"Prison officials would not let him go until he identified a suitable address. They did almost nothing to help him.... Mr. Ortiz served an extra 25 months because he could not find a place to live. He wanted to return to New York City, where his mother and daughter lived. But most of the city was off limits because almost all residential areas are within 1,000 feet of a school.... [There is] 'a cruel Catch-22' for people classified as sex offenders, Allison Frankel wrote in 2019 in The Yale Law Journal Forum, because corrections officials will 'not release them from prison until they obtained approved housing, but their poverty, disabilities and sex-offender registration status made finding housing impossible.'"
From "Their Time Served, Sex Offenders Are Kept in Prison in ‘Cruel Catch-22’/New York prisons will not release people convicted of some sex offenses until they find housing far from schools. But that is hard to do, especially from behind bars" by Adam Liptak (NYT).
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53 comments:
F any hardships that sex offenders have. They are lucky to be allowed to live. They should be eliminated from society. Same as the pedophile priests the Catholic Church protects.
The proximity laws also allow cities to export their sex offenders to other areas by making it virtually impossible for anyone on the registry to move back to the urban place they came from. Thanks NYC!
I'm generally very cognizant of trying to appropriately punish then support people who have committed crimes and served their time.
Sex offenders who rise to the level of needing to register and avoid schools are a bit of a different breed. Assuming justice is being served, their crime is so heinous and their recidivism is so common that significant practical impairments to their way of life are a reasonable societal protection.
If this man has been deemed to not be safe to live within 1,000 feet of a school, then don't complain about him being unable to live in NYC. Help him land a place to live and job outside of NYC.
They aren't in prison getting raped, so they should be happy for that. There is a REASON for these laws, and they aren't to protect the sex offenders.
A law that strips people of fundamental rights cannot be constitutional. The core problem ls the broad scope of "sex offender". It is too easily applied. And like the death penalty, to easily applied by the corrupt justice system. Clean the law up, second offenses for child molesters, should be chemically castrated.
A 16 year old having consensual sex with an 18 year old is not a sex crime.
Nice to see Byzantine bureaucracy providing a benefit to the long suffering Public instead of the perp this time. I’m so happy for New York.
I’m am completely unsympathetic to sex offenders and the efforts by totalitarian leftists to normalize pedophiles and other sex offenders is completely unacceptable.
I don’t have enough sympathy to spare on sex offenders. I’m sorry I’m not sorry.
Ortiz was never accused of doing anything related to children. We're told he was "accused of sexually threatening a pizza delivery man during the course of a robbery designed to secure money in order to obtain drugs." That is, he said something to an adult where the motivation was robbery.
So, it's a problem because he can't live in NYC? So what? Why is his choice of city more important than protecting children?
The actually “cruel” cities are the ones who let these exceedingly recidivist creeps out to live in proximity to their victims. The NYT framing of this story is tone deaf and disturbing.
They also can't live in public housing, even if they're married with kids.
So they drift towards trailer courts or tiny towns that used to be nice quiet places for retirees, but are now brimming with stoners, tweakers, ex-cons, the town drunk and village idiot.
Or they are in the homeless camps
Fun fact!
one of gilbar's friends (not gilbar*) went streaking across ISU's Central Campus; at 4 am.
This resulted in an arrest for (among other things) indecent exposure.
In iowa, Conviction for indecent exposure means PERMANENT listing on the sex offenders registry
WOW! was he happy when the DA let him plead guilty to just Public Intox
not gilbar* gilbar may (or may not) have skinny dipped in the Fountain of the Four Seasons,
but he has certainly NEVER ran naked across Central Campus..
"Ortiz was never accused of doing anything related to children. We're told he was "accused of sexually threatening a pizza delivery man during the course of a robbery designed to secure money in order to obtain drugs." That is, he said something to an adult where the motivation was robbery."
Oh, then he is an upstanding individual that any community should welcome with open arms.
Our host points out the individual.
The headline (no pay wall breaching/NYT enabling for me today) apparently uses the individual to make a much broader case.
If the point is a sexual "threat", e.g. I'll f' you 'til you bleed, during a crime gets you sexual offender status, the (that portion of the) law is an ass.
A cottage on Rikers Island?
And if the term "school" is construed to include home-schools, this guy'll never find a place to live, not even in a van down by the river.
Politicians voted for the 1000-feet rule in order to show their voters that they are tough on sex crimes.
That is the rule's only practical purpose.
To be honest, I could care less. He is a sex offender, duly convicted. Now, the exact crime does matter, if he was caught flashing in high school I can go easy on him, but since they didn't mention that I suspect he is a violent offender. I do not want him within 1000 feet of any school or day care. Period. If he cannot find a place where he will not be subject to temptation to live, he can continue to be locked up. No once forced him to commit the crime.
JAORE,
I have to disagree, since assault can just be making someone fear that the injury will occur.
If the situation was slightly different and the delivery person was a woman, or a 14 year old kid working at his parent's restaurant, would you still feel a threat of sexual assault could be ignored?
All are sinners.
No one should be allowed within 1000 feet of anyone else.
There's social distancing for you.
Sounds like we need to redefine the whole 'sex offender classification' thing. But who would be trusted to make those distinctions?
Horrible. If they have served their time, they need to be free.
Sex offender is tremendously overused and vague. An 18 year old and a 17 year old brands someone as a sex offender for the rest of their lives? Come on.
It is blatantly unconstituional.
"All are sinners."
Really? Are all sinners to the same degree of harm? Lifetime sex offenders have the highest rates of recidivism. Check out the literature.
Progressives want lifetime sex offenders to live in family public housing units. No concern for potential child victims who already bear a burden living in public housing projects. Where is the sanity?
The progressive concern for criminals does not outweigh the concern for victims of these criminals, at least in my mind. And perhaps in the minds of many voters these days. Defund the Police? Not in my neighborhood!
OMG, is there not a single Democrat activist with basic problem-solving skills?
How long would it take one person to map out all of the areas in NYC where a sex offender was allowed to live? Two weeks? A GoFundMe that raised $500 would allow you to host a web-site with that information up for 10 years.
I bet the number of man-hours involved in writing the article, plus the man-hours of people who read and commented on the article would have been enough to actually solve the problem!
If the problem is truly intractable, then that map could be presented as evidence that the law needs to be modified.
If government is your ONLY nanny, then you have infantilized yourself!
So he spent an additional 25 months in jail because he didn't want to live anywhere but NYC?
I guess Chappaqua is kind of remote if you think about it...
Although it is said that it's important to him that he be near his mother and daughter, it doesn't appear to be particularly important to them - or they would have found him someplace to live. I agree that there needs to be sensible reform to the 'sex offender' laws and labels, one that separates out the predators from the rest and brands them indelibly.
'Ortiz was never accused of doing anything related to children. We're told he was "accused of sexually threatening a pizza delivery man during the course of a robbery designed to secure money in order to obtain drugs." That is, he said something to an adult where the motivation was robbery.'
This sounds like the classic case of a douche-bag DA overcharging in order to pad his/her stats.
I was on a jury years ago where this happened.
It was a case of hookers sharing expenses to rent an apartment where they would bring clients.
We convicted the gals of prostitution offenses, but laughed the 'felony conspiracy' charge out of court.
The DA talked to us afterward and we so much as told him he was a moron for over charging...
I think a penal colony for sex offenders on Martha's Vineyard would be just thing to solve this problem.
I’d like to know where they came up with the 1000 feet. 500 feet wouldn’t work?
Cry me a river.
when you've served your time...
You Know; the Simple and Practical Solution to this, should be: Capital Punishment
Then, let him be buried where ever he wanted.
i mean, All he did, was attempt to rape and rob a person...
The death penalty should be sufficient to prevent recidivism. Might work as a deterrent too
I should have known that they would feature the most anodyne version of “sex crime” they could find, doing the NYT thing where they helpfully blur the definition of RSO. Why? Is this guy more like the average RSO than child molesters are?
Oh boo hoo.
Joe Smith: "This sounds like the classic case of a douche-bag DA overcharging in order to pad his/her stats."
So, does that mean he wasn't convicted? Yet he was a "convicted" sex offender. But if he was convicted, how was he "overcharged?" And what credit does a DA get for "padding stats." If the DA pads and loses, does he/she get brownie points taken away?
What is the definition of overcharging anyway?
My goodness it's so confusing -- except to Joe.
"Oh, then he is an upstanding individual that any community should welcome with open arms."
No, but he isn't (based on this incident anyway) a pedophile we need to protect our kids from. He's just an armed robber using sexual imagery to intimidate his victim. It sounds like the prosecutor over charged to get him to plead guilty and his lawyer (perhaps a public defender) was too incompetent to get the sex charge dropped. I still wouldn't want him in my neighborhood, but putting him on a sex offender list is bogus. He might be a violent thug, but he hasn't (yet) proven to be a sexual predator.
Interesting Indie film out a few years ago about the lives of these men and women (mostly men) who live in society but are not allowed to be part of it.
Untouchable https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5509634/
My Questions: If these people are still dangerous, then why do we let them free in the first place? And if we decide they are ready to return to society, why not allow them the freedom
to rebuild their lives?
This sounds like the classic case of a douche-bag DA overcharging in order to pad his/her stats.
I was on a jury years ago where this happened.
It was a case of hookers sharing expenses to rent an apartment where they would bring clients.
We convicted the gals of prostitution offenses, but laughed the 'felony conspiracy' charge out of court.
The DA talked to us afterward and we so much as told him he was a moron for over charging...
One of the best things we could do to clean up the criminal justice system is to bar any prosecutor or DA from working another government job, appointed or elected, for five years after they leave their current position. Undermine their ability to make it a stepping-stone to higher office.
Being labeled a sex offender seems a lot like being tagged with a hate crime. The interpretations are overly broad and misused by the courts and law enforcement.
Is it harder for someone who was labeled and barred to find residence nearer or farther from a school? Perhaps he can find safe sanctuary in a community with a liberal outlook. All's fair in lust and abortion.
Most Biblical exegesis puts Mary’s age at 14-15 when Jesus the Son of God was born, which in most jurisdictions makes God Himself a sex offender. All churches need to be relocated far from schools immediately. For the children!
Here would be the thing that most pragmatists would look at: What's the likelihood that this guy is going to escalate his criminal behavior, and is it worth the risk to the non-criminal element of society you're talking about releasing him into?
Track record for people whose impulse control is poor enough that they take up criminality is bad enough; couple in sexually-related threats and violence...? That's not a good set of risk factors. Also, that this was male-on-male--If the perpetrator is willing to threaten another male, of presumably equal size, what is he going to do to a non-compliant woman?
People that do this sort of thing are lacking in one key area: Impulse control. Whatever part of the brain that governs behavior, they're missing a chunk of it. Given that he's now self-identified as having this issue, how do you deal with the situation? You leave someone like this at loose ends in society, you're eventually going to have problems with them when they can't prevent themselves from behaving in a non-criminal manner. He's found a solution to his problems of "no money for drugs", and just like a dog that's taken up chicken-killing, that pattern is laid down in his brain. I know of no way to really fix that, in either humans or dogs, so the next question is, what do you do with him? I dislike the solution that says "kill him", but anyone who farms and raises livestock is going to tell you, the solution to a dog that's taken up chicken-killing and harassing hooved animals is a bullet. Cruel though that may be, it solves the problem permanently. And, while there are other responsible parties, such as the dog owner that let their dog roam freely unsupervised, well... Too bad for the dog.
Pragmatism says that a human being who takes up violence against other and criminality in general is not a good risk for being "cured" of their issues. Your choice is to either restrain them, separate them, or kill them. Make your choice, because if you keep releasing them into the general population, the general population is going to route around your idiocy and start dealing with the problem directly. You likely won't like how they do that.
Blogger lane ranger said...
So, it's a problem because he can't live in NYC? So what? Why is his choice of city more important than protecting children?
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Probably has to stay in or near there for Probation, right?
Since they could move someplace other than NYC, my sympathy is very small
'What is the definition of overcharging anyway?'
Some guy mouthing off during a robbery is just that...it's not a sex offense.
To charge him with that over and above the real crime (robbery) is padding his stats and overreaching.
Are you deliberately obtuse or just genuinely stupid?
Some people trespassed in the People's House...the Capitol. They are still in the DC gulag getting abused by guards and we are supposed to worry about this sex offender not being able to find a place to live??
Iowan2 and others here don't know squat about how these laws work. First, some "Romeo and Juliet" cases are pleas down from violent gang or non "date" rapes because rapists start very early, often raping siblings or other nearby children. A real "Romeo and Juliet" case where consenting youth near in age leads to charges is not likely to lead to being classified as a sex offender for life and restricted from living near schools.
It would help if the media and their watch-pussycats at the Poynter Center, Annenberg, etc. would bother to research sex offenders' real and complete criminal records before writing sob stories based on what they claim they did or didn't do. Back when it was possible, it was very easy to debunk the claims made by the oh so tragic sex offenders living under a bridge in Miami by just checking their full records in other counties and states. Now such data is purged from the internet.
Ann Althouse said...
Ortiz was never accused of doing anything related to children. We’re told he was “accused of sexually threatening a pizza delivery man during the course of a robbery designed to secure money in order to obtain drugs.” That is, he said something to an adult where the motivation was robbery.
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I don’t care. If he was willing to “sexually threaten” an adult and rob him, I don’t want him getting the chance to abuse a child.
And I don’t care about his problems finding housing either. Let the bleeding hearts spend their time finding someplace for the sex offenders to live. They’re getting more than they deserve by being allowed to ever walk free. If you and liberals like you can’t spare the time to help such scum, Althouse, then at least spare us the virtue signalling.
lane ranger said...
So, it's a problem because he can't live in NYC? So what? Why is his choice of city more important than protecting children?
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Tristram said...
Probably has to stay in or near there for Probation, right?
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Unlikely. Nothing in the story suggests he can’t move away from the NYC area. The story says he suggested some addresses “upstate” that were turned down. For a state offense, he probably has to stay in the state.
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