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May 11, 2009

Brooklyn Nabes Topping City-Wide Sex Offender Ranks

sex-offenders-0509.jpgHas Senator Jeff Klein been reading Brownstoner? Three weeks ago we ran a post detailing the high concentration of sex offenders in just a few Brooklyn neighborhoods. Now Klein, a Democrat from the the Bronx and Westchester, is out with his own analysis of the publicly-available data showing these Brooklyn nabes—Bedford-Stuyvesant, Bushwick, Brownsville, Cypress Hills and East New York—are actually among the worst in the entire city, not just Brooklyn. The New York Post reports that Klein wants to set up a system where any resident could sign up to receive an email alert when a sex offender is moving into his or her neighborhood. "This is a free, safe and easy way for families to know if there's a dangerous sexual predator living in their community," Klein said.




Posted by Brownstoner at 10:44 AM | Comments (22)
Categories: Quality of Life

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Nope Brownstoner this place is dead as a doornail...

The What

Someday this war is gonna end...

Posted by: Return of The What at May 11, 2009 10:47 AM

I'm worried about large groups of unemployed real estate brokers loitering around parks and school playgrounds.

Posted by: IMBY at May 11, 2009 10:52 AM

publicity seeking pol.

Posted by: Petebklyn at May 11, 2009 10:54 AM

it's a weird conundrum. i just saw a really interesting show on MSNBC about this issue recently. for a lot of "sex offenders" being tagged as that is really bad. tho it's understandable. i feel like sex offenders who did stuff to children should definitely be tagged but there is a weird grey area that a lot of sex offenders fall into. im not sure where i stand when it comes to that. but i guess if it keeps someone from getting hurt or attacked it's a good thing.

*rob*

Posted by: PitbullNYC at May 11, 2009 10:55 AM

Aren't there different "levels" to classify how dangerous they may be???

Posted by: daveinbedstuy at May 11, 2009 11:03 AM

"Sex offender" is a blanket name attached to a very, very wide range of offenses and offenders, and range from the most awful and reprehensible, to someone urinating in public, and everything in between. Some stupid kid texting nude pictures of him/herself to friends can be prosecuted as a sex offender. (Yes, I watch Law and Order.)

While the Senator may have his heart in the right place, he's not doing much for promoting the common good. The neighborhoods listed, are all very large, and all have lots of other problems, with pockets of pervasive poverty, joblessness, street crime and hopelessness. Sexual offenses are part of that total picture. Put some money and backing into some productive programs that help employ and raise people up and out of this cycle of poverty, and these statistics will go down. Of course, go after and protect people from violent rapists and child molesters. But they are a symptom of much larger problem in our society, not merely statistics in a neighborhood, or pinmarks on a map.

Posted by: Montrose Morris at May 11, 2009 11:10 AM

And of course most sexual abuse happens inside families and amongst people who know each other. To circle back to another contentious discussion, when I had my son at pre-K at PS 20 in Fort Greene, the parents invited the since much reviled (and defended) principal to a morning bre4akfast meeting. He arrived and dropped a bunch of pictures of registered sex offenders who lived in the neighborhood and proceeded to talk about them rather than curriculum, the gifted and talented program or the PTA. While I think he had good intentions, it seemed to be a distraction and a misfit with the concerns of the parents in front of him. I'm with MM in the belief that this is a sideshow to the real problems our communities face.

Posted by: Putnamdenizen at May 11, 2009 11:20 AM

Do the neighborhoods with the highest concentration of sex offenders also have the highest concentration of sex offences?

Posted by: etson at May 11, 2009 11:34 AM

Meaning that if there is a disconnect between number of registered offenders and the number of offences committed, it could well be a sign that some of the sex offenders are on the less nefarious end of the spectrum, and so not much to worry about.

Posted by: etson at May 11, 2009 11:58 AM

etson- I'd like to know that too. It seems that it's awfully easy these days to label someone a sex offender. I'm not belittleing the seriouslness of sex crimes, but how effective is putting them in jail, or treatment yet at the same time, once they've paid their dues they ar still very publically exposed, reviled and pretty much the new lives they may be trying to build are constantly torn down. Yet we don't have a paroled murderers website, or a public drunken drivers who have caused deaths website.

I wonder how we can be so terrified of a sex offender, but be so easy on people who drive drunk or commit hit and runs. Rape is heinous, sexual crimes against children are completely intolerable- yet abusive parents maim and abuse and kill their children every day and fwe aren't outing them on public websites or sending opt in emails to tell us where they are.

Posted by: bxgrl at May 11, 2009 12:13 PM

Good question, Etson. Note also that these areas have very low rents. Typically when people are released from prison, don't they go to an SRO? In fact, one of the houses we looked at for sale on Bushwick Ave. was literally a men's shelter-program of some kind. We have no idea what kind. Each room was set up with bunk beds and there were notices on the wall about rules. The men were extremely courteous to us.

Posted by: mopar at May 11, 2009 12:23 PM

"'Sex offender' is a blanket name attached to a very, very wide range of offenses and offenders, and range from the most awful and reprehensible, to someone urinating in public, and everything in between."

public urinators are not tagged on the website. nor are any "level 1" sex offenders -- those unlikely to commit the same crime again -- tagged on the website. only the more serious offenders are identified. also, i have never heard anyone identify someone who peed in public as a "sex offender" until you did just now.

"Some stupid kid texting nude pictures of him/herself to friends can be prosecuted as a sex offender. (Yes, I watch Law and Order.)"

i don't know whether this is true in the real world. i do know, however, that a perusal of the registry does not reveal a single stupid kid who texted nude pictures of him/herself. it does, however, show adult rapists and child molesters.

i'm not a big fan of these registries myself, but it's misleading to suggest that the rolls are filled with stupid horny kids and drunk people peeing in alleys.

Posted by: z at May 11, 2009 12:29 PM

The city tends to put shelters and halfway houses in poorer neighborhoods because they know these neighborhoods don't have the political clout of a Brooklyn Heights or Park Slope. That's why we're fighting the intake center they want to put in the armory. Too many of these places are shoved down the neighborhood's throat. There are families here, with little kids- just like in Park Slope.

Posted by: bxgrl at May 11, 2009 12:29 PM

So, Jeff Klein thinks "this is a free, safe and easy way for families to know if there is a dangerous sexual predator living in their community"? Well, what about the sexual predators they don't know about who are living in their community? How dangerous is that?

While pols often promote this kind of emotional "quick fix", vigilante-style legislation in order to increase their own visibility, it should not be seen as some kind of real solution that will make a community more safe. Use common sense! Chances are there are more sex offenders out there that are not yet known than those who are. Some may even be lurking in your churches, schools, day care centers, summer youth programs, and -- heaven forbid-- even in your own family! But now we should somehow breathe a sigh of relief because there's no known sex offender living on the block --or, conversely, because we know that there is one? If so, I wouldn't want to be the child of a parent who is relying on use of a modern day scarlet letter for my "protection."

Posted by: Brooklynista at May 11, 2009 12:30 PM

Reason why the BedStuy registered sex offender occupancy is high is because a large number of these people reside in the Armory on Bedford and Atlantic. I check the sex offender site about twice a year, and have noticed that more than half in Bedstuy are registered at the Armory on Bedford.

Posted by: Attention2detail at May 11, 2009 1:02 PM

z, I really hate it when anyone's words are taken out of context and the meanings or conclusions are then ridiculed or misused. I never intimated or stated that the rolls of sex offenders are "filled" with horny kids or drunks.

However, I have heard of a case where someone was relieving themself in public near children, and was arrested and booked as a sex offender. Now, I heartily believe this person is an idiot on several levels, but he is not a sex offender. I also heard the case used on Law and Order on the news, so they got it from a real incident.

Point being, I completely agree with Brooklynista and Putnam, this list doesn't make anyone any safer, or protect those in need of protection. And as Bxgrl said, why not a list of drunk drivers who have killed or injured, or how about a list of other offences that we should be worried about? The effort and money is better spent on efforts to better police, protect us from, or prevent any of these crimes.

Posted by: Montrose Morris at May 11, 2009 1:36 PM

Good to know, aptly named Attention2Detail.

Posted by: mopar at May 11, 2009 2:57 PM

The Armory on Bedford and Atlantic is in Crown Heights, not Bed Stuy... but point taken.

Posted by: 1842 at May 11, 2009 3:57 PM

montrose, i wasn't ridiculing you, i was just taking issue with a couple of your points. if public urinators and the like don't show up in the registry (and you don't deny that this is the case), then they don't have any bearing on the merits of a sex-offender registry. if you have information suggesting that the registry does in fact include minor offenses, then that's different, although as i said above, by law the registry excludes "level 1" offenders, so it seems unlikely that's the case.

Posted by: z at May 11, 2009 4:16 PM

"And as Bxgrl said, why not a list of drunk drivers who have killed or injured, or how about a list of other offences that we should be worried about? The effort and money is better spent on efforts to better police, protect us from, or prevent any of these crimes."

MM and bxgirl, I'll tell you why. That's because sex offenders cannot be cured. Men who like to have sex with children are defined as having a preference. Like hetero males have a preference for grownup women. It is difficult to impossible to 'cure' a child molester or serial rapist. That is also why there is such a movement to keep these scumbags in jail past their sentence, something I would ordinarily find despicable.

A 17yo kid selling drugs in the hood who pulls a trigger and kills someone and spends thirty years in jail for murder has no disease to be cured of. Often he will mature and reflect and when released is no danger. Ditto drug pushers and criminals of all stripes. They can be rehabilitated, altho of course not all of them are.

Alcoholism and drug abuse also have standard protocols for treatment. Child abuse doesn't Ask the Catholic Church.

It might also be noted that this is the thirtieth anniversary of the Etan Patz murder.

I'm not talking about guys that have to take a leak and show poor judgment by doing it on a school wall, or even a twenty year old male who has sex with that sixteen year old who said she was eighteen. I'm talking about ones that cause havoc.

I do smell the racism in this pol from Westchester all of a sudden wanting to 'do good in da hood' but lets not pretend that job training programs cure sex offenders. I saw too many of these muthafukas floating around the hood when I was a kid, and they ain't all in need of job training. Some of them had plenty of money.

Posted by: denton at May 11, 2009 5:26 PM

BTW, bklynista, I'm not disagreeing with your either. Gotta watch your kids everywhere.

Posted by: denton at May 11, 2009 5:29 PM

Hey bxgirl, try this on for size...

See, they do post DWI pix!


http://www.newsday.com/news/local/nassau/ny-dwi-mg,0,4138051.gallery

Posted by: denton at May 11, 2009 5:35 PM

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