are prohibited from accessing a website where a part of its terms and conditions prohibits registered sex offenders. Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, Nextdoor, and a few others are platforms that many law enforcement websites use! NCRSOL encourages all registrants to obey the law and remain compliant. Don’t be a fool and assume that one law supersedes another by getting caught up in a legal imbroglio. The first line of defense of credible information is the official county website maintained by various sheriffs departments. The county website should be the sole credible source of public information.

Here are the North Carolina sheriffs departments that have amended sex offender in-person policies by notice on its official website during the Covid-19 pandemic: (effective 3/29/2020)

(F-Facebook; T-Twitter; B-Blogger; X-Nixie; G-GooglePlus; P-Pinterest; L-LinkedIn; S-Snapchat; N-Nextdoor; Y-YouTube; V-Vimeo; K-Flickr; I-Instagram)

Click on any county to be redirected to the official website of that particular sheriff’s department. Sheriffs may quietly change policies or directives without making it public via their website or social media blasts. You are encouraged to use this tool to show the law enforcement community that either there is no, limited, or ambiguous information from the department entrusted and elected to keep you and your community safe.

Upon researching each of the county sheriff websites, some may display a section for Emergency Alerts. However, in nearly all circumstances, no emergency alerts have been activated, updated, or mentioned for Covid-19, jail closings, pistol permit holds, or other sheriff related functions. Instead, many sheriffs have left those decisions to other county officials. 

A majority of sheriff official websites had no information posted about the governor’s recent mandatory “Stay-At-Home” order. A noticeable trend was that many sheriff websites used social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, and in some cases defunct websites or broken links. Additionally, some of the sheriffs websites redirect to county administrative social media platforms with no mention of sheriffs operations amended or not. The scope of this particular research did not scour social media sites maintained by individual sheriff’s offices.

NCRSOL staff identified the following problems with sheriff official websites:

• websites neglected over time with no relevant or updated public information,
• no information about Covid-19 information regarding jail and/or public operations,
• no information about the governors stay at home order,
• no alternative emergency information or guidance procedures,
• broken or inoperable links,
• Sheriff’s updated concealed pistol permit information, but no other information was updated.
• No sheriffs department had alternative solutions for the sex offender community such as mail-in forms, documentation available online, or temporary change of address forms for the registry community.
• There is no standardization of law enforcement websites to simplify emergency data or services.

In a high-tech society surrounded by flagship universities and a state population where internet, webpages, and technology is a significant part of our daily lives combined demonstrates a lag in online technologies or features to keep society moving forward. It has been nearly two decades since 9/11. Yet a majority of our sheriffs departments are greatly unprepared to meet the simple challenges of the 21st century by leaders failing to change policy towards an on-line or application method rather than antiquated and expensive in-person requirements. Sheriffs have a unique ability to step aside of the political compass and begin to look at the human compass. 

While social media appears to be the new facilitation to traditional webpages, there is little to no standardization across the board for the general public to better understand changes under emergency conditions; especially a platform that serves communities such as the poor, homeless, registrants, or seniors without smartphones and social media outlets. North Carolina leaders must do more to simplify our information flow and processes to reduce not only our carbon footprint, but to reduce our public health criteria for the overall safety for all citizens. This is an opportunity to stop the “guessing games.” 

Despite emergency conditions and the putting innocent citizens further at risk, deputies all across North Carolina are still knocking on doors of registrants to verify if they live there. Basic constitutional rights include that citizens are not required to answer the door or talk to the police when they’re knocking at your door without a warrant. Yet, deputies continue to knock on registrants doors without a warrant despite those same registrants go in-person to the sheriffs office to verify his/her address.

NCRSOL staff would like to keep this data and information up-to-date. Please reply with updated information about specific counties to share with other registrants.

In the meantime, please contact your sheriff’s department to learn more about your county’s sex offender in-person registry policy during the Covid-19 pandemic. Most of all, please stay safe and follow the CDC recommended guidelines. Lastly, pay attention to the President and Governor by staying at home until this crisis has passed. 

Strategies for reducing COVID-19 exposure by revising the implementation of registration policies, housing banishment laws, and other restrictions impacting people with convictions

MARCH 28, 2020 – We join numerous criminal justice organizations that have issued policy recommendations to prevent the spread of COVID-19 by suspending or eliminating non-essential police and court functions, while ensuring that law enforcement resources are used wisely to keep communities safe.

This guidance focuses on policies affecting people listed on sex offense registries. More than 900,000 Americans are subject to registration and/or housing banishment laws. The nature of these rules and regulations and the enormous number of people who must comply with or enforce them, raise urgent concerns about public health and resource allocation in this extraordinary time.

During the registration process, people are typically required to fill out forms stating their address, employer, school, phone number, vehicle data, etc. and to return, in person, to report even trivial changes.  These cumbersome registration processes tie up sworn officers who could instead be investigating crime, attending to emergencies, and assisting people in crisis.

Housing banishment laws often prohibit people from residing in the vast majority of residential areas of a city or town. As a result, those with stable homes, or several housing options, frequently become homeless anyway. This false scarcity of housing also increases prison populations as people have no legally authorized home in which to serve their parole or probation.

Even before COVID-19, the unintended consequences of these policies were well documented. The current pandemic, however, adds urgency to revise current registry and banishment practices as many of them undermine the critical public health measures being implemented nationwide to contain its spread.

The following strategies would reduce COVID-19 exposure among law enforcement officials and those required to register, as well as their families at home, and the broader community:

1. Suspend in-person registration requirements. Registration requires frequent in-person visits to police stations or jails, where dozens of people commonly congregate in waiting rooms or bullpens, multiplying the risk of transmission of COVID-19. Following the lead of Oregon and other jurisdictions, this process should be modified.
2. Waive or suspend housing banishment laws and other housing restrictions. People experiencing homelessness need emergency housing in order to comply with stay-at-home orders or self-quarantine. But many people listed on “homeless registries” have places they could otherwise reside: housing restrictions alone caused their homelessness. Likewise, prisons have backlogs of people incarcerated past their release dates, or who would be released on parole or probation supervision, if so much housing were not barred. Suspending these restrictions will allow cities to house people more efficiently, conserve emergency beds, and give prison officials the flexibility to place people in homes they already have available. This will protect their populations from the heightened risk of contagion created by needless incarceration and homeless encampments when there are safe available homes for people on the registries.
3. Waive or suspend arrests and prosecutions for failure-to-comply offenses. “Failure to comply” charges are the result of a missed deadline to reregister or update registration. Akin to technical parole violations, these are often hyper-technicalities that stem from the difficulty of following so many onerous reporting requirements, and have no reported correlation to public safety. Despite this, they contribute to jail and prison churn, risking increased transmission of the virus.
4. Suspend fees for registration. Economists are projecting 14%-20% GDP contraction for this quarter and unemployment in double-digit rates. Many people have already lost their incomes as a result of the shutdowns. People with past convictions are far more likely to be poor, with reduced job prospects. Non-payment of these fees can result in failure-to-comply charges; during this crisis registration fees should be suspended.
5. Suspend in-person address verifications. Routine police visits to the addresses of people listed on registries, for the sole purpose of an address check, should be suspended. These visits are widespread, and number in the tens of thousands. At a time when even 911 calls are under stress, law enforcement should be able to redirect their resources as needed.
6. Suspend Internet access restrictions. Some people who are on probation or parole are forbidden from accessing wide swaths of the Internet, and some states have laws limiting Internet access for people listed on a conviction registry. During this crisis, access to the Internet has become even more critical: nearly everyone must rely on Internet access for work, news, homeschooling, services, and family connections. Individual safety, as well as public health compliance, requires timely online access to crucial information about social and health services, as well as access to medical services that are moving online.
7. “Step down” people in civil commitment. More than 6,000 people are locked post-sentence in prison-like state civil commitment facilities, that pose the same coronavirus dangers to staff and detainees as jails and prisons. States should speed up “step-down” procedures and move people into supervised community settings.

CONCLUSION

State conviction registries were intended to be a tool for law enforcement officials and were limited in scope. In the past quarter century, legislators expanded these public databases and added hundreds of additional reporting requirements and other restrictions, including housing and public space banishment laws, and long-term confinement in civil commitment. Research shows that at least 95% of those arrested for a sexual offense have never had a previous sex offense conviction, while most people currently required to register are unlikely to be re-arrested for a sexual offense.  Rather than improve public safety, these regulations:

• Systematically displace people from housing and employment,
• Weaken the resilience of families and communities coping with crime and mass incarceration,
• Divert critical resources away from crime survivors and proven prevention strategies and expand them on regulating the few people who have already been held accountable and punished.

In contrast, public safety and crime reduction principles emphasize a public health approach to prevention, involving, among other things, primary prevention, focusing on the warning signs inside familial and social circles, and building early and comprehensive support and intervention for people, families, and communities most impacted by violence.

We urge policymakers to suspend rules and policies that are not essential to public safety or that contribute to the spread of COVID-19. These strategies allow law enforcement, on the frontlines of this catastrophe, to dedicate more of their limited resources toward crisis intervention and emergency assistance

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